Inspiration
It’s for the relief of knowing your idea is safe. It’s for the creativity that flows when capturing it is effortless. It’s for the organization that begins with a single, simple note.
What it does
Side panel note-taking with multiple notes support, Chrome's built-in AI summarization, and basic formatting. Focus on speed, organization, and creative AI assistance.
How we built it
Tech Stack: Chrome Extension + Vanilla JavaScript Frontend: HTML, CSS, JavaScript (no frameworks for maximum speed) Storage: Chrome's chrome.storage.local API for persistence Rich Text: Uses contenteditable for formatting instead of plain textarea Popup Interface: Standard Chrome extension popup architecture
Key Technical Choices: Went lightweight - no external dependencies Leveraged Chrome's native APIs for seamless browser integration Focused on instant load time and zero latency
The "Quick" part comes from: Minimal DOM, efficient storage calls, and avoiding unnecessary background processes.
Challenges we ran into
The core challenge wasn't any single technical bug, but an ongoing tug-of-war between our three main pillars: speed, features, and simplicity.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
Creating a Tool That Feels Invisible The extension just feels like a natural part of their browser. We're proud of designing an experience that gets out of the user's way and lets them focus purely on their thoughts
Building Something We Use Ourselves, Every Day This isn't just a project we shipped and abandoned. Quick Notes has become an integral part of our own daily workflow
A Codebase That's Lean and Maintainable We're proud of the technical decision to keep the codebase lightweight and dependency-free. It’s clean, fast, and a foundation we can build upon without the bloat that often bogs down extensions
What we learned
There are dozens, even hundreds of note-taking extensions already available. Not to mention many competitors in this contest. Freedom to the users to choose which to go with.
What's next for Side panel note-taking and AI summarization
It is an open road. The AI functions can benefit from quicker response. I may let this project rest for some time, depends on feedback from this contest.
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