RapidMD ⚡

Sleek, Native Markdown Viewer & Editor in Rust

Minimalist monochrome interface and workspace aesthetics.

---

Overview

RapidMD is a lightweight, blazing-fast native desktop application written in 100% safe Rust. It combines a distraction-free writing environment with a document viewer, engineered around an ultra-clean monochrome visual philosophy.

---

Key Highlights

• Ultra-Lean Resource Footprint: Optimized to use only ~40 MB of RAM at idle. Employs on-demand memory mapping (memmap2) for glyph fallbacks and zero-cost text scanning, delivering instantaneous launch times.
• Embedded Modern Typography: Bundles Inter (Regular, SemiBold, Bold) for prose and JetBrains Mono for code and line metrics, paired with active tessellation antialiasing feathering and whole-pixel snapping.
• Synchronized Split View: Side-by-side editing and preview with bidirectional proportional scroll synchronization—scrolling either pane keeps the other aligned in real time.
• GitHub Flavored Markdown (GFM): Tables, interactive task list checkboxes, blockquotes with graphite indicator bars, local image decoding (PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF), and syntect syntax-highlighted code fences.
• Real-Time Performance Telemetry: Smoothed FPS counter in the bottom status bar, toggleable with a single click or through the View menu.
• Modern Dropdown Menus & Toggles: Replaced boxy legacy selection buttons with clean, borderless translucent hover rows and sliding capsule toggle switches.
• Crash Recovery & Safety: Built-in recovery snapshots every 2 seconds for dirty buffers and external file change detection on disk.

---

Downloads & Installation

The latest release is v0.3.0: GitHub Releases.

Windows

Download RapidMD-Setup-v0.3.0.exe (~7.6 MB). The setup wizard installs RapidMD, creates Desktop and Start Menu shortcuts, registers .md and .markdown files, and adds an Open with RapidMD context menu entry. It also provides an uninstaller through Windows Settings.

Linux (x86_64)

Download RapidMD-v0.3.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz, extract it, then run the included per-user installer:

tar -xzf RapidMD-v0.3.0-linux-x86_64.tar.gz
cd rapidmd-linux-x86_64-staging
./install-linux.sh

The installer puts the app in ~/.local/bin, registers an application launcher and Desktop shortcut, and adds Markdown MIME types for the file manager's Open With menu. It does not need sudo. To make RapidMD the default Markdown app, run xdg-mime default rapidmd.desktop text/markdown. To uninstall, run ~/.local/share/rapidmd/install-linux.sh --uninstall (or run ./install-linux.sh --uninstall from the extracted directory). Ubuntu may require the system GTK/Wayland/X11 libraries used by eframe; install missing runtime libraries through the distribution package manager.

Other platforms

The source is cross-platform, but prebuilt downloads are currently provided for Windows and Linux x86_64.

---

Building from Source

Prerequisites

• Rust toolchain (edition 2021).
• Linux builds need the platform development libraries required by eframe, winit, and GTK file dialogs.
• Windows installer builds need Inno Setup 6+.

Compile and Run

git clone https://github.com/IsmailAzzouz/RapidMD.git
cd RapidMD
cargo run

Build the optimized standalone executable with the shipping profile:

cargo build --locked --profile fast --bin rapidmd

The executable is generated at target/fast/rapidmd on Linux or target/fast/rapidmd.exe on Windows.

Build the Windows Installer

On Windows, run:

installer\build_installer.bat

The script builds the optimized executable and compiles installer/rapidmd.iss. The setup executable is written to installer/dist/.

Build the Linux Installer Package

On Linux, run:

chmod +x installer/build_installer.sh
installer/build_installer.sh

This builds the optimized Linux binary and creates installer/dist/RapidMD-v<VERSION>-linux-<ARCH>.tar.gz. Add --install to build and install the package for the current user. Supported package architectures are x86_64 and aarch64.

---

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl + N	New document tab
Ctrl + O	Open file dialog
Ctrl + S	Save current buffer
Ctrl + Shift + S	Save As…
Ctrl + W	Close active tab
Ctrl + Shift + W	Quit application
Ctrl + 1	Switch to View Mode (rendered preview)
Ctrl + 2	Switch to Edit Mode (raw source markdown)
Ctrl + 3	Switch to Split Mode (side-by-side synchronized view)
Ctrl + F	Toggle Find & Replace bar
F3 / Shift + F3	Find next / previous match
Ctrl + G	Jump to line number
Ctrl + B	Format selection as bold (**text**)
Ctrl + I	Format selection as italic (*text*)
Ctrl + K	Insert markdown link ([text](url))
Ctrl + = / Ctrl + -	Zoom in / Zoom out
Ctrl + 0	Reset zoom to 100%
Enter	Smart list, numbered list, and task list continuation
F1	Open Help & Shortcuts dialog

---

Tech Stack & Architecture

• GUI & Rendering: eframe & egui 0.36 with GPU acceleration.
• Markdown Parsing: pulldown-cmark 0.13 (CommonMark compliant pull-parser).
• Syntax Highlighting: syntect 5.3 using TextMate grammars.
• Typography: Inter and JetBrains Mono embedded via TrueType data.
• Image Decoding: image 0.25 (PNG, JPEG, WebP, GIF, BMP).
• Clipboard & Dialogs: arboard 3.0 and rfd 0.17.

---

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.