Memex

• Contributors: akirk
• Tags: notes, note-taking, backlinks, wiki, wp-app
• Requires at least: 6.0
• Requires PHP: 7.4
• Tested up to: 7.1
• Stable tag: 1.0.0
• License: GPL-2.0-or-later
• License URI: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html

Turn WordPress into a note-taking app: wiki-style links between notes, automatic backlinks, daily notes, tags, reminders and Markdown import.

Description

Memex turns WordPress into a note-taking app. Notes live as a custom post type, so you keep WordPress revisions, search, the media library and permissions — but authoring happens in a dedicated note-taking UI mounted at /memex/, not in wp-admin.

Notes are private by default: the note post type is registered as non-public and every screen of the app requires a logged-in user with the right capability.

Try Memex in WordPress Playground · Try it with demo data

Try it in OpenStation — the same app opened in desktop mode with the OpenStation plugin.

Highlights

• Wiki-style links. Type [[ in the Memex editor to link notes. Matching note titles are suggested inline, and missing targets become stub notes.
• Automatic backlinks. Every note has a backlinks panel showing what links to it. Forward links are tracked too.
• Daily notes. /memex/daily opens today's note with a wide capture field below its entries; if no note exists yet, the first capture creates it. Daily notes are automatically tagged daily; click the daily badge to browse them. Each daily note shows a monthly calendar linking to other daily notes. Quick-capture appends a timestamped paragraph from anywhere in the app.
• Offline capture. Install Memex as a PWA and save notes or daily entries without a connection. Local drafts and pending entries survive closing the app; entries sync when Memex is open and online again. The Offline & sync panel shows readiness, pending text, errors and the last successful sync.
• Tags. A note tag taxonomy with a per-tag listing at /memex/tag/{slug}.
• Reminders. Create reminders at /memex/reminders; the plugin schedules a 5-minute cron and emails you when one is due.
• Graph, orphans, broken links. Built-in views for navigating the link structure of your notes.
• Importers. Bring notes in from generic Markdown vaults, Notion (HTML/Markdown export), Evernote (.enex), Roam Research (JSON) and Thinkery (XML/JSON). [[Wiki-Links]] from those sources stay editable; missing targets become stub notes so links resolve.
• Export. Download all notes as a ZIP of Markdown files with YAML frontmatter — it opens as a Markdown vault and re-imports into Memex. Single notes download as .md from their page.
• Login required. The app and the notes it stores are private by default.

Routes

URL	What it does
/memex/	All notes
/memex/note/{slug}	View a note
/memex/edit/{slug}	Edit the note in Memex
/memex/new	Create a note
/memex/daily · /memex/daily/{date}	Daily note for today (or a given date)
/memex/search	Full-text search
/memex/graph	Link graph
/memex/backlinks/{slug}	What links to this note
/memex/tag/{slug}	Notes tagged with {slug}
/memex/orphans	Notes with no inbound or outbound links
/memex/broken	Stub notes referenced by links but never written
/memex/reminders	Pending and past reminders
/memex/import	Upload an export from another tool
/memex/export	Download all notes as a Markdown ZIP
/memex/capture	Offline-capable new notes and daily entries
/memex/quick-capture	One-line append to today's daily note

Offline capture

Open /memex/capture online once and wait for Offline & sync → Offline capture to say Ready. You can then install Memex using your browser's install or Add to Home Screen action and reopen the capture screen without a connection. HTTPS (or localhost) and service worker support are required.

Choose Daily entry to append text with its original capture date and time in the site's timezone, or New note to save Markdown as a draft. Existing quick-capture fields also use the durable queue. The regular note editor still requires a connection.

Drafts and pending entries live in IndexedDB, separated by site and account. The queue removes an entry only after the server acknowledges its unique ID. Retries do not duplicate entries, and expired sessions or a different signed-in account leave the queue intact. Keep Memex open to sync; returning to the app, reconnecting, and Sync now retry pending entries. Sync while the app is closed is not guaranteed.

