- Svelte 39%
- Go 31.9%
- TypeScript 27.9%
- Shell 0.6%
- Nix 0.6%
3673b26517Rev 91 (1.0.5) — Edit XML feature:
* CodeMirror 6 editor in the validation panel (XmlEditor.svelte) with
line numbers, fold, history, XML syntax highlight, light/dark theme.
* Apply commits user-edited XML through a strict round-trip guard
(parse → re-serialize → element-count diff) so a typo like
<autho> instead of <author> is rejected with a focused
"Unknown element <X> at line N — likely a typo" message instead
of silently destroying the document.
* One-deep Apply Undo — structuredClone of fb snapshotted pre-Apply,
restorable via an in-panel "Undo Apply" banner.
* UX polish: error banner moved out of the global header into the
panel; Done/× exit unconditionally (Wails WKWebView silently drops
window.confirm); xmlApplyError clears on editMode transitions and
Apply attempts but NOT on keystroke (context preserved while user
types the fix); xmlDirty wired into isCurrentlyDirty() so global
Cmd-Q guard catches unapplied CM6 edits.
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| .github | ||
| build | ||
| cmd/fbe | ||
| docs | ||
| frontend | ||
| internal/fb2 | ||
| packaging | ||
| scripts | ||
| testdata | ||
| .gitignore | ||
| app.go | ||
| CHANGELOG.md | ||
| CLAUDE.md | ||
| flake.lock | ||
| flake.nix | ||
| go.mod | ||
| go.sum | ||
| LICENSE | ||
| main.go | ||
| NOTICE.md | ||
| PROGRESS.md | ||
| README.md | ||
| version.go | ||
| wails.json | ||
fbe-go
A Go + Wails port of the classic FictionBook Editor (FBE) — a desktop editor for FB2 (FictionBook 2.x) documents.
Original FBE is Windows-only (C++/WTL + embedded MSHTML + MSXML). This project re-implements the core in pure Go and moves the editor surface from MSHTML contentEditable to a web-based editor (ProseMirror) hosted in a system webview via Wails v2.
Target platforms: macOS + Linux. Windows is out of scope — the original C++ FBE remains the Windows story. Platform-native components (thumbnailer, QuickLook) may use Rust or C where Go is awkward.
Project status
Feature-complete for 1.0. Phases 0–5 of the roadmap are closed:
- Editing: every FB2 structural operation (clone / merge / insert
cite / poem / table / section / epigraph / annotation / empty-line …),
inline marks, paragraph styles, and save/validate cycle — worked
through
docs/OPERATIONS.mdrow-by-row. - Round-trip fidelity: unknown FB2 elements survive the parse →
PM → serialize loop unchanged (see the "Lossless fallback invariant"
section of
CLAUDE.md). Corpus-tested on real-world files withfidelityBroken == 0as the gating invariant. - Description form: full metadata editor — title-info, src-title-info, publish-info, document-info, plus a ProseMirror-in-a-dialog rich annotation editor with the same marks as the body editor.
- Binary manager: upload / rename / delete / cover-badge, with
inline
<image>rendering in the editor body. - Search / Replace:
Cmd-F/Cmd-Hinline bar with regex, case-sensitivity, whole-word (Unicode-aware), and follow-active-match scrolling. - Configurable hotkeys: Settings → Shortcuts tab, per-action keystroke capture, conflict detection, reset-to-defaults. Bindings are stored in the standard OS config file and migrate forward automatically when new actions are added.
- Platform polish: code-signed + notarized macOS universal DMG
(arm64 + x86_64); Linux x86_64 AppImage with
.desktop, GNOME thumbnailer, and shared-MIME registration; native-webview spellcheck per document<lang>. - Auto-update notify: in-app banner surfaces newer GitHub Releases; one-click opens the Release page in the OS browser.
- HTML export: Go text/template renderer (
internal/fb2/export/html). - XSD validation: read-only XML-source panel with clickable
line-highlighted errors; libxml2 via
-tags xsd.
Not shipping in 1.0 — each documented with rationale in
docs/PHASES.md:
- Windows — explicitly out of scope. The C++ FBE remains the Windows story.
- Scripts compatibility (FBE's
.jsmacro surface) — deferred post-1.0. Hundreds of user-authored macros make this a separate-project-scale effort; revisit on concrete user demand. - Hunspell CGo speller — native webview spellcheck handles
dictionaries on both platforms; CGo path is stubbed behind
-tags speller_hunspellfor a future opt-in build. - QuickLook
.appexpreview extension — deferred pending hardware refresh. - Linux arm64 — deferred; GitHub's hosted runners are x86_64-only.
