A vault is a folder
Open any folder as a vault. Fernanda adds one hidden folder for its settings and leaves the rest alone, so your chapters stay ordinary files that any other program can open.
Fernanda
A plain-text writing app for fiction, poetry, and long projects
Obsidian-style vaults. Your files stay plain text, on disk.
I'm a writer, and Fernanda is the writing app I've wanted for myself.
Its design is based on Obsidian, where a vault is just a folder on your computer. But Fernanda is meant for writing projects (novels, poetry, collections), and everything you write stays in plain-text files you own and can open in any editor.
Built around your files
Nothing to save
There's no Save command and no unsaved state. Every file exists on disk from the moment it's created, and changes are written as you type. If a save ever fails, the window won't close until it's dealt with.
Written back exactly as it was read
Line endings, byte order marks, no-break spaces, and other special characters are kept as they were. Open a manuscript, fix a typo, and the only change on disk is the typo.
A Common Vault for every project
Templates, notes, and research you want in reach whatever you're working on live in one shared vault, shown in a drawer under each project's own files. Open the same note in two windows and it stays in sync as you type.
Git, built in
For a vault in a Git repository: see what's changed, with each changed word marked, then commit, discard, switch and make branches, and sync, much as GitHub Desktop does. It uses the Git on your computer, and reaches the remote only when you click.
Works alongside everything else
Edit a file in another program, pull it with Git, or let a sync client update it, and it reloads in place as a single undo step. Many files changing at once are handled together.
And the everyday things
- Tabs, split panes, and pop-out windows. The same file can be open in any number of them, in sync, with one undo history.
- Go to File (Ctrl+O) and a file tree with drag-and-drop moves and delete-to-trash.
- Find and replace, with match case and whole word.
- Spellcheck as you write, with suggestions and a dictionary of your own words for each vault. US English is bundled, and other Hunspell dictionaries can be added.
- A focus timer for writing in focus periods, with a short break after each and a longer one after several.
- PDFs and images open read-only beside your text.
- Typing helpers that pair brackets and quotes, and let you step past a closing one with a second space.
- A word counter, bundled fonts for prose, and settings kept per vault.
- English and Spanish, with Spanish still a draft.
The full list is in Features.md, and what's planned is in Future.md.
Coming from Obsidian?
Vaults, tabs, splits, Go to File, and the settings will feel familiar. Where Fernanda differs, it's mostly because it's built for long-form prose in plain text.
.txtis a first-class file type and the default for new files. Obsidian doesn't open.txtat all.- Vaults can share files. Every window shows the Common Vault under its own files. In Obsidian, that takes the symlinks its help advises against.
- Your files come back exactly as they went in. Obsidian rewrites line endings to LF.
- A failed save stops the window from closing. Obsidian shows a notice and closes.
- Bold and italic for the text font, since there's no Markdown styling to carry emphasis, and a margin setting in place of "Readable line length."
- Git is built in. In Obsidian, it takes the community plugin Obsidian Git.
There's more in Differences from Obsidian.
Native, private, and free
A native app
Built in C++ with Qt, not Electron: a desktop program, not a web page in a window.
Your writing stays with you
Fernanda never sends your writing anywhere on its own. The only thing it sends unasked is an update check to GitHub, which you can turn off. The privacy statement has the details.
Free and open source
Under the GPL 3. The code, the docs, and the plans are all on GitHub.
Download
Get the latest build for Windows, macOS, or Linux. Each release's notes cover installing, updating, and uninstalling, and Fernanda tells you when a newer version is out.
Fernanda hasn't reached 1.0 yet. Keep regular backups of your work.
The builds are unsigned, so Windows and macOS will warn you the first time you run one. The macOS and Linux builds aren't well tested yet. Fernanda edits plain text: Markdown and Fountain files open as the text they are, with no rendering for now, and there are no links, tags, or metadata.