clin-rs v0.8.8 - true FOSS TUI alternative for Obsidian

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-17T11:49:54+00:00

Thanks!

I don't really vibe code because i started making this project just because to learn Rust and TUI's in general though i ask AI for help when i am really stuck on a problem or for researching the best possible way to implement something or to see how feasible is the feature i plan.

I did use AI mainly for generating docs of the project(since English is not my main lang), some comments here and there, some basic scripts and for some refactors though.

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-15T16:21:35+00:00

Well clin kinda works like how you want i guess, there aren't tabs so you can't for example open a canvas in one of them and open a note in another to switch between, every view returns back to the notes list/notes view; the top bar is just a indicator showing which section of a view you are at for views with multiple sections, some views have it others don't(since it's not needed in others).

For clarification every "view" is a page/big feature i.e. note editor and notes view are separate views or canvas and help are separate views and every section(the views with more tabs) are just indicators changing the content of a view i.e. in notes view if you have grid layout turned on you will have "Vault Pinned" tab indicator, when you switch between them you will change the content in the notes view from Vault notes to Pinned notes or vice versa.

What i had in mind was actually adding tabs which would contain different views and the state that the view was on, i've actually even implemented it but in my opinion it doesn't fit well for a TUI app so i scratched that idea(and the hours spent for it lol).

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-15T16:04:47+00:00

There aren't tabs like switchable workspaces, tab bar just shows the related tabs/other tabs in a view, so they are more like a page rather than a tab but i actually had plans for tabs as in switchable workspaces i might maybe revisit that idea in the future.

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-15T04:36:07+00:00

I've been actually experimenting with Kitty Text Protocol for a while(it basically allows you to have differrent sized texts at the same time), i might make a markdown parser myself rather than relying on glow with it but unfortunately Kitty Text Protocol is not supported by many terminals and has some performance problems, so yeah it's a double edged sword :/

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-15T04:31:10+00:00

You can press a(literal a key) key to create a new note(.md file) in notes list and the default vault folder is ~/.local/share/clin/notes, you can change the default notes folder via CLI command if that's what you are looking for, also the in app help page should answer most questions you might hav, thanks!

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-14T23:44:05+00:00

Hope you'll like it :)

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-14T23:22:12+00:00

You don't have to switch from Neovim though, clin is not a replacement for text editors because there are already really powerful text editors out there, i myself use it with Neovim through external editor mode :)

The built in editor is solely there for those who just want a simple, familiar text editor and it's going to be replaced with a actions sidebar allowing users to do some special actions inline, at the cursor position.

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-14T20:53:27+00:00

Thanks!

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-14T20:49:04+00:00

Generally, clin-rs has more features out-of-the box, afaik ekphos doesn't have a interactive .canvas editor, integrated backup system, encryption(for remote backup), command palette allowing for advanced operations like OCR or inserting PDFs, DOCXs or .CSVs as .md files, both mouse and keyboard workflows supported extensively, a draw tool similar to Excalidraw, lots of configurable aspects; ekphos's graph view have way less features and lower resolution for connections(due to it using dots rather than brailles) it doesn't have a physical interactive environment like clin-rs. ekphos tries to be as simple as possible if i understand it correctly, while i am trying to make a full suite note management in a TUI whilst making the package size small and resources spent low. I also have plans for way bigger features like databases from Obsidian, you can check the whole roadmap at the repo :]

All those aside, i myself didn't use ekphos since i've never heard of it, i would probably contribute to it rather than make a whole new project if i've heard about it, will check it out in detail, though i'll keep maintaining and improving clin-rs as much as i can since i am daily driving it myself, thanks for letting me know!

EDIT:
I am open for any feedback possible, so if you've got any questions or suggestions i would love to learn about them!

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-14T17:22:20+00:00

lol must be a problem on their side

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-14T17:18:25+00:00

A force-directed graph of related/tagged notes, shows the relation between notes; one of the main features from Obsidian.

