Open, standards-based journals, notes, and tasks — synced over CalDAV, on your own server.
Spectacled is a family of apps for Android, iOS, Web, and Desktop, built on the VJOURNAL and VTODO components of the iCalendar standard and synced over CalDAV. No proprietary backend, no account required — your data lives on whatever CalDAV server you already trust (Nextcloud, Radicale, or anything else that speaks CalDAV), and Spectacled is just the client.
It's one shared Kotlin Multiplatform / Compose Multiplatform codebase, built into three apps:
| App | Uses | For |
|---|---|---|
| Spectacled Journals | VJOURNAL |
Dated journal entries |
| Spectacled Notes | VJOURNAL |
Free-form notes |
| Spectacled Tasks | VTODO |
To-dos, with status/priority/due dates |
Screenshots coming soon.
The iCalendar standard (RFC 5545) has included the VJOURNAL component for journal/note entries since 1998, but almost nothing actually supports it: KOrganizer and GNOME Evolution offer rudimentary support on Linux only, and jtx Board — an earlier project by the same author — was the first mobile app to support it fully, but relies on DAVx5 for sync and only exists on Android.
Spectacled aims to close that gap: a single, standards-based app for journals, notes, and tasks that works the same way on Android, iOS, Web, and Desktop, talks CalDAV directly, and leaves your data exactly where you put it. No vendor lock-in, no proprietary sync protocol — just iCalendar and CalDAV, the same open standards your calendar app probably already uses.
- Connect to any CalDAV server and browse its collections
- Create, edit, and delete journal/note/task entries, with summary, description, categories, and classification
- Search and filter your entries
- Attachments (inline or linked)
- Parent/child relationships between entries (
RELATED-TO) - Sync runs in the background and locally caches everything, so the app stays usable offline
- Light/dark theme, one consistent UI across every platform
Spectacled is under active development. Planned distribution channels:
| Platform | Where |
|---|---|
| Android | Google Play (link coming soon) · F-Droid (link coming soon) |
| iOS | Apple App Store (link coming soon) |
| Web | spectacled.techbee.at (coming soon) |
| Desktop | Build it yourself for now — see Building & Running below |
Until then, building from source (see below) is the way to run it.
Spectacled is, and will stay, open source. Maintaining it across five platforms (Android, iOS, Web, Desktop, plus the shared backend logic) is ongoing work — if it's useful to you, consider supporting it:
(See .github/FUNDING.yml for the current list.)
Built with Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose Multiplatform. Local storage and sync use SQLDelight (SQLite everywhere, including a persisted IndexedDB-backed store on Web), networking is Ktor, and dependency injection is Koin.
Exact versions aren't listed here to avoid this file going stale — see gradle/libs.versions.toml for the current pinned versions of everything, including the supported Android SDK range.
This project uses the Gradle Wrapper and the Foojay toolchain resolver. The first build downloads Gradle and a JDK automatically — you only need Android Studio (for Android/Desktop/Web) and, for iOS, Xcode.
📦 spectacled/
┣ 📂 shared/ ← Almost everything lives here: UI screens, CalDAV sync,
┃ iCalendar parsing, local database, repositories — used
┃ by every app and every platform
┃
┣ 📂 composeJournalsApp/ ← Platform entry point for the Journals app
┣ 📂 composeNotesApp/ ← Platform entry point for the Notes app
┣ 📂 composeTasksApp/ ← Platform entry point for the Tasks app
┃ (each targets Android, iOS, Desktop/JVM, Web/JS, and Web/Wasm; each is a thin
┃ wrapper that picks a variant and hands off to shared/'s UI)
┃
┣ 📂 androidJournalsApp/ ← Android entry point for Journals
┣ 📂 androidNotesApp/ ← Android entry point for Notes
┣ 📂 androidTasksApp/ ← Android entry point for Tasks
┃
┣ 📂 iosApp/ ← iOS Xcode projects (kept out of the repo root so
┃ ┣ 📂 iosJournalsApp/ Android Studio treats the root as a pure Gradle
┃ ┣ 📂 iosNotesApp/ project; the Kotlin Multiplatform plugin still
┃ ┣ 📂 iosTasksApp/ discovers these for iOS run configurations)
┃ ┗ 📄 spectacled.xcworkspace ← Xcode workspace combining all three iOS apps
┃
┣ 📂 server/ ← Ktor backend scaffold — currently unused template
┃ boilerplate, not required to build or run any app
┃
┗ 📂 gradle/
┗ 📄 libs.versions.toml ← ★ All dependency versions live here
Why three separate apps instead of one with a mode switch? Each is published as its own listing (its own icon, name, and store page), which matches how people actually think about journals vs. notes vs. tasks — but all three share every line of business logic and almost all of their UI, which both live in shared/. compose<Variant>App is just the per-platform entry point: it picks a variant and wires it up for Android/iOS/Desktop/Web. If you're contributing a fix, it almost always belongs in shared/.
