Prerequisites

First install git, clone the repository and init its submodules:

bash

sudo dnf install git
git clone https://github.com/flxzt/rnote
cd rnote
git submodule update --init --recursive

Nightlies

If you just want to test the latest build, you can download the latest nightly flatpak (actually currently a weekly build) built from the nightly CI workflow. Go to:

https://github.com/flxzt/rnote/actions/workflows/nightly.yml

Click on the most recent workflow run and navigate to the bottom. There is a link to the nightly flatpak artifact which you can download. Unzip, then install and run the nightly with:

bash

flatpak install --user com.github.flxzt.rnote.Devel.flatpak
flatpak run com.github.flxzt.rnote.Devel

Just Recipes

Most of the commands and steps mentioned here are available as just recipes. First install the just command-runner. To get a list of available recipes execute:

bash

just --list

and invoke recipes with:

bash

just <recipe-name>

Building with Flatpak vs Meson

This project can be compiled in two different ways depending on your needs: flatpak or meson.

Flatpak is a sandboxed environment/distribution used for building and running applications in a way that is more user friendly and cross platform. When using flatpak to build an application, flatpak creates a sandboxed environment tailored to exactly what the application needs. This makes it much easier to compile and run an application without issues.

Meson is the build system that Rnote uses for building the application. It is called when the flatpak is built. It is also possible to use meson directly on the host. Because it is building on the host machine, it may require more upfront work managing the host environment, but then compiling changes to the codebase can be much faster since it does not require rebuilding a sandboxed environment.

Building with Flatpak

There is a flatpak manifest in build-aux/com.github.flxzt.rnote.Devel.yaml.

Make sure you have flatpak and flatpak-builder installed on your system.

For Fedora:

bash

sudo dnf install flatpak flatpak-builder

Flathub needs to be added as remote repository:

bash

flatpak remote-add --if-not-exists flathub https://dl.flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

The flatpak Gnome runtime, SDK and some extensions are needed:

bash

flatpak install org.gnome.Platform//50 org.gnome.Sdk//50 org.freedesktop.Sdk.Extension.rust-stable//25.08

Use Gnome Builder or VSCode with the flatpak extension to build and run the application for you. This is the easiest and recommended way.

Bugs and workarounds

If you encounter bwrap: Can't find source path /run/user/1000/doc/by-app/com.github.flxzt.rnote: No such file or directory when trying to run the flatpak, xdg-document-portal did not start yet. Starting it manually with systemctl start --user xdg-document-portal should fix it.
As long as the flatpak is not installed on the system, The DirectoryList in the workspace browser does not update when files are created, removed or changed. It will work in the released flatpak.
Building the flatpak aborts randomly with status 137 out of memory: Reset the flatpak App-ID permissions by executing flatpak permission-reset com.github.flxzt.rnote, so the build is able to run in the background. see: upstream issue

Manual flatpak build

If you don't have an IDE or extension to handle building flatpaks, you can also do it manually.

Build

Build and create a local flatpak app repo:

bash

flatpak-builder --user --repo=_flatpak_repo _flatpak_app build-aux/com.github.flxzt.rnote.Devel.yaml

You might have to pass the --force-clean flag as well to clean previous builds.

Install

Install to the system as user with:

bash

flatpak-builder --user --install _flatpak_app build-aux/com.github.flxzt.rnote.Devel.yaml

Run

Then it can be run. From the build directory:

bash

flatpak-builder --run _flatpak_app build-aux/com.github.flxzt.rnote.Devel.yaml rnote

Or if it is installed:

bash

flatpak run com.github.flxzt.rnote

Bundle

Alternatively after building and creating the local repo you can also create a single-file .flatpak bundle:

bash

flatpak build-bundle \
    _flatpak_repo \
    com.github.flxzt.rnote.Devel.flatpak \
    com.github.flxzt.rnote.Devel \
    --runtime-repo=https://flathub.org/repo/flathub.flatpakrepo

And install with:

bash

flatpak install com.github.flxzt.rnote.Devel.flatpak

Build with Meson

The flatpak manifest calls the meson build system to build the application. If a native build on the host is wanted, meson can be called directly.

