I built a distraction-free writing app inside a CRT (Tauri 2 + CodeMirror)

ebakssa — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 18:32:52 +0000

I write a lot of long-form text — novels, essays, journals — and every editor I tried felt like an office tool. Panels, toolbars, sync popups. I wanted the opposite: sit down, screen glows, write.

So I built LofiWriter: a markdown writing app styled like an old CRT monitor.

What it does

Markdown editing in a CodeMirror editor, wrapped in a curved-glass CRT frame with scanlines
Five themes: Green Terminal, Amber, DOS Blue, Paper, and Black & Gray
A built-in "radio" — a turntable UI playing a 12-track lofi soundtrack I originally made for another project
UI in English and Korean
Manuscripts stored as plain local files — no account, no cloud

The stack

Tauri 2 for the shell — the whole installer stays small, and the same build ships to macOS and Windows
CodeMirror for editing — reliable, hackable, and easy to theme per-theme with CSS variables
The CRT itself is pure CSS: layered gradients for scanlines, a subtle barrel curve on the bezel, and phosphor-glow text shadows. The monitoring preset drives how strong the effect is, so it can be dialed from "subtle" to "1987"

Two things that bit me along the way:

Preset-driven styling. The CRT look is controlled by a monitoring preset (bezel width, scanline strength, glass curve). Early on I hand-tuned the window once and silently lost the preset — the app still "worked" but the CRT was just… a rectangle. Now the preset is the single source of truth for the effect.
macOS signing. Getting the build Developer ID signed and notarized so Gatekeeper lets it through took longer than any single feature. Worth it — "your app is damaged" is not the first impression you want. (Windows is still unsigned, so SmartScreen warns. That's next.)

Try it

The free demo is on itch.io — one manuscript, but every theme and the radio are included, so you can tell in five minutes whether writing inside a CRT is your thing or a gimmick:

https://ebakssa.itch.io/lofiwriter

Full version is $12.99, and it's currently in review for the Mac App Store.

If you write long-form, I'd honestly like to know: does an environment like this help you focus, or does the effect wear off after an hour? That answer decides where I take it next.

DEV Community: ebakssa

I built a distraction-free writing app inside a CRT (Tauri 2 + CodeMirror)

What it does

The stack

Try it