rawNote

A minimal note-taking app written 100% in x86-64 assembly (MASM / ML64), using the Win32 API directly. No C runtime, no resource files, no framework — a single native .exe.

Why?

Because it's possible. Every line of the source is hand-written assembly, and the whole thing builds to a ~24 KB portable binary that does what most note apps ship 100 MB of Electron to do.

Features

• Dark grey theme with white text / bigger font
• Markdown (source-mode, markers stay visible): **bold**, *italic*, `code`, #–###### headers
• Notes as plain .md files in a vault\ folder next to the exe
• Create / open / save / rename / delete notes
• Search: live filename and full-content matching (case-insensitive)
• Scroll wheel + arrow-key scrolling (no visible scrollbars)
• Word + character count in the status bar
• Frameless window with custom rounded title-bar buttons (min / restore / close)
• Right-click context menu (New / Save / Rename / Delete)
• Dirty-flag: prompts "unsaved changes?" on close
• Window size/position + last-opened-note persistence (vault\rawNote.ini)
• UTF-8 notes (BOM-aware on load)
• Custom icon
• Shortcuts: Ctrl+N new note, Ctrl+S save

Run it

Download build/rawNote.exe and run it. The vault\ folder (where notes live) is created next to the exe on first launch. No installation.

Build from source

Requires Visual Studio 2022 (MSVC x64 tools: ml64.exe + link.exe) and the Windows SDK's rc.exe (for the icon resource).

.\build.ps1          # assemble + link -> build\rawNote.exe
.\build.ps1 -Clean   # remove build output

Layout

rawNote/
├── src/rawNote.asm     the entire app (entry point + all logic)
├── src/rawNote.inc     constants, Win32 types, imports
├── src/rawNote.rc      icon resource
├── src/favicon.ico     the app icon
├── build.ps1
├── docs/               architecture, build, roadmap
├── notes/              developer step-log
└── build/              compiled output (rawNote.exe)

License

MIT — see LICENSE.