redthread

A sticky-note pegboard for your terminal. Mouse-first, keyboard-friendly, transparent over your tmux theme. ASCII-textured cork, dangling red strings, smooth zoom, and multiple named boards you can switch between.

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What it is

• A small TUI meant to live in a tmux pane, always open.
• A cork pegboard rendered entirely in ASCII — your terminal background shows through, no solid fill.
• Sticky notes you drag with the mouse or nudge with the keyboard. Colored paper, red pin, ornate woven borders, paper-fiber flecks, drop shadow, fold glyph.
• Red strings between notes (or pinned to bare cork). Slack or tight. In-front-of or behind the notes. A weighted "swoop" while you pull the free end.
• Multiple named boards you cycle through like tmux windows (work, personal, ideas, …). Each board has its own notes, strings, zoom, font, highlight color, and a unique cork grain.
• Configurable background — two independent axes from a live-preview popup (b): an ASCII-cork on/off toggle, and a fill color (transparent so the terminal/tmux theme shows through, a curated dark-theme palette, or a custom hex). Mix freely — cork over a dark color, or cork off for a clean solid. One global choice for the workspace.
• Workspace zoom — 5 levels (-3..+1) that scale note sizes and positions, so you can pack many stickies into an overview or lean in on a few.
• 3D zoom-to-edit — a smooth scale + lift + shadow animation that settles into a card with a live textarea.
• 9 paper tints + 9 highlight colors + 8 text styles (Unicode math alphabets: plain, bold, italic, bold-italic, script, fraktur, double-struck, monospace).
• Persists to $XDG_DATA_HOME/redthread/notes.json with debounced writes.

Install

Requires Go 1.23+.

git clone https://github.com/B33pBeeps/redthread.git
cd redthread
go build -o redthread ./cmd/redthread
./redthread

Or:

go install github.com/B33pBeeps/redthread/cmd/redthread@latest
redthread

First run with no save file gets a small demo board. redthread --fresh ignores the save and reseeds.

Demos

Notes & feel

Click without moving for a small jiggle, drag for a drop bounce, tab cycles with the same jiggle, enter zooms into a card with a smooth 3D transition, esc lands back with a thud.

Red strings

Pull strings between notes (or to bare cork as wall-pins) — the free end swoops behind the cursor with weight. [ ] cycles the hovered string; t toggles tight / slack; f toggles in-front-of / behind notes; x cuts. Strings stay visibly attached when you drag a note.

Boards

Top tab bar shows all boards; each has its own cork grain so they feel distinct. > / < cycle, B creates and drops you straight into rename, R renames, D D deletes (two-press confirm).

Controls

Mouse

click a note	select + raise
drag	move (drops with a bounce)
double-click	zoom-to-edit
click empty cork while pulling a string	place a wall-pin

Keyboard — board

key	action
tab / shift+tab	cycle note selection
← ↑ ↓ → or hjkl	nudge (overshoots in motion direction)
shift + ← ↑ ↓ →	nudge ×5
enter	zoom-to-edit
n / d / r	new / delete / raise note
u	undo the last delete (single step)
ctrl+y / ctrl+p	copy / paste the selected note
1 – 9	tint the selected note (yellow, pink, blue, green, purple, orange, teal, cream, coral)
c	cycle the global highlight (border) color
a	open the font menu (live preview, enter to commit, esc to cancel)
b	open the background menu — toggle cork (←/→) and pick a fill color (transparent, a curated dark-theme palette, or custom hex); live preview, enter to commit, esc to cancel
- / = / 0	zoom out / in / reset (5 levels)
s	start pulling a red string (arrows/hjkl nudge endpoint, tab snap to next note, enter commit, esc cancel)
[ / ]	cycle the hovered string
t	toggle tight / slack on the hovered string
f	toggle in-front-of / behind notes
x	cut the hovered string
X	cut every string on the selected note
?	toggle the help panel (slides up from the bottom)
q / ctrl+c	quit (saves)

Keyboard — boards

key	action
> (or .)	next board
< (or ,)	previous board
{ / }	re-order: move the active board left / right (wraps)
B	new board (drops you into rename)
R	rename the active board
D	delete the active board (press twice within 2s; refuses if it's the last one)

Keyboard — edit

key	action
typing	edit body (first non-empty line is the title; text renders in the board's font)
ctrl+y / ctrl+p	copy the note / paste at cursor (system clipboard)
drag mouse	native terminal selection — copy with your terminal's hotkey
esc	close + save with reverse transition
ctrl+s	save without closing

Data

Notes live at $XDG_DATA_HOME/redthread/notes.json, defaulting to ~/.local/share/redthread/notes.json. Writes are debounced (400 ms) so rapid drags coalesce into one flush.

