Saber

           

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Saber is the notes app built for handwriting.

It's designed to be as simple and intuitive as possible, while still delivering unique features that you'll actually use. Additionally, Saber is available across all your devices, large and small, and syncs between them seamlessly.

Notably, it can invert your notes when you're in dark mode. This allows you to write with white ink on a black background, which is much easier on the eyes in low-light environments like when the teacher turns off the lights in class. Images and PDFs are also inverted, so you can still use a digital printout or a textbook without the fuss.

Saber uses a dual-password system to protect your notes from anyone but you, even if they have complete control over the server. You can safely store your notes on the official Saber server, another server, or even host your own!

The app is completely open-source so that anyone can view the source code and see exactly what it's doing and how it handles your data. Many other note-taking apps are closed-source and proprietary, meaning that their inner workings are a mystery to the public.

As someone who studies maths, highlighting multi-line equations was always a hassle with other apps, where the highlighter would change color when it overlapped with itself. Another problem I had was that in some apps, the highlighter would render on top of the text, fading it out and making it hard to read. Saber's highlighter has no such issues. It utilizes canvas compositing to render the highlighter in a way that is consistent with/better than traditional paper, where it handles overlaps and maintains color consistency.

Saber has everything you need to keep your notes organized. Create folders inside folders inside folders to your heart's content with no limit on the number of nested folders. And even though a note may be buried deep within a nested folder, you can still access it easily with your most recent notes always available on the home screen.

Discover a whole new way to capture and organize your thoughts with Saber. Whether you're a student, professional, or creative mind, Saber is your trusted companion for digital handwriting. Download now and let your ideas flow freely!

Tap to show/hide screenshots

Features

Please see #1 Saber progress.

Install

Tap to show/hide install instructions

Android

Options:

1. Download from the Play Store

2. Download from F-Droid

   • Note that the F-Droid build is not optimised for Onyx Boox devices as this would require proprietary dependencies from Onyx.

3. Download and install Saber_{version}.apk from the latest Release.

Linux

Option 1 (recommended): Install the flatpak from Flathub: flatpak --user install com.adilhanney.saber.

Option 2: Download Saber-{version}-x86_64.AppImage from the latest Release, make it executable with chmod +x Saber-*-x86_64.AppImage, then run it.

Option 3: There's an unofficial snap available thanks to @soumyaDghosh. sudo snap install saber

Windows

Download and install SaberInstaller_{version}.exe from the latest Release.

If you get missing dll errors, make sure you have Visual C++ Redistributable installed.

iOS and macOS

Download Saber on the App Store.

Build from source

Tap to show/hide build instructions

1. Install flutter

https://docs.flutter.dev/get-started/install

2. Clone this project

git clone https://github.com/saber-notes/saber.git

3. Get dependencies

flutter pub get

4. Install additional dependencies

Setup for the super_clipboard package can be summarised as:

• Install Rust
• Install NDK 26.1.10909125 if you're building for Android

5. Build for...

Linux

sudo apt install libsecret-1-dev libjsoncpp-dev libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev webkit2gtk-4.1-dev
# Or for Fedora...
sudo dnf install libsecret-devel jsoncpp-devel gstreamer1-devel gstreamer1-plugins-base-devel webkit2gtk4.1-devel

flutter build linux

This is good enough for using on your own computer, but if you want to redistribute your build, you need to use a predictable environment: fork this repo and use the GitHub Action Build for Linux instead.

Android

flutter build apk

You may need to generate a signing certificate and create the android/key.properties file. More information on https://docs.flutter.dev/deployment/android#create-an-upload-keystore

Note: FOSS/F-Droid builds are done slightly differently:

./patches/remove_proprietary_dependencies.sh
flutter build apk --dart-define=OFFLINE_FONTS_ONLY="true"

Windows

flutter build windows

The Windows installer is created with Inno Setup. To create an installer of your own, run the above build command, then edit and run installers/desktop_inno_script.iss with Inno Setup Compiler.

iOS and macOS

If you have a macOS computer, you can build for iOS with flutter build ipa or build for macOS with flutter build macos.

If you don't, fork this repo and use the GitHub Action Build for macOS and iOS. Alternatively, follow this YouTube tutorial How to compile a flutter application to iPhone with no mac (free | no jailbreak) to manually build with Codemagic.

