Shruggie Markdown

A cross-platform markdown viewer, editor, and converter built with Tauri, React, and CodeMirror.

Features

Viewing — Live-rendered preview that updates as you type, automatic file reload on external changes, and remote URL fetching to view markdown from the web.

Editing — A CodeMirror 6 editor with split-view mode, full syntax highlighting, and integrated markdown linting.

Converting — Export to HTML with fully inlined styles for portable sharing, or export to PDF via the system print dialog.

Library — Flat file management for the desktop app with a sortable, filterable table for organizing your documents.

Theming — Light, dark, and system-follow modes with 4 distinct visual styles to choose from.

Cross-platform — Ships as a native desktop app (Windows, macOS, Linux), a Chrome Extension, and a Progressive Web App, all from a single codebase.

Configurable — Choose from 3 markdown rendering engines (markdown-it, marked, remark), customize file extension rules, and tune editor and preview settings to your workflow.

Installation

Desktop

Download the latest release for your platform from GitHub Releases:

• Windows — MSI installer
• macOS — DMG disk image
• Linux — AppImage

Chrome Extension

PWA

Development

Prerequisites

All platforms:

Dependency	Minimum Version	Purpose
Node.js	22+	Frontend build toolchain
pnpm	9+	Package manager (see packageManager in package.json)
Rust	1.77.2+ (stable)	Tauri desktop backend
ImageMagick	7+	Icon generation (scripts/generate-icons)

Windows (for desktop installer builds):

Dependency	Version	Purpose
WiX Toolset v3	3.14+	MSI installer bundling
NSIS	3.x	NSIS installer bundling
Microsoft Visual Studio C++ Build Tools	2022+	Rust compilation (MSVC linker, Windows SDK)
WebView2	Evergreen	Runtime for the Tauri webview (bundled on Windows 11, may need install on Windows 10)

macOS (for desktop builds):

Dependency	Purpose
Xcode Command Line Tools	C/C++ toolchain and macOS SDK

Linux (for desktop builds):

Dependency	Purpose
build-essential	C/C++ compiler toolchain
libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev	WebView backend
libgtk-3-dev	GTK windowing
libayatana-appindicator3-dev	System tray support
librsvg2-dev	SVG icon rendering
libssl-dev	TLS support

Note: On Windows, pnpm tauri:build produces a standalone .exe without WiX or NSIS installed, but the MSI and NSIS installers will fail to bundle. Install both if you need to produce release installers.

Quick Start

git clone https://github.com/shruggietech/shruggie-md.git
cd shruggie-md
pnpm install
pnpm run dev

Scripts

Helper scripts live in scripts/ and are available as both .sh (Bash) and .ps1 (PowerShell) variants.

Script	Purpose
dev	Start Vite dev server
build	Full production build (web + extension)
clean	Delete build artifacts and caches
rebuild	Clean + install + build
test	Run test suite
typecheck	TypeScript type checking
generate-icons	Regenerate platform icons from master
bump-version	Update version across all manifests

Build Targets

Target	Command	Output
Web/PWA	pnpm run build	dist/
Chrome Extension	pnpm run build:extension	extension/dist/
Desktop	pnpm tauri:build	Platform installer

Testing

pnpm run test

258 tests powered by Vitest.

Architecture

Shruggie Markdown uses a shared React frontend paired with platform-specific shells for desktop (Tauri), browser extension, and PWA targets. A platform abstraction layer isolates native capabilities — file system access, dialogs, window management — behind a common interface so that features work identically across all targets. The build pipeline produces separate bundles for each platform from the same source tree.

See shruggie-md-spec.md for the full technical specification.

License

Apache-2.0

Contributors

Contributions are welcome! Before getting started, make sure you have the full set of development prerequisites installed for your platform. See RELEASING.md for the release process.

Setting Up a Dev Environment (Windows)

# 1. Install Rust via rustup (https://rustup.rs/)
# 2. Install Node.js 22+ and pnpm 9+
# 3. Install WiX v3 and NSIS (for installer builds)
# 4. Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/shruggietech/shruggie-md.git
cd shruggie-md
pnpm install

# 5. Run in development mode (web only)
pnpm run dev

# 6. Run in development mode (desktop / Tauri)
pnpm tauri:dev

# 7. Build release binaries
pnpm tauri:build

Build hygiene: The tauri:build and tauri:dev scripts automatically delete dist/ before invoking Tauri. This prevents stale frontend output from being packaged into desktop binaries. Do not bypass these scripts by running cargo build or tauri build directly from src-tauri/.

Setting Up a Dev Environment (Linux / macOS)

# 1. Install Rust via rustup (https://rustup.rs/)
# 2. Install platform dependencies (see Prerequisites table above)
# 3. Clone and install
git clone https://github.com/shruggietech/shruggie-md.git
cd shruggie-md
pnpm install

# 4. Run in development mode
pnpm run dev        # web only
pnpm tauri:dev      # desktop

# 5. Build release binaries
pnpm tauri:build

Build hygiene: The tauri:build and tauri:dev scripts automatically delete dist/ before invoking Tauri. This prevents stale frontend output from being packaged into desktop binaries. Do not bypass these scripts by running cargo build or tauri build directly from src-tauri/.

Author

William Thompson, ShruggieTech (Shruggie LLC)