A legacy brainfartadhdfixerupper/ directory auto-migrates on first launch under the new name. v3 single-board files migrate forward into the v4 workspace envelope.

The workspace also stores a global background preference with two independent fields: cork (the ASCII texture overlay, on/off) and color (a hex fill, or omitted/"" for transparent). For example {"cork":false,"color":"#1a1b26"} is a solid Tokyo Night background with no cork. Files written before this option load as cork-on + transparent, unchanged.

Schema (v5):

{
  "schemaVersion": 5,
  "activeIdx": 0,
  "background": { "cork": true },
  "boards": [
    {
      "name": "main",
      "grainSeed": 1777118907643042768,
      "zoom": 0,
      "textMode": 0,
      "highlightColor": 0,
      "notes":   [ { "id": "…", "title": "…", "body": "…",
                     "x": 3, "y": 1, "tint": "yellow",
                     "created": "…", "updated": "…" } ],
      "strings": [ { "a": { "note": "idA" }, "b": { "note": "idB" },
                     "tight": false, "front": false } ]
    }
  ]
}

Customizing

Color palettes and text styles live in internal/app/theme.go:

• Tints + TintOrder — the 9 paper colors.
• SelBorderChoices — the 9 highlight colors.
• TextModes — the Unicode-alphabet font options.
• StarChars / PoreChars / BlotchChars — cork-texture char pools.

Edit any of those, rebuild, and the whole app picks up the new values (help panel + menu + cycle included).

File layout

cmd/redthread/
  main.go           thin entry — calls internal/app.Run()

internal/app/
  app.go            Run(): flag parsing, load/seed workspace, launch
  model.go          MVU (Model/Update/View, key + mouse routing,
                    tab bar, help panel, rename mode)
  notes.go          Note, Board, Workspace, StringConn, cork gen
  draw.go           cork + note rendering (shadow, tape, borders,
                    text, fibers)
  wire.go           red-string curve rendering + pull physics
  render.go         cell grid + coalesced ANSI emitter (transparent bg)
  theme.go          colors, tints, dither, halftone, text styles
  anim.go           zoom transition timeline + easings
  edit.go           canvas-drawn edit frame + bubbles/textarea splice
  menu.go           font-picker popup
  storage.go        XDG JSON persistence + v3→v4 migration

docs/
  screenshot.png

DESIGN.md           early design notes (historical)

Changelog

Latest

Features - Background is now configurable — press b for a picker with two independent axes: a cork on/off toggle (←/→) and a fill color — transparent (your terminal/tmux background shows through, the default), a curated dark-theme palette (github dark, tokyo night, catppuccin, dracula, nord, …), or a custom hex. Mix freely; the choice is global to the workspace and persists. (#1)

Previous

Fixes - Fullwidth font removed — it never rendered correctly. - } (move-active-board-right) was a no-op; it now actually shifts the active board. - Opening a freshly created blank note no longer drops the cursor two rows below the title.

Features - New notes start empty (only the initial seed has demo content). - Open notes now render in the board's selected font. - Strings are fully keyboard-drivable from s — arrows / hjkl nudge the free end, tab snaps to next note, enter commits, esc cancels. - Boards re-orderable in the tab bar with { and }. - Native terminal text selection inside open notes (mouse capture is released in edit mode). - ctrl+y copies the selected note's text; ctrl+p pastes — into the cursor in edit mode, or onto the selected note in board mode. - u undoes the most recent note delete (restores connected strings too). - Subtle dim-crossfade + horizontal slide when switching boards.

License

Personal project. MIT — use it, fork it, do whatever.

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