| What you want to do | Put code here |
|---|---|
| UI screens, CalDAV sync, iCalendar parsing, database, business logic | shared/src/commonMain/kotlin/ |
| Platform-specific logic (e.g. credential storage, file access) | shared/src/<platform>Main/kotlin/ |
| Platform entry-point wiring for one app (rarely needed) | compose<Variant>App/src/commonMain/kotlin/ |
| Static web assets (favicon, index.html, the sql.js worker) | compose<Variant>App/src/webMain/resources/ |
| Android-only entry point code | android<Variant>App/src/main/kotlin/ |
| iOS-only Swift code | ios<Variant>App/ios<Variant>App/ |
| Shared strings/images (used by all 3 apps) | shared/src/commonMain/composeResources/ |
Each command below works for any of the three apps — just swap composeJournalsApp / androidJournalsApp / iosJournalsApp for the Notes or Tasks equivalent.
# Debug build
./gradlew :androidJournalsApp:assembleDebug
# APK: androidJournalsApp/build/outputs/apk/debug/
# Or just open the project in Android Studio, select an androidJournalsApp run
# configuration and a device/emulator, and click ▶️ Run.# Run directly
./gradlew :composeJournalsApp:run
# Native installers
./gradlew :composeJournalsApp:packageMsi # Windows
./gradlew :composeJournalsApp:packageDmg # macOS
./gradlew :composeJournalsApp:packageDeb # Linux
# Output: composeJournalsApp/build/compose/binaries/./gradlew :composeJournalsApp:jsBrowserDevelopmentRun
# Opens http://localhost:8080 with hot reload
# Production bundle:
./gradlew :composeJournalsApp:jsBrowserProductionWebpack./gradlew :composeJournalsApp:wasmJsBrowserDevelopmentRunRequires a recent browser (Chrome 119+, Firefox 120+, Safari 18.2+).
Requires macOS + Xcode 16+.
1. Open iosApp/spectacled.xcworkspace (or iosApp/iosJournalsApp/iosJournalsApp.xcodeproj
directly) in Xcode.
2. Select a simulator or device.
3. Click ▶️ Run.
For a physical device, set your Apple Developer Team in ios<Variant>App/Configuration/Config.xcconfig:
DEVELOPMENT_TEAM=YOUR_APPLE_TEAM_ID
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
./gradlew :shared:allTests |
Run the shared module's test suite |
./gradlew clean |
Delete all build outputs |
./gradlew --stop |
Stop all Gradle daemons (useful after a bad incremental build) |
💡 Always use
./gradlew(the wrapper), not a system-installedgradle— it pins the exact Gradle version this project needs.
Issues and pull requests are welcome — this is an open-source project and stays that way. A few starting points:
- Bug reports / feature requests: open a GitHub Issue
- Questions / discussion: GitHub Discussions
- Translations: not yet set up — planned via Crowdin or Weblate; watch this space
- Chat / updates: Mastodon handle coming soon
If you're touching CalDAV sync or iCalendar parsing, start in shared/src/commonMain/kotlin/at/techbee/spectacled/screens/core/ — that's where the platform-independent logic lives, and it's the part every app and every platform depends on.
This project is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 — see LICENSE for details.