Only the empty capture screen and its assets are cached, rather than private note pages. The panel lets you inspect pending text and open the last synced note. Browser storage can be cleared or evicted; do not clear site data while entries are pending.

Storage model

• Notes: a hierarchical memex_note custom post type with title, editor, excerpt, revisions, author, page-attributes and custom-fields support.
• Tags: a memex_tag taxonomy.
• Forward links: _memex_links_to post meta — one row per target post ID. Backlinks come from a single meta_query on this key.
• Daily-note marker: _memex_daily post meta (YYYY-MM-DD).
• Stub flag: _memex_stub (1 if the note was auto-created by an unresolved link).
• Reminders: a memex_reminder post type — post_status is publish while pending, private once done; the due time lives in _memex_due_at (UTC).

The link layer recognizes [[Note Title]], [[Note Title|display text]] and internal HTML anchors. On save, the plugin extracts those targets and rewrites the _memex_links_to rows. At display time, wiki links and internal anchors get a .memex-link class (and .memex-link-stub if the target is a stub) so they pick up app styling.

No custom database tables are created. Removing the plugin leaves a plain WordPress behind.

Development notes

• Memex boots on init:5 so post types and routes register before WordPress's init:10 and the text domain is available (WP 6.7+).
• Routes, the masterbar menu and access control are provided by akirk/wp-app. See its README for routing and template details.
• Server tests: composer test. Browser integration tests: install Playwright and its Chromium browser, then run node --test tests/OfflineCaptureTest.cjs.
• Templates live in templates/; assets (CSS/JS, including the in-app [[ autocomplete) live in assets/.

Development happens on GitHub. Pull requests welcome.

Installation

1. Upload the memex directory to /wp-content/plugins/, or install the plugin through the WordPress plugin installer.
2. Activate Memex through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress. Activation registers the note post type, schedules the reminder cron and flushes the rewrite rules.
3. Open /memex/ while logged in.

When working from a Git checkout instead of a release ZIP, install the Composer dependencies first:

cd wp-content/plugins/memex
composer install

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this create custom database tables?

No. Notes are a custom post type, tags are a taxonomy, and links are stored in post meta. Everything is standard WordPress.

Are my notes public?

No. The note post type is registered as non-public and every route of the app requires a logged-in user who may edit posts, so notes are not part of the site's front end, feeds or search results.

Which formats can I import?

/memex/import accepts:

• Markdown — .md, .markdown, .txt, or a .zip of a folder of Markdown files
• Notion — the HTML or Markdown .zip export
• Evernote — .enex
• Roam Research — .json
• Thinkery — the .xml or .json export

Auto-detect sniffs the file extension and content; you can also force a specific importer.

What happens with a large export?

Large files are imported in chunks: the upload creates a job, and the page then calls the server repeatedly, each call doing about five seconds of work and reporting progress. Closing the tab or hitting a PHP timeout leaves the job resumable — reopen /memex/import to resume or discard it. Abandoned jobs are swept daily.

How do I get my notes back out?

/memex/export downloads a ZIP with one .md file per note (stubs are skipped). Each file starts with YAML frontmatter — title, created, updated, plus tags, aliases, daily and status when set — followed by the note body in the same Markdown the in-app editor uses, so links appear as [[Note Title]]. Child notes are placed in a folder named after their parent. The archive can be imported back through the Markdown importer.

What happens to a link whose note does not exist yet?

It creates a stub note, so the link resolves and the missing note shows up under /memex/broken until you write it.

Screenshots

1. A note in the Memex app, with the note tree, the note body and its backlinks.
2. A note on a phone, with the note tree behind the menu button and the task list still editable in place.

Changelog

0.1.0

• First release: notes as a custom post type with wiki-style [[links]], automatic backlinks, daily notes, quick capture, tags, reminders, search, a link graph, orphan and broken-link views, chunked importers for Markdown, Notion, Evernote, Roam Research and Thinkery exports, and Markdown ZIP export.