Prerequisites

Install all needed dependencies and build tools, e.g. for Fedora:

bash

sudo dnf install \
    gcc gcc-c++ clang clang-devel python3 make cmake meson just git appstream gettext desktop-file-utils \
    shared-mime-info kernel-devel gtk4-devel libadwaita-devel alsa-lib-devel appstream-devel

For Debian based distros:

bash

sudo apt install \
    build-essential clang libclang-dev python3 make cmake meson just git appstream gettext desktop-file-utils \
    shared-mime-info libgtk-4-dev libadwaita-1-dev libasound2-dev libappstream-dev

Also make sure rustc and cargo are installed (see https://www.rust-lang.org/). Then run:

bash

meson setup --prefix=/usr _mesonbuild

Meson will ask for the user password when needed.

Configure

To enable the development profile, set -Dprofile=devel as a parameter in the setup. Else the default profile will be set.

To enable building the rnote-cli binary, set -Dcli=true.

Reconfigure

Reconfiguring the meson build options can be done with:

bash

meson configure -D<option>=<value> _mesonbuild

For example if the profile needs to be changed.

Compile

Once the project is configured, it can be compiled with:

bash

meson compile -C _mesonbuild

The compiled binary should now be here: ./_mesonbuild/target/release/rnote.

Note that if an older version of rnote has previously been installed, the old gschema file, which defines the applications settings will still be used. This can cause problems, when the schema used by the development version are different from the ones installed locally:

Settings schema 'com.github.flxzt.rnote' does not contain a key named '...'

In this case you can install the new version of rnote to update the gschema.

Install

Installing the binary to the system can be done with:

bash

meson install -C _mesonbuild

This places the files in the specified prefix and their subpaths. The binary should now be in /usr/bin and therefore in PATH. If meson was configured with a different install prefix path than /usr, then GIO needs to be told where the installed gschema is located. This can be done through the GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR env variable.

For example to run the application with a custom gschema path:
GSETTINGS_SCHEMA_DIR=<prefix_path>/share/glib-2.0/schemas rnote

Test

Meson has some tests to validate the desktop, gresources, ... files.

bash

meson test -v -C _mesonbuild

Uninstall

If you don't like rnote, or decided that it's not worth your precious disk space, you can always uninstall it with:

bash

sudo -E ninja uninstall -C _mesonbuild

Custom Targets

There are various custom targets available. Use them like this:

bash

meson compile <custom target> -C _mesonbuild

target	explanation
rnote-pot	Regenerate the po template file. Provided by `i18n` module.
rnote-update-po	Update the po files from the template. Provided by the `i18n` module.
rnote-gmo	Compile the po files. Provided by the `i18n` module.
cargo-fmt-check	Check the code formatting
cargo-test	Run all unit and integration tests
cargo-clean	Clean artifacts that cargo has generated
ui-cargo-check	Run cargo check for the ui package
ui-cargo-clippy	Run clippy for the ui package
ui-cargo-doc	Generate docs for the ui package (also checks documentation formatting)
ui-cargo-build	Build the ui
cli-cargo-check	Run cargo check for the cli package
cli-cargo-clippy	Run clippy for the cli package
cli-cargo-doc	Generate docs for the cli package (also checks documentation formatting)
cli-cargo-build	Build the cli
build-installer	Build the installer (only functional on windows-msys2 and when the ui option is enabled)

Debugging

For a native meson build: Be sure to configure meson with option -Dprofile=devel to have a build that includes debugging symbols. Then configure, compile and install the meson project as outlined above.

With VSCode

The CodeLLDB extension can be used to debug from within the editor. A .code-workspace workspace file is provided in the repository root that contains various configurations, tasks, etc.. Open the repository as workspace and then select "debug ui" in the "Run and Debug" panel to debug with lldb. Then it is possible to set breakpoints, inspect variables, and so on while the app is running.