✦ Vesper

A beautiful, distraction-free markdown reader for Windows

Built for everyone. Owned by no one. Free as in freedom.

📖 Overview

Vesper renders your markdown with carefully tuned typography and a refined dark interface, giving you the ultimate reading experience. No installation, no AppData, no registry, no telemetry, no accounts, no subscriptions - just drop the exe and go.

Knowledge should be accessible to all. Vesper exists to make reading a pleasure, not a product.

✨ Features

🔤 Markdown Rendering

Full CommonMark support via markdown-it with extensions:

Extension	Description
🎨 Syntax Highlighting	190+ languages via highlight.js with a curated dark palette
☑️ Task Lists	Interactive checkboxes in lists
ᴬᵇ Superscript / Subscript	^text^ and ~text~ notation
🖍️ Highlight	==marked text== rendered with accent background
💬 Typographer	Smart quotes, dashes, and ellipses
🔗 Linkify	Bare URLs auto-converted to clickable links
📄 HTML	Inline HTML passthrough
↵ Breaks	Newlines preserved as line breaks

Premium dark-mode typography tuned for long-form reading:

• Inter Variable at 17px with 1.7 line-height
• ~65 character measure for optimal readability
• Progressive heading color cascade - H1 near-white through H6 muted
• Accent-colored list markers on both ordered and unordered lists
• Gradient-fade horizontal rules
• Subtle persistent link underlines that intensify on hover
• JetBrains Mono Variable for code at 14px with ligature support

📑 Tabbed Interface

• Open multiple documents simultaneously in tabs
• 🔁 Duplicate detection - re-opening an already-open file switches to its tab
• ✨ Animated tab enter/exit with layout transitions
• ◀ ▶ Scroll arrows appear on overflow with hold-to-scroll
• 🖱️ Mouse wheel scrolling over the tab bar
• 📌 New tabs auto-scroll into view
• ✕ Close tabs with the button or Ctrl+W

🧭 Navigation

• 📋 Table of Contents sidebar auto-generated from headings (H1-H6) with indentation
• Click any heading to smooth-scroll to that section
• Sidebar opens even with no headings (shows "No headings" message)
• ↔️ Resizable sidebar via drag handle
• 🔍 Full-text search with real-time highlighting, match counter, and Enter to cycle

👁️ Reading Experience

Feature	Details
🖥️ Focus Mode	F11 hides title bar and menu for immersive reading
🔎 Content Zoom	Ctrl+Scroll - 50% to 200%
↔️ Content Width	Shift+Scroll - 400px to 1200px
🔲 UI Scale	50%-200% via View menu spinner, persisted across sessions
🏀 Kinetic Scroll	Right-mouse drag with iOS-style rubber band overscroll
📜 Custom Scrollbars	Thin, auto-hiding, accent-colored on hover
💾 Window Memory	Position, size, and maximized state remembered between sessions

📂 File Handling

• Open via File menu, Ctrl+O, or drag-and-drop from Explorer
• Supports .md · .markdown · .txt
• Native Tauri drag-and-drop integration with real file system paths

🎨 UI Details

• Custom frameless title bar with minimize, maximize/restore, and close
• Right-click context menu - Copy, Open File, Toggle Search, Toggle Sidebar, Focus Mode, Keyboard Shortcuts, About, Exit
• 🖊️ Text selection preserved visually on right-click via overlay rendering
• Context menu stays within bounds and respects UI zoom
• All panels, modals, tabs, and menus animate with Framer Motion
• Subtle noise texture overlay on the app background

⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+O	📂 Open file
Ctrl+W	✕ Close current tab
Ctrl+Q	🚪 Exit application
Ctrl+F	🔍 Toggle search
Ctrl+Shift+S	📋 Toggle sidebar
F11	🖥️ Toggle focus mode
Escape	← Close search / sidebar
Ctrl+Scroll	🔎 Zoom content in / out
Shift+Scroll	↔️ Adjust content width

📦 Installation

Prerequisites

• Windows 10 or later
• WebView2 Runtime (pre-installed on Windows 10/11)

Download

Download the latest vesper.exe from the Releases page. No installation required - Vesper is fully portable. No gatekeepers between you and your documents.

