Clues.app

Why it's ranked here

The focused interaction model makes Clues interesting: it treats notes as spatial objects instead of rows in a list. Native controls, document saving, image drops, search, and animated connections form a coherent working app. However, the persistence and window-management code contains credible correctness risks that temper the recommendation.

What's good

The board preserves note positions, colors, rotations, completion state, images, and connection geometry. Dropped images are resized and compressed before storage. Connection strings respond to moving endpoints through a small physics simulation, giving relationships useful visual presence rather than rendering them as static lines.

Tradeoffs

It requires macOS 14 or later, and iCloud synchronization needs internet access. Each connection is attached to both endpoint notes, while document export walks every note’s connections, so a saved board can encode the same relationship twice. The application delegate’s new-window path also appears unable to retrieve the shared data container.

How to use it well

Use Clues for personal brainstorming, lightweight task mapping, or arranging reference images where spatial relationships matter. Save important canvases as .clues documents and verify reopened connections after editing. It suits interactive desktop work, but it does not provide a command-line tool, programming library, web API, or collaborative service interface.

Observed

License

MIT

Primary language

Swift

Platform

macOS 14.0 Sonoma or later

Install surface

DMG download from GitHub Releases, then drag Clues.app into Applications

Source build

Xcode project built and run with Xcode

Interface

Native macOS graphical application

Document format

Custom .clues board files encoded as JSON

Core frameworks

SwiftUI, SwiftData, AppKit, and Uniform Type Identifiers