Links

• Nextcloud server
• Privacy policy
• License
• Releases

Translating

All translations are crowd-sourced. Saber has so far been translated into:

• English (en)
• Arabic (ar)
• Czech (cs)
• German (de)
• Spanish (es)
• Persian (fa)
• French (fr)
• Hebrew (he)
• Hungarian (hu)
• Italian (it)
• Japanese (ja)
• Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR)
• Russian (ru)
• Turkish (tr)
• Chinese Simplified (zh_Hans_CN)
• Chinese Traditional (zh_Hant_TW)

I'm experimenting with using Weblate to crowd-source translations. More information coming soon.

Extending existing languages

Check _missing_translations.yaml to see if any translations are missing.

1. Use this link to edit _missing_translations.yaml.
2. Update your _missing_translations.yaml file with your translations, e.g. updating German (de)

   de:
     editor:
       newerFileFormat:
         title: Diese Notiz wurde mit einer neueren Version von Saber bearbeitet
         subtitle: Wenn du diese Notiz bearbeitest, können Daten verloren gehen. Möchtest du die Notiz trotzdem öffnen?
         openAnyway: Trotzdem öffnen
         cancel: Abbruch
   # ignore the other languages...

3. Open a pull request! I'll do the rest

Adding a new language

1. Look for your locale code here, e.g. hi for Hindi, fr for French, bn for Bengali, ar for Arabic, etc.
2. Use this link to create a new file in lib/i18n/ called strings_XX.i18n.yaml where XX is your locale code.
3. Copy the contents of an existing file like lib/i18n/strings.i18n.yaml and replace the translations with your own. If you don't know the translation for a string, just delete the line.
4. Open a pull request!

Also see slang's Getting Started for more information.

Translating app store descriptions

We have 2 formats for app store descriptions:

1. F-Droid/Play Store:

   i. Open metadata/en-US/ and copy the full_description.txt and short_description.txt files into the metadata/XX/ folder where XX is your locale code. Then translate the contents of the files.

   ii. Changelogs are automatically translated from the English version. If you spot a mistake, please edit the translated changelog in metadata/XX/changelogs/<version-code>.txt where XX is your locale code.

2. Linux .desktop file:

   i. Open flatpak/com.adilhanney.saber.desktop and add a line for the Comment key with the following format where XX is your locale code:

   Comment[XX]=Your translation

   If you also need to translate the Name key, do the same thing.

3. Flathub (optional):

   i. Since this is slightly more technical, you can skip the Flathub part if you want to and I'll copy the translations from the above section.

   ii. In flatpak/com.adilhanney.saber.metainfo.xml before the </description> closing tag, add a line for your translation with the following format where XX is your locale code:

   <p xml:lang="XX">Your translation</p>

   iii. In the same file, you can translate the changelogs by doing the same thing in the <release> tags before their </description> closing tag.

Supporting Saber

If you like Saber, please consider supporting it by:

• Spreading the word!
• Starring the project on GitHub
• Sponsoring me on GitHub Sponsors
• Donating via PayPal
• Buying more storage on the Nextcloud server: see Pricing

Development notes

Show/hide development notes

• When updating the app version:
  • Run ./scripts/bump_version.sh <version-name> <version-code> (Run ./scripts/bump_version.sh --help for more info)
  • Update the changelogs in metadata/en-US/changelogs/ and flatpak/com.adilhanney.saber.metainfo.xml, and run dart scripts/translate_changelogs.dart as directed by the script.
• When updating the icons, run the following commands:
  • General: dart run icons_launcher:create
  • Flatpak icons: cd assets/icon && ./resize-icon.sh
• When updating the translations...
  • Run the following commands:
    • dart run slang apply --locale=XX if you need to apply _missing_translations.yaml
    • dart run slang
    • dart run slang analyze --full
  • If you're adding a new language, update:
    • CFBundleLocalizations in ios/Runner/Info.plist
    • CFBundleLocalizations in macos/Runner/Info.plist
    • android/app/src/main/res/xml/locales_config.xml
    • lib/data/locales.dart
    • README.md above in the "Translating" section.
    • and run dart scripts/translate_changelogs.dart to translate the changelog.