Build from Source

Everyone has the right to inspect, modify, and rebuild the tools they use.

Requires: Node.js v18+ · Rust stable · Tauri v2 prerequisites

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/vesper.git
cd vesper
npm install

# Development (hot-reload on localhost:1420)
npm run tauri dev

# Production build
npm run tauri build
# -> src-tauri/target/release/vesper.exe

🔧 Technology Stack

Built entirely on open-source foundations - no proprietary dependencies, no vendor lock-in.

	Layer	Technology
⚙️	Runtime	Tauri v2 - Rust + WebView2
⚛️	Frontend	React 19 · TypeScript · Vite 7
🎨	Styling	Tailwind CSS 4 · DaisyUI 5 · Custom CSS
📝	Markdown	markdown-it + plugins
🌈	Syntax	highlight.js
🎬	Animation	Framer Motion
🔤	Fonts	Inter Variable · JetBrains Mono
🖼️	Icons	Lucide React
📜	Scrollbars	OverlayScrollbars

Tauri Plugins: dialog · fs · opener

💼 Portable

Vesper is fully portable - zero installation, zero system footprint. Your tools, your data, under your control.

All data lives in a data/ folder next to the executable:

vesper.exe
data/
  ├── window-state.json    <- window position, size, maximized
  └── EBWebView/           <- WebView2 data (localStorage, cache)

Nothing is written to AppData, the registry, or any other system location. No cloud sync, no phoning home. To move Vesper, just copy the exe and optionally the data/ folder.

🧠 Design Philosophy

	Principle
📖	Content First - all UI chrome can be hidden; the reader is the focus
🔤	Typography Matters - Inter at 17px, 1.7 line-height, ~65 char measure
🌙	Dark by Default - deep onyx base #282C33 reduces eye strain
⌨️	Keyboard Driven - every feature accessible via shortcuts
✨	Minimalist Chrome - the interface gets out of your way
🤝	No Extraction - no ads, no tracking, no data harvesting, no paywalls

🎨 Color Palette

Swatch	Name	Hex	Usage
🟫	Base	#282C33	Window background
⬛	Surface	#252A31	Title bar, sidebar
🔲	Elevated	#2D333C	Active tab, modals
◾	Overlay	#333942	Dropdowns, context menu
⬜	Text Primary	#E4E6EB	Main content
🔘	Text Secondary	#ABB0B8	UI labels
🩶	Text Tertiary	#6B7280	Placeholders, hints
🔵	Accent	#6B8AFF	Interactive elements
🔷	Link	#7CA9F7	Hyperlinks

🗂️ Project Structure

vesper/
├── src/
│   ├── App.tsx              Main application component
│   ├── main.tsx             React entry point
│   └── styles.css           Variables, UI, markdown typography
├── src-tauri/
│   ├── src/
│   │   ├── main.rs          Rust entry point
│   │   └── lib.rs           Tauri builder, portable data, window state
│   ├── capabilities/
│   │   └── default.json     Permission declarations
│   ├── tauri.conf.json      Window, bundle, and build config
│   ├── Cargo.toml           Rust dependencies
│   └── icons/               App icons (ICO, PNG, ICNS)
├── index.html
├── package.json
├── vite.config.ts
└── tsconfig.json

📜 License

Dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0 Universal. No copyright, no restrictions, no permission needed. Take it, use it, change it, share it - it belongs to everyone.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Built with gratitude on the collective work of open-source communities worldwide:

• iA Writer - design inspiration
• Tauri - desktop framework
• markdown-it - markdown parsing
• highlight.js - syntax highlighting