opendocs

A minimalist, modern PDF reader with AI-powered chat

A minimalist, modern PDF reader and organizer with built-in AI chat capabilities. Built with Electron, Vue 3, and Gemini AI.

✨ Features

📄 PDF Reading

• Clean, distraction-free interface - Minimalist design focused on reading
• Smooth navigation - Pan and zoom with mouse controls
• Page tracking - Automatic page detection and navigation
• Document library - Organize and access your PDFs easily
• Starred documents - Bookmark your favorites
• Search - Full-text search across all pages with result navigation

🤖 AI Chat

• Multimodal AI integration - Chat with Google's Gemini AI about your documents
• Context-aware - Add specific pages, page ranges, or the entire document as context
• Streaming responses - Real-time AI responses with markdown formatting
• Chat history - Automatically saves all conversations
• Model selection - Choose from multiple Gemini models
• Custom models - Add your own Gemini models in settings

🎨 User Experience

• Dark mode - System-aware dark theme
• Responsive design - Adapts to window size
• Glassmorphism UI - Modern, translucent design elements
• Keyboard shortcuts - Efficient navigation
• Help modal - Built-in quick guide

🛠️ Tech Stack

• Desktop Framework: Electron 38
• Frontend: Vue 3 (Composition API)
• PDF Rendering: vue-pdf-embed + PDF.js
• AI: Google Gemini API (via Vercel AI SDK)
• Icons: Lucide Vue
• Markdown: markdown-it + highlight.js
• Build Tool: Vite + electron-vite

📦 Installation

Prerequisites

• Node.js 18 or higher
• npm or pnpm

Setup

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/opendocs.git
   cd opendocs

2. Install dependencies

   npm install
   # or
   pnpm install

3. Get a Gemini API Key

   • Visit Google AI Studio
   • Create a new API key
   • You'll add this in the app's Settings later

🚀 Development

Run in development mode

npm run dev
# or
pnpm dev

This starts the Electron app with hot-reload enabled.

Project Structure

opendocs/
├── src/
│   ├── main/           # Electron main process
│   │   └── index.js    # Main entry point, IPC handlers
│   ├── preload/        # Preload scripts
│   │   └── index.js    # IPC bridge
│   └── renderer/       # Vue app (renderer process)
│       ├── src/
│       │   ├── assets/     # CSS, images
│       │   ├── components/ # Vue components
│       │   │   ├── AIChatSidebar.vue
│       │   │   ├── DocListItem.vue
│       │   │   └── ReaderToolbar.vue
│       │   ├── views/      # Main views
│       │   │   ├── LibraryView.vue
│       │   │   ├── ReaderView.vue
│       │   │   └── SettingsView.vue
│       │   ├── router/     # Vue Router
│       │   ├── App.vue
│       │   └── index.html
├── resources/          # App icons
└── package.json

🏗️ Building

Build for current platform

npm run build
# or
pnpm build

Build for specific platforms

# macOS
npm run build:mac

# Windows
npm run build:win

# Linux
npm run build:linux

Built apps will be in the dist/ folder.

📖 Usage

First Time Setup

1. Launch opendocs
2. Click settings in the bottom left
3. Enter your Gemini API key
4. (Optional) Add custom AI models

Opening PDFs

• Click open in the bottom right
• Or drag and drop a PDF into the library

Using AI Chat

1. Open a PDF
2. Click the ✨ icon in the top right
3. (Optional) Click ➕ to add context:
   • Current Page - Just the page you're viewing
   • Page Range - Specify a range (e.g., 1-10)
   • Full Document - Entire PDF
4. Type your question and press Enter

Search

1. Click the 🔍 icon in the toolbar
2. Type your search query
3. Use ← → arrows to navigate results

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Esc - Close search or modals
• ⌘/Ctrl + F - Search in document (when in reader)

🎯 Key Features Explained

AI Context System

The AI chat uses a sophisticated context management system:

• Current Page: Extracts text from the visible page
• Page Range: Allows you to specify which pages to include
• Full Document: Processes the entire PDF text

Context items appear as chips in the input area and can be removed individually.

Chat History

• Conversations are automatically saved to localStorage
• Each chat is linked to its document
• History is accessible via the 📜 icon in the chat sidebar
• You can delete individual chats

Model Management

• Default models: Gemini 2.0 Flash Lite, 1.5 Flash, 1.5 Pro
• Add custom models in Settings → Models
• Each model requires: Model Name and Model ID

🔧 Configuration

electron-builder.yml

Configure app builds for different platforms:

• App icons for macOS (.icns), Windows (.ico), Linux (.png)
• App ID, category, and bundle identifier
• Platform-specific settings

cook.config.json

Development workflow shortcuts (if using cook):

• dev - Start development server
• build - Build for macOS
• install - Install dependencies

🐛 Troubleshooting

PDF won't load

• Ensure the file path is valid
• Check browser console for errors
• Try a different PDF

AI chat not working

• Verify API key is set in Settings
• Check internet connection
• Ensure the model ID is correct

Search not finding text

• PDFs with scanned images (OCR) may not have extractable text
• Try a different PDF with native text

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes
4. Submit a pull request

📄 License

This project is open source and available under the MIT License.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• PDF.js - Mozilla's PDF rendering library
• Gemini AI - Google's multimodal AI
• Electron - Cross-platform desktop framework
• Vue.js - Progressive JavaScript framework

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Made with ❤️ for better document reading from TheAlphaOnes