From Frustrated to "Pro": Why I Built My Own Screen Annotation Suite from Scratch

Akshay Jatin Solanki — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 12:11:26 +0000

The Breaking Point 😫
I spent two days trying to simplify an existing, over-engineered annotation tool. It was full of bugs, heavy, and limited. I realized I was spending more time fighting the code than using the tool.

So, I did what any developer does when they reach a breaking point: I abandoned the mess and wrote it from scratch.

Introducing Simpink 🎨
I wanted something better than the "standard" tools like Epic Pen. I wanted something that felt like it belonged in 2026. After a session of intense, high-performance coding, I finished Simpink.

It’s built using Electron, Vanilla JS, and Hardware-Accelerated Canvas. It’s light, it’s fast, and it looks premium.

What makes it a "Gem"? 💎
I didn't just build a "drawing" tool; I built a presentation suite:

The Highlighter Halo: A persistent cursor aura so your audience never loses your mouse during a live demo.
Pro Video Recording: Native VP9 capture at 25 Mbps, featuring a high-fidelity Pause/Resume engine. (No more OBS required!)
Glassmorphic UI: A floating, draggable toolbar that looks like a part of a modern OS.
"The Orb": A unique minimize state that stays out of your way while keeping your tools accessible.
The "Simpink" Philosophy 🚀
I stripped away the bloat and focused on performance. Everything is rendered via the GPU for zero lag. I even converted my demonstration videos to cut the file size by 90% without losing quality—I wanted the smallest possible footprint for the user.

Open Source & Free 🌍
It is licensed under MIT. It is free for anyone—personal, professional, or commercial. Use it, break it, modify it.

Check out the code and grab the standalone installer on GitHub: 👉 https://github.com/akshayai1996/Simpink

If you've ever felt the urge to start over and build something better, let me know in the comments! Simpink is proof that sometimes, the "scratch" approach is the only way to go.

What I built in the last year — Excel VBA tools, Python scripts, HTML games & more

Akshay Jatin Solanki — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 04:21:57 +0000

Hi, I'm Akshay Jatin Solanki, an engineer from India.

Over the past year I've been building small focused tools that solve real problems. Here's a summary of what I've shipped:

🎮 Browser Games (HTML/JS)

Space Shooter — canvas-based, Web Audio, mobile + PC scaling
Chrome Dino clone — custom audio engine with Web Audio API

📊 Data Dashboards

India Housing Affordability Dashboard — 115 cities with real sqft/price data

🔧 Excel VBA Add-ins

Crosshair row/column highlighter
Merged cell filter
Navigator arrows
Delimiter text functions

🐍 Python & Numerical Tools

Cubic equation solver
Numerical integration utilities

♟️ Other

Chess agent framework with Stockfish WASM in-browser

All projects are minimal-dependency or single-file.

👉 GitHub: https://github.com/akshayai1996
👉 Web projects: https://akshayai1996.github.io/Htmlfun/
👉 LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akshay-jatin-solanki/

Happy to get feedback on any of these!