Works

A desktop application for managing creative writing submissions, built with Wails, Go, React, and TypeScript.

Overview

Works helps writers track their creative work (poems, stories, essays) and manage submissions to literary journals. It replaces a legacy FileMaker Pro database with a modern, cross-platform desktop app.

Features

• Works Management: Create, edit, and organize creative works with metadata (title, type, year, quality, status)
• Organizations: Track literary journals, magazines, and publishers with URLs and Duotrope integration
• Submissions: Log and monitor submission history between works and organizations
• Collections: Group works into collections (both status-based and manual)
• Notes: Attach notes to works and organizations with timestamps
• File Management:
  • Auto-generate file paths based on work metadata
  • PDF preview generation using LibreOffice
  • Open documents in default editor
  • Print documents
  • Export submission packages
• Search: Full-text search across works and organizations (⌘K)
  • Metadata search: Search titles, notes, and fields
  • Content search: Search inside DOCX and Markdown files (requires building index)
• Backup/Restore: Automatic backups with manual restore capability (⌘⇧B)
• Settings: Configurable folder paths and LibreOffice location
• First-Run Wizard: Guided setup for new installations

Full-Text Content Search

The app can index and search the content of your DOCX and Markdown files:

1. Go to Settings → Search tab
2. Click Build Index to extract text from all documents
3. Use ⌘K and click the database icon to switch to content search

The index is stored separately in ~/.works/fulltext.db and can be rebuilt at any time.

Tech Stack

• Backend: Go 1.24+ with SQLite (modernc.org/sqlite - pure Go, no CGO)
• Frontend: React 18 + TypeScript 5 + Mantine 8.3
• Framework: Wails v2
• Package Manager: Yarn

Keyboard Shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
⌘K	Open search
⌘⇧B	Open backup/restore
⌘1	Go to Works
⌘2	Go to Organizations
⌘3	Go to Submissions
⌘4	Go to Collections

Development

Prerequisites

• Go 1.24+
• Node.js 18+
• Yarn
• Wails CLI (go install github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/cmd/wails@latest)
• LibreOffice (optional, for PDF generation)

Live Development

cd /path/to/works
wails dev

This runs a Vite dev server with hot reload. The Go backend is available at http://localhost:34115.

Building

wails build

Creates a redistributable production package in build/bin/.

After Go Changes

Regenerate TypeScript bindings:

wails generate module

Project Structure

works/
├── app_*.go          # Wails bindings (frontend-callable functions)
├── main.go           # App entry point
├── internal/
│   ├── db/           # Database operations
│   ├── models/       # Data models
│   ├── fileops/      # File operations
│   ├── backup/       # Backup management
│   ├── settings/     # Settings persistence
│   └── state/        # App state persistence
├── frontend/
│   └── src/
│       ├── components/  # React components
│       ├── pages/       # Page components
│       └── hooks/       # Custom hooks
├── design/           # Specification documents
└── ai/               # AI agent instructions

Data Storage

All data is stored in ~/.works/:

• works.db - SQLite database (main data)
• fulltext.db - SQLite FTS5 database (content search index)
• config.json - Settings
• state.json - UI state persistence
• backups/ - Automatic backups
• previews/ - Generated PDF previews

License

See LICENSE file.