See PROGRESS.md for the per-revision development log, CHANGELOG.md
for the user-facing release history, docs/PHASES.md for the roadmap,
and docs/OPERATIONS.md for the full list of FB2 operations and their
ProseMirror equivalents.
Linux runtime requirements (AppImage users)
The Linux AppImage does not bundle WebKit — it uses the system
copy. Install your distro's webkit2gtk-4.1 package before launching:
| Distro | Package |
|---|---|
| Fedora / RHEL | webkit2gtk4.1 |
| Debian / Ubuntu | libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 |
| Arch / Manjaro | webkit2gtk-4.1 |
| openSUSE | libwebkit2gtk-4_1-0 |
| NixOS | enable programs.nix-ld or run via appimage-run / steam-run |
Why: WebKit forks helper processes (WebKitNetworkProcess,
WebKitWebProcess) from a path baked into libwebkit2gtk at compile
time, with no runtime override. A bundled libwebkit built on Ubuntu
crashes on every other distro. The system libwebkit always knows where
its own helpers live, so this is the only portable approach. Same
trade-off Tauri and most GTK-WebKit AppImages make.
Prerequisites
- Go 1.25+
- Node 20+ (for the frontend)
- Wails v2 CLI:
go install github.com/wailsapp/wails/v2/cmd/wails@latest - macOS: Xcode Command Line Tools (
xcode-select --install) - Linux:
libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev,libgtk-3-dev - For XSD validation (
-tags xsd):libxml2(macOS: bundled in CLT; Linux:libxml2-dev) - For spellcheck:
hunspell+ dictionaries (CGo path, future)
Nix / NixOS
A flake.nix provides a cross-platform dev shell (Linux + macOS) with Go 1.25, Node 22, and all native deps wired up. Wails CLI is auto-installed into $GOPATH/bin on first entry:
nix develop # enter shell
wails build -tags 'xsd webkit2_41' # or: wails dev -tags webkit2_41
webkit2_41 selects the webkit2gtk-4.1 ABI (default is still 4.0, not in modern nixpkgs). The tag is a no-op on macOS.
Works on x86_64-linux, aarch64-linux, x86_64-darwin, aarch64-darwin.
Layout
cmd/fbe/ — CLI (replaces FBV validator and covers batch ops)
internal/fb2/ — core library (parse/write/validate/zip/binary/thumb/search)
frontend/ — TypeScript + Svelte + ProseMirror editor surface
docs/ — architecture, operations catalog, roadmap
testdata/ — sample .fb2 files
build/ — Wails build artifacts (gitignored)
Build
# CLI (works standalone — validate, repack, extract thumbnail)
go build -o build/fbe ./cmd/fbe
# Desktop app (requires Wails CLI)
wails dev # hot-reload dev mode
wails build # production bundle
Docs
docs/ARCHITECTURE.md— module map, how pieces fit togetherdocs/OPERATIONS.md— every FB2 editing operation from original FBE + its ProseMirror equivalentdocs/PHASES.md— implementation phases and estimates
Related projects
- sopds-go — self-hosted OPDS catalog server. Same author, same FB2 ecosystem, complementary role: fbe-go edits books; sopds-go serves them. PostgreSQL-backed library scanner with FB2 → EPUB/MOBI conversion and optional GPU-accelerated TTS. Edit metadata in fbe-go, then point sopds-go at the directory and read them on any OPDS-capable e-reader app (Moon+ Reader, FBReader, Calibre).
License
Released under the MIT License — see LICENSE for the full text. Third-party components bundled or depended on are listed with their own licenses and attribution notices in NOTICE.md.
Legacy & acknowledgements
fbe-go is an independent rewrite, not a code-level port. The editor
surface moved from MSHTML contentEditable to a ProseMirror view, the
XML layer from MSXML to Go's encoding/xml + libxml2 for validation,
and the host from C++/WTL to Go + Wails. No source from the original
project was reused.
Thanks to:
- Dmitry Gribov — the FictionBook 2.0 specification and XSD schemas (2004, BSD). Those schemas ship inside every fbe-go binary and are the ground truth the validator checks against.
- evpobr and the
classic FBE maintainers — their Windows-only FBE defined the
operations catalog (clone / merge / insert cite / poem / table / …)
that
docs/OPERATIONS.mdcross-references. Their UX is why fbe-go has the shape it has. - Wails v2 (Lea Anthony et al.) — Go desktop framework, why this app can ship macOS+Linux from one codebase.
- ProseMirror (Marijn Haverbeke et al.) — the editor framework; FB2's mixed-content model fits its schema system almost perfectly.
- libxml2 (Daniel Veillard)
and lestrrat-go/libxml2
(Daisuke Maki) — XSD validation we rely on in
-tags xsdbuilds. - Every upstream listed in NOTICE.md.