Scriptorium Writer

A desktop writing room for long-form fiction — offline, crash-safe, and warm to look at.
Electron · React · TypeScript · TipTap. Windows, browser, and Android tablet.

For writers · For developers · Reliability first · Data on disk

Platform status · Documentation · Download

Writing a book and just want the app? Read the setup guide in English or Русский. No development tools required.

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What it is

Scriptorium Writer is a local-first desktop app for writing long books. It looks like a warm parchment page in a leather frame, saves constantly and safely, keeps a full version history of every chapter, and checks spelling in Russian and English at the same time — all completely offline. Your stories live in a plain, syncable folder on your own computer, one file per chapter, not locked inside a database. Priorities, in order: (1) reliability of your data, (2) comfort of writing, (3) warm "book" aesthetics.

Reliability first

Most of this app exists to make sure you never lose a word. Manual Save and every kind of autosave share one write path, and that path is always atomic — so a crash, a full disk, or closing the laptop mid-save can never corrupt what you already wrote.

JSON canon + Markdown shadow. Each chapter is stored as lossless ProseMirror JSON (the only file the app reads back) plus a best-effort .md copy any tool can read. The .md write can fail without ever endangering the canon.
Atomic writes only. Temp file → fsync → rename. Never written in place.
Version snapshots on every successful save, pruned to a configurable cap — roll any chapter back to an older draft from inside the app.
Never blanks corrupt data. A missing or unparseable canon triggers a one-click recovery from the newest snapshot; the bad file is never overwritten silently.
Quit guard. Closing the app waits for a final flush (or a 5-second safety timeout) so a stuck window can never lose your last keystrokes — or wedge shut.

Features

Capability	What it does
Book-themed editor	Parchment TipTap page: marks, alignment, undo/redo, first-line-indent toggle, `✳✳✳` dividers, focus mode.
Autosave & quit guard	2 s debounce + 2 min interval + lifecycle flush, all on manual Save's write path; never exits with unsaved work.
Version history	A timestamped snapshot per save; preview an older draft read-only, or restore it (snapshotting the current state first).
Footnotes	Inline footnotes with `[N]` markers auto-numbered by document order — hover to read, select to edit; lossless round-trip.
Offline spellcheck (RU + EN)	Simultaneous RU + EN Chromium spellcheck from bundled dictionaries, with suggestions and add-to-dictionary — no network.
Navigation & views	Sidebar router: Editor, Chapters (drag-to-reorder), Story info, Notes, Search, Statistics, Library, Settings.
Cleanup wand	Text-cleanup rules (spacing, punctuation, `-`→`—`, quotes→«…») applied as one undoable transaction behind a preview.
Find & Replace	Non-modal bar with live highlighting, case-sensitive and whole-word toggles, and a single-transaction Replace-all.
Full-text search	Read-only sweep of every chapter and every notes section for a phrase, with hit counts, snippets, and jump-to-match.
Import / Export	Import a `.md`/`.docx` as one chapter or split by headings; export any chapter or the whole story to `.docx`/`.md`.
Library backup	One click zips the whole library folder (stories, snapshots, notes, `.trash/`) to a chosen path — atomic, read-only.
Auto-update	Packaged builds check GitHub Releases in the background and offer a restart routed through the quit-guard flush.
UI language (RU / EN)	Switch the whole interface between Russian and English live from Settings — never touches your story text.

Per-feature detail: docs/features.md.

Platform status

Platform	Status	How it ships
Windows 10/11	Released — 1.6.0	Installer, auto-update
Browser / PWA	Released — 1.6.0	Open the app, installable
Android tablet	Beta — 1.6.0	Sideloaded APK, updated by hand

Detail: docs/web-pwa.md and docs/android.md.

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Install

Download the Windows installer from the Releases page.

Windows will show a "Windows protected your PC" warning because the installer has no paid code-signing certificate yet — click "More info", then "Run anyway".

No-code walkthroughs: English · Russian.

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Development

Requirements

Node.js ≥ 22.12 (LTS) — the Electron 43 / electron-builder 26 toolchain require()s ESM-only dependencies, so on older Node npm run build:win fails with ERR_REQUIRE_ESM. Windows: winget install OpenJS.NodeJS.LTS, then open a new terminal.
npm 10+ (bundled with Node; Node 24 ships npm 11).
Building the Android app additionally needs Android Studio, JDK 21 and SDK Platform 36 — see docs/android.md.

Quick start

npm install
npm run dev      # opens the book-themed editor on a seeded demo chapter

npm 11 note: npm 11 blocks package install scripts by default, so npm install may not download the Electron binary. If npm run dev fails with Error: Electron uninstall, fetch it once with node node_modules/electron/install.js (or allow it via npm approve-scripts electron), then re-run npm run dev.

