mindwiki

mindwiki is still in development to help us make this better and if you have any issues submit a issue or create a pull request with a fix

A personal desktop wiki for storing things you know. Built with Rust + egui. Pages are plain Markdown files in a folder (default ~/wiki), so you can also edit them with any editor or keep them in git.

Run

cargo run --release            # uses ~/wiki (or the folder from settings)
cargo run --release -- ~/notes # use another folder

Features

• Intro tour on first open that walks through the app (replay it with ?)
• Edit / Split / Preview modes with rendered Markdown
• Wiki links: [[Page]] or [[Page|shown text]]. Clicking a link to a page that doesn't exist yet (marked (new)) creates it.
• Backlinks: the bottom panel lists every page linking to the current one
• Renaming a page updates [[links]] to it in all other pages
• Full-text search (Ctrl+K): every word must match; #tag matches tags only
• Tags: #tag in the text, or front matter at the top of a page:

  ---
  tags: [rust, ideas]
  ---
  

  Click a tag in the sidebar to filter the page list.
• Light and dark themes (☀ / 🌙 in the top bar; follows the system until you pick one)
• Folders: a title like notes/Rust is saved as notes/Rust.md
• Autosave (2s after you stop typing; set it in ⚙ Settings), and pages changed by other programs reload automatically

Sharing a wiki with a server

mindwiki-server shares one wiki with the people you give accounts to. Everything goes over HTTPS, and nobody gets pages without logging in.

Run the server

cargo build --release -p mindwiki-server
cd target/release

./mindwiki-server user add alice            # asks for a password (8+ characters)
./mindwiki-server user add bob --read-only  # bob can read but not change pages
./mindwiki-server serve --host wiki.example.com

• It listens on port 8443 (--addr 0.0.0.0:8443) and keeps everything in ./mindwiki-data (--data DIR): accounts, the certificate and the pages.
• With no certificate it makes a self-signed one and prints its fingerprint. Give the fingerprint to your users. --host is the name or IP address they will type to reach the server (repeat it for several); it is only used when the certificate is first made. To change it later, delete cert.pem and key.pem and start again.
• With a real certificate (for example Let's Encrypt) use --cert fullchain.pem --key privkey.pem; users then need no fingerprint.
• Other commands: user list, user passwd NAME, user readonly NAME on|off, user remove NAME. They take effect without restarting the server.

Connect from the app

Click ☁ in the top bar and enter the server address (https://wiki.example.com:8443), your username and password, and the fingerprint if the server is self-signed. The button then shows the sync state (Synced, Syncing, Offline, Read-only). Click it again to sync now or disconnect, which returns you to your local wiki.

• The app keeps a copy of the shared wiki on your computer, so it works offline; edits are sent when the server is reachable again.
• Changes by other people arrive within about 10 seconds.
• If two people edit the same page at once, the first upload wins and the other person's text is kept as a page named … (conflicting copy).

Security notes

• http:// addresses are refused; the app only talks HTTPS.
• Passwords are stored on the server as Argon2 hashes. The app stores a login token (valid 30 days), never your password. The token is in ~/.config/mindwiki/config.toml, readable only by you.
• Five wrong passwords lock that username and address out for a minute.
• For a self-signed server the app trusts only the exact certificate whose fingerprint you entered.

Shortcuts

Key	Action
Ctrl+K / Ctrl+P	Search
Ctrl+N	New page
Ctrl+S	Save
Ctrl+E	Toggle edit / preview
Ctrl+B	Show / hide the sidebar
Alt+← / Alt+→	Back / forward

Settings are stored in ~/.config/mindwiki/config.toml.

Code layout

• src/page.rs: parses front matter, tags and links
• src/store.rs: the folder on disk (load, atomic save, rename, delete)
• src/index.rs: backlinks and the tag map
• src/search.rs: search ranking and snippets
• src/app.rs: app state, history, file watcher, shortcuts
• src/remote.rs: HTTPS client for the server (login, pages)
• src/sync.rs: keeps the local copy and the server in step
• server/: the mindwiki-server program
• src/ui/: drawing (top bar, sidebar, preview, search popup, dialogs)