Building Veyhe – A One-Night Todo App
Sometimes the best apps are born out of frustration with what already exists.
The other night, I just wanted to jot down a few todos. Nothing fancy, nothing bloated. I opened up Sticky Notes, one of my favorite little apps for quick thoughts. But here’s the catch: Sticky Notes doesn’t have checkboxes. Which means using it for todos feels… incomplete.
That tiny annoyance was enough to spark something: why not just build my own simple todo app?
Why Go?
I’ve always wanted to build something with Go, but never found the right small project to dive in with. This was the perfect excuse. Instead of overthinking the stack, I just went with Go and started hacking.
The goal: keep it minimal.
- Todos should look and feel like sticky notes.
- Checkboxes must be there (because that’s what was missing).
- Keep persistence dead simple: just save to a JSON file.
That’s it. No databases, no accounts, no cloud sync. Just pure, lightweight todo-taking.
UI: From Fyne → MAUI → Wails
For the UI, I first tried Fyne. But OpenGL errors popped up almost instantly. I wasn’t in the mood to fight graphics drivers when the idea was still fresh.
So, mid-way, I thought: “Why not MAUI?” After all, C# is my main stack and MAUI is a solid cross-platform option. I even started downloading it.
But then I realized, this was meant to be a Go project. I wanted it fast, simple, and lightweight. That’s when I pivoted to Wails, and honestly… it just worked. No fuss, no heavy setup, just a straightforward way to ship a desktop UI with Go.
Meet Veyhe
I called it Veyhe (means you can do it in Addu dialect of Dhivehi).
It’s a small, bright yellow todo app for desktop.
You type in a todo, hit Add, and there it is.
Check it off when you’re done, clear it when you want.
That’s the whole thing.
Reflections
This was a one-night build but honestly, that made it more fun. No pressure, no feature creep, just a pure focus on solving my problem.
I think sometimes we overcomplicate productivity. For me, Veyhe is the reminder that tools don’t have to be bloated. They just have to work.
And for now, this little Go + Wails powered sticky-note style todo app works perfectly.
P.S. The original yellow I used for the app was a bit harsh on the eyes. My wife suggested switching it to a butter yellow and she was absolutely right (as ALWAYS).
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