Heynote – A dedicated scratchpad for developers
Hey! I made Heynote entirely for my own use case. For many years, I always had an Emacs instance running with the scratch buffer open, even long after I had abandoned Emacs as my programming editor in favor of more recent IDE:s. The simplicity of having just one big scratch buffer appeals to me, but I still want to separate the different things I jot down somehow (without using tabs or similar). Previously, my solution was to insert a bunch of blank lines between the notes, but hitting C-A would still select the entire buffer. That's why I came up with the concept of "blocks", which turned…
Heynote – A dedicated scratchpad for developers launched on December 22, 2023 with 1,063 votes, #2 of 3,780 launches that month and more than 99% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 2 years on.
In plain words
Heynote is a scratchpad application designed for developers who need a single, persistent workspace for temporary notes and code snippets. Instead of using multiple tabs or scattered files, it organizes content into "blocks" that can be easily separated and selected independently. The tool appeals to developers who value simplicity and want to keep a quick note-taking buffer always accessible, similar to a traditional editor scratch file but with better organizational structure.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
A dedicated scratchpad for developers.
At its core, Heynote is a large, persistent text buffer divided into blocks. Creating a new block is as easy as pressing ⌘ -Enter , and pressing ⌘ -A within a block selects the content of just that block. Works great for that Slack message you don't want to accidentally send, a JSON response from an API you're working with, notes from a meeting, your daily to-do list, etc. Each block can have its own Language set (e.g. JavaScript, JSON, Markdown, etc.). You get syntax highlighting and you can auto-format blocks. Heynote supports a range of different programming languages. Math blocks are calculator scratch pads that can be used for simple calculations. They also support variables, functions…from heynote.com
In the maker’s words, at launch
Hey! I made Heynote entirely for my own use case. For many years, I always had an Emacs instance running with the scratch buffer open, even long after I had abandoned Emacs as my programming editor in favor of more recent IDE:s. The simplicity of having just one big scratch buffer appeals to me, but I still want to…
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tl;dr - I built a fast and low-frills notepad which helps me keep a flow state. I spend a lot of time in the browser: in calls, managing stuff between SaaS apps, or consolidating info from multiple tabs. Usually, I'd bring up an editor and side-by-side it, or switch between my current tab and a notion tab. This extension lets you hit a hotkey and bring up a notepad in-place. It's a scratchpad for thinking in the moment - key points and questions as I'm working. If I want to hold on to the memory, I can export it to another app - if not, I'll just delete the note. It's kind of like the RAM to…
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