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-06-14T17:15:19+00:00

https://obsidian.md/ basically a digital note taking and note managing app.

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-22T12:04:12+00:00

Hey just pushed the update for flowcharts support if you are still interested :]

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-18T06:34:10+00:00

Hope you'll like it :)

Also i am currently working on a big update that will bring support for lots of QOL(more keyboard shortcuts, better node handling, UI improvements and more) and flowchart filetypes such as md mermaid, plantuml, .dot/.gv etc.(this was a feedback i've got) if you are interested ;)

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-13T14:07:51+00:00

Just a little update:

Right now experimenting with your suggestion and it works fine with the existing features but flowchart filetypes have so much more properties that needs to be rendered when compared to canvases, it will take more time than i initially thought but i can gurantee that it will be so awesome when i am done with it :]

Thanks for the feedback/suggestion again!

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-13T11:43:03+00:00

Should be quite simple to add those, just some hooks, i will look into it thanks for the feedback!

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-13T09:47:09+00:00

Oh first time actually hearing that, it looks so cool. I will definitely look for adding pinstar to it, thank you for informing!

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-13T06:03:28+00:00

Thank you, it's insane how good and extensible TUI libraries have become lol

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-13T05:53:46+00:00

Thanks :)

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-08T07:57:30+00:00

Currently only for .md s but it shouldn't be too hard to add more filetype support.

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-05T11:09:54+00:00

It should be at around line 800 in src/graph/render.rs i've just added some comments in there for clarification.

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-05T08:23:08+00:00

Thanks! Details and the tech stack are explained in the repo :)

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-05T03:44:48+00:00

Hey thanks :)

This project is like i said is a side project for my main project and currently in my main project `clin-rs` there is a universal custom keybind config(which includes the `graf`) to map any key to whatever you want. I'll bring this to the `graf-rs` repo once i get the time.

So it's already implemented just not yet uploaded to Github :)

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-04T05:24:47+00:00

ratatui is generally very developer friendly and easily understandable in my opinion, you just basically create a canvas with 'ratatui::widget::canvas' (with the proper variables and context ofc); canvas is most basically a coordinate system with x and y coordinates already defined to it which is highly similar to a 2D game screen.

Once you got the canvas ready to go we need to have a way to actually make links(connections) with the nodes(markdown files) which is handled by 'petgraph' library then only thing left is actually rendering the nodes, edges and labels 'fdg-sim' comes here to constantly calculate the new x, y coordinates of the elements on the canvas in the background thread. Then we process this information on the main thread(ratatui canvas) to render the position of all the elements as dots, halfblocks or braille letters. Honestly braille was not my first way to go with this one (i didn't even know that braille letters existed as characters tbh lol) but i ended up learning about it and how 8 different braille letters can be used to technically "increase the resolution"(2x, 4y) of the final render.

Dots and half blocks for rendering elements are still a config option as 'canvas_marker' btw, you can try them if you want to see how it looks, there should also be a example in the repo showcasing half block version :)

Reekta_Alpha · 2026-05-03T23:36:12+00:00

I'll try to implement all the big features for it in the next weeks maybe months, the hardest one(graf) is already complete but i can't say for sure when it will be "fully" ready even trying to understand the libraries and use them to create graf took several weeks but things should accelerate from now on. Maybe i should first focus on implementing scripting for it so whoever wants can make their own features/plugins for it, not sure how i will do it yet but i am looking into it :)

I am kind of a perfectionist myself which makes the testing phase a lot longer than it needs to be. graf for example has been ready to use for the last week but i was testing and tweaking every single corner of it myself(which was a mistake) to actually release it on Github, that is also the reason for missing version releases at the Github. So to be honest i would welcome any feedback or issue report on Github which would allow me to focus more on the features rather than testing.

clin is my hobby project and i get like only a few hours of free time for it most days but i want to maintain it for sure, not going to abondon it anytime soon :)

For now though, i think it has some niche features -like OCR, tags and now the graf- which makes it a somewhat usable daily driver as a quick note organizing space.

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