Scripts

Script	What it does
`npm run dev`	Launch the app in development with HMR and DevTools.
`npm run dev:web`	Launch the browser build on a LAN-reachable dev server.
`npm run build`	Typecheck, then build main / preload / renderer into `out/`.
`npm run build:web`	Typecheck, then build the browser bundle into `dist-web/`.
`npm run build:win`	Full build + package a Windows NSIS installer into `release/`.
`npm run start`	Preview the production build (`electron-vite preview`).
`npm run typecheck`	Type-check the node (main/preload/shared) and web (renderer) projects.
`npm run lint`	ESLint over `src` (`.ts`/`.tsx`).
`npm run test`	Run the Vitest unit suite once (data layer, Node env).
`npm run test:watch`	Run Vitest in watch mode.
`npm run test:browser`	Run the browser-only suite in real Chromium via Vitest browser mode.
`npm run format`	Prettier-format `src`.
`npm run sync:android`	Build the web bundle, then `npx cap sync android`.
`npm run build:web:dev`	Build the browser bundle in development mode (keeps the DEV harness).
`npm run sync:android:dev`	`build:web:dev` + `npx cap sync android` — the on-device debug loop.
`npm run open:android`	`npx cap open android`. Does not build or sync first.
`npm run run:android`	Build the web bundle, then `npx cap run android` (syncs and deploys).

Architecture

main (src/main/) — window lifecycle, IPC handlers, spellcheck, docx/zip, and the Electron wiring that hands FileService a Node filesystem port.
data (src/data/) — the platform-neutral data layer: atomic writes, snapshots, scan/restore, Markdown backup. All disk work goes through an injected FsPort.
platform (src/platform/{node,web,capacitor}/) — one FsPort implementation each, over node:fs, OPFS, and @capacitor/filesystem. All three pass one shared contract.
preload (src/preload/) — a typed contextBridge window.api surface; thin wrappers over ipcRenderer.invoke.
renderer (src/renderer/) — React UI. Never imports fs, path, or any Node built-in. Enforced by contextIsolation: true / nodeIntegration: false.
shared (src/shared/) — domain types (the IPC contract), schema-version constants, errors, and the word-count and footnote-markdown helpers, imported by all three processes.

Detail: docs/architecture.md.

Data on disk

Scriptorium-Writer/               ← library root (libraryPath)
  stories/
    <story-id>/
      story.json                  ← StoryMeta + chapterOrder + schemaVersion
      chapters/
        01-slug.json              ← Chapter canon (ProseMirror JSON) — SOURCE OF TRUTH
        01-slug.md                ← Human-readable Markdown backup (lossy, write-only)
      versions/
        <chapterId>/
          2026-07-09T10-15-00-123Z.json   ← per-chapter snapshots (pruned to a cap)
      notes/
        notes.json
  .trash/                         ← soft-deleted stories/chapters land here

NN-slug filenames are for human legibility only; the app always resolves chapters by the stable id stored inside each file, so files may be renamed safely. Because they exist to be read by a human they follow the chapter title — renaming a chapter renames its .json and .md on the next save, and reordering renumbers the NN- prefixes. Per-platform roots are in docs/architecture.md.

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Documentation

docs/writers-guide.en.md — install and use the app, no code.
docs/writers-guide.ru.md — the same guide in Russian.
docs/architecture.md — processes, the filesystem port, data locations, repository layout.
docs/android.md — the tablet build: storage, permissions, signing, verification status.
docs/web-pwa.md — the browser build, OPFS, offline and update behaviour, backups.
docs/features.md — per-feature notes on how each capability works.
docs/CHANGELOG.md — released versions, newest first.

License

✳✳✳

_{Issues & questions → github.com/julia-shtal/scriptorium-writer/issues}

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
android		android
assets/readme		assets/readme
docs		docs
resources		resources
scripts		scripts
src		src
.eslintignore		.eslintignore
.eslintrc.cjs		.eslintrc.cjs
.gitignore		.gitignore
.prettierignore		.prettierignore
.prettierrc.yaml		.prettierrc.yaml
README.md		README.md
capacitor.config.ts		capacitor.config.ts
electron-builder.yml		electron-builder.yml
electron.vite.config.ts		electron.vite.config.ts
package-lock.json		package-lock.json
package.json		package.json
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json
tsconfig.node.json		tsconfig.node.json
tsconfig.web.json		tsconfig.web.json
vite.web.config.ts		vite.web.config.ts
vitest.config.ts		vitest.config.ts

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