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Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/ryanallen/leaftext/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

leaftext saves your preferences locally — no account, no cloud sync. Settings are stored as JSON files in the OS-standard config directory and loaded on each launch. The WebView shell’s opaque origin makes localStorage non-durable across restarts, so the Rust host owns all persistence and injects the saved values as a window.__leafSettings global before any page script runs.

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Opening Settings

Click Settings in the app bar (the sliders icon, top right). The panel opens as a dropdown below the icon. Press Escape or click anywhere outside the panel to close it. Every change takes effect immediately.

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Available settings

SettingOptionsDefaultDescription
ThemeSystem, Light, Dark, DraculaSystemVisual color scheme. System follows the OS light/dark preference automatically.
LanguageSystem, English, 简体中文SystemUI language. System resolves zh* OS locales to Simplified Chinese; all other locales fall back to English.
MinimapOn / OffOnShow or hide the document minimap side rail. Off switches the reader to a centred single-column layout.
IndexingOn / OffOffEnable or disable background Markdown file crawl across the device. Manually opened files are always added to the library regardless of this setting.
Library viewProject, Tree, FlatProjectWhich layout the library pane uses. Project drills into folders one level at a time; Tree shows an expandable hierarchy; Flat lists all indexed files alphabetically.

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Storage locations

All storage is local to your machine and follows the OS standard directories.
FilePurpose
{config_dir}/leaftext/settings.jsonTheme, language, minimap visibility, library layout, indexing toggle
{config_dir}/leaftext/recent-files.jsonLast 8 opened file paths
{local_data_dir}/leaftext/manifest.dbLibrary index (SQLite)
%LOCALAPPDATA%\ryanallen\leaftext\data\webview2WebView2 browser data (Windows only)
The settings file is written on every change. The shape leaftext persists is: 
{
  "indexing_enabled": true,
  "minimap_enabled": true,
  "theme_mode": "system",
  "library_view": "tree",
  "library_expanded": [],
  "library_project_path": "",
  "library_closed": false,
  "library_width": 260
}
The file uses #[serde(default)] on the Settings struct, so any field that is missing when the file is read (for example, after an upgrade adds a new preference) falls back to its default value rather than failing to load.

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Recent files

The last 8 opened files are shown on the no-file home screen so you can reopen them with a single click. They are stored in recent-files.json as a JSON array of absolute paths: 
{
  "files": [
    "/Users/alice/projects/api/README.md",
    "/Users/alice/notes/daily.md"
  ]
}
When a file can no longer be opened (deleted or moved), leaftext removes it from the recent list automatically and saves the updated list, so the same error cannot recur. Path spellings are normalized on load — two entries that resolve to the same file (for example app/README.md and app/.tmp/../README.md) are collapsed to one, preserving the most recently seen spelling.

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Localization

The language setting controls all UI copy: button labels, settings descriptions, empty-state text, and aria labels. The app ships English and Simplified Chinese; both translation dictionaries are embedded in the WebView shell and applied without a network request. System language mode uses navigator.languages to detect the OS locale at runtime. Locales starting with zh resolve to Simplified Chinese (zh-CN); all other locales fall back to English. The selection is applied immediately without restart — a locale subscription in the app shell re-renders all static text and the current document state as soon as the mode changes.
On macOS, config_dir is ~/Library/Application Support. On Windows it is %APPDATA%. On Linux it follows the XDG base directory spec ($XDG_CONFIG_HOME, defaulting to ~/.config). local_data_dir on Windows is %LOCALAPPDATA%; on macOS it is the same as config_dir; on Linux it follows $XDG_DATA_HOME (defaulting to ~/.local/share).

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