Malkovich is a personal note keeping application for Windows.
- Notes are written in Markdown and automatically converted to HTML for display.
- Notes can link to other notes for basic wiki-like functionality. (Links are created with double square brackets.
[[Example]]) - Malkovich runs in the browser as a single page web application.
- Malkovich is responsive when reading and editing notes as all data is stored locally, not in the cloud.
- Notes remain available when your internet connection fails.
Malkovich with a page open for reading and editing side by side.
I'd been using a MediaWiki instance installed on a private server for several years to keep personal notes. However MediaWiki isn't ideal for personal use. It's complicated to install, difficult to maintain and backup. I couldn't store private information because I didn't trust the overall security of my server. There's too many vulnerabilities and I'm not a web security expert. I tried out a couple alternatives to MediaWiki but nothing stuck.
Eventually I decided to create Malkovich as my needs are pretty modest and it seemed a good opportunity to learn more about Go, HTML and Javascript .
Malkovich consists of two main parts.
- A backend HTTP server written in Go.
- A GUI written in HTML and Javascript that is displayed in a browser.
The original plan was to bundle it all up into a standalone application with Electron or similar. However once bundled performance took a big hit and there were a few other small niggles.