alwinb / xodb

Javascript library for working with the reMarkable paper tablet

XoDB / reMarkable

Status: version 0.1.0 - work in progress.

A javascript library for navigating, reading and writing to the notebook database of the reMarkable paper tablet.

NB: This does not use the reMarkable cloud.

The library includes:

• A filesystem reader/ writer // a notebook database class.
• A simple object model for notebook pages.
• A parser and a writer for the .rm file format.
• A typesetter that converts text to lines, using the wonderful Hershey fonts.

The library can be used on a local copy of the filesystem of the reMarkable tablet (synchronised with rsync over ssh, for example). The library also works on the device itself, but that does require installing node.js on the reMarkable.
Another use case is in the web browser, to support custom-built web interfaces for the tablet. I plan on publishing more about that later.

The package is called xodb, after xochitl, which is the name of the process that presents the user interface on the reMarkable tablet.

API

XochitlDB

A XochitlDB instance represents the xochitl file-system/ notebook database with a cursor into it. The cursor is similar to the notion of a working directory, or a single selected item.

The methods that modify the database, do so relative to the cursor. The cursor always points at a single XochitlEntity, which is of one of the following object-types:

• Folder { uuid:string, metadata:object }
• Notebook { uuid:string, metadata:object, content:object }
• PDFDocument { uuid:string, metadata:object, content:object }
• EPubDocument { uuid:string, metadata:object, content:object }
• NotebookPage { uuid:string, metadata: { parent:string } }

The XochitlDB class has the following methods to navigate and manipulate XochitlDB entries.

• constructor (path: string)
• async readIndex ()
• selectMyFiles ()
• selectTrash ()
• selectFavorites ()
• selectById (uuid: string)
• selectByName (...namePath)
• selectObject (entry)
• createFolder (name, cb)
• createNotebook (name, firstPageData, cb)
• importPDF (path, cb)
• importPDFInPlace (path, cb)
• async moveTo (parentUUID: string)
• async moveToTrash ()
• emptyTrash ()

Page

A Page object represents the contents of a NotebookPage entity. Page objects are tree structures that are composed of objects of the following types:

• Page { uuid: string, layers: [ Styled | Polyline | RawLine | Rect | Text | TextBox ] }
• Styled { children: [ Styled | Polyline | RawLine | Rect | Text | TextBox ], ...styleProps }
• Polyline { data: [number] } — with data an array of even length: x1, y1, …, xn, yn.
• RawLine { pen, color, unknown1, strokeWidth, unknown2, points }
  — with points an array of tuples [x, y, speed, direction, width, pressure]
• Rect { x, y, w, h }
• Text { x, y, data: [string] }
• TextBox { x, y, w, h, data: [string] }

Page objects may be written out as .rm files. Note that this may result in a loss of information: nested style annotations are flattened; and rectangles and characters are converted to polylines.

Styled

The Polyline, RawLine, Rect, Text and TextBox objects can be wrapped in a Styled object to modify their presentation. Styled objects can also be nested to override style properties of their ancestors. Currently the following style properties are supported:

• pen
• color
• strokeWidth
• fontName
• fontSize
• lineHeight // for TextBox, WIP

License

Mozilla Public License Version 2.0