Building Stickify: A Digital Sticky Notes App for Developers

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Hey dev.to community! ?

Ever found yourself surrounded by paper sticky notes with code snippets, meeting notes, and half-baked project ideas?

That was my life until I built Stickify, a digital sticky notes app designed with developers in mind.

Try it out:

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The Origin Story


As a developer jumping between multiple projects, my physical sticky note system was a spectacular failure.

Notes would fall off my monitor. Get coffee-stained. Pile up until they became a fire hazard. ?

I needed something that combined the visual appeal of sticky notes with search functionality that could actually find that brilliant algorithm I scribbled down three weeks ago.

So I built it myself. Let me walk you through what I learned.

Tech Stack Decisions


I deliberately kept the tech stack minimal:

• Vanilla JavaScript (no frameworks)
• CSS with Grid and Flexbox for responsive layouts
• localStorage for data persistence
• Iconify for lightweight icons
• No build tools or bundlers

Why? Because sometimes we overcomplicate things. For a personal productivity tool, I wanted something that loads instantly and works offline.

Key Features for Developer Workflows

Category-Based Organization


Four default categories help me stay organized:

• Work: Client projects and work tasks
• Personal: Life stuff that needs tracking
• Ideas: Those random 3 AM "this could be the next big thing" thoughts
• Tasks: Daily to-dos and recurring items

Search That Actually Works


The real-time search functionality checks both note titles and content, making it easy to find that obscure CSS fix you noted down last month.

Multiple Views


Switch between grid view (for visual thinkers) and list view (for sequential thinkers) with a single click.

Color Coding


Five colors let you create your own visual system. I use:

• Yellow: Documentation notes
• Green: Completed features
• Blue: Learning resources
• Purple: Bug fixes to implement
• Pink: Critical priority items

The Code Architecture


I structured the app with these key components:

1. State Management: A simple state object tracks notes array, active filters, sorting preferences, and view mode
2. Storage Functions: Methods to save and retrieve notes from localStorage
3. CRUD Operations: Functions to create, read, update, and delete notes
4. UI Functions: Methods to render notes and handle user interactions
5. Utility Functions: Helpers for dates, IDs, and other common tasks

The entire app follows a simple pattern where state changes trigger re-renders of the affected components.

Interesting Challenges I Solved

Sorting and Filtering


I implemented a versatile filtering system where you can:

• Filter by category (Work, Personal, Ideas, Tasks)
• Sort by creation date, update date, or alphabetically
• Search by content across all notes

The code that handles this is surprisingly concise:


// Filter notes
let filteredNotes = notes.filter(note => {
// Filter by category
const categoryMatch = activeFilter === 'all' || note.category === activeFilter;

// Filter by search query
const searchMatch = searchQuery === '' ||
note.title.toLowerCase().includes(searchQuery.toLowerCase()) ||
note.content.toLowerCase().includes(searchQuery.toLowerCase());

return categoryMatch && searchMatch;
});

// Sort notes
filteredNotes = sortNotes(filteredNotes, activeSort);
Relative Timestamps


Instead of showing exact timestamps, I wanted human-readable times like "Today," "terday," or "3 days ago." The utility function handles this elegantly:


function formatDate(timestamp) {
const date = new Date(timestamp);
const now = new Date();
const diffInDays = Math.floor((now - date) / (1000 * 60 * 60 * 24));

if (diffInDays === 0) {
return 'Today, ' + date.toLocaleTimeString([], { hour: '2-digit', minute: '2-digit' });
} else if (diffInDays === 1) {
return 'terday, ' + date.toLocaleTimeString([], { hour: '2-digit', minute: '2-digit' });
} else if (diffInDays < 7) {
return `${diffInDays} days ago`;
} else {
return date.toLocaleDateString([], { month: 'short', day: 'numeric' });
}
}
How I Use It in My Dev Workflow


As a developer, I use Stickify for:

1. Code Snippets: Those useful one-liners I keep forgetting
2. Bug Tracking: Quick notes about issues to fix later
3. API Endpoints: Temporary storage for endpoints I'm working with
4. Meeting Notes: Quick capture during stand-ups
5. Learning Resources: Links to articles and videos I want to check out

What's Next for Stickify


I'm planning to add:

• Markdown support for code formatting
• Tagging system for more flexible organization
• Keyboard shortcuts for power users
• Dark mode (because we're developers, after all)
• Export/import functionality

Try It Yourself!


Head over to

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and start organizing your developer life!

No signup, no fuss - just open and start noting.

Let's Chat!


I'd love to hear how other developers organize their notes and ideas. Do you prefer digital or analog systems? What would make Stickify more useful for your workflow?

Drop your thoughts in the comments below!

Also, if you're interested in the full source code or have suggestions for improvements, let me know. I'm considering making it open source if there's enough interest.

Happy coding! ?

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