————————————————————————————┐ Jaydon Taylor | Leeds, UK | Home Skills Blog | ————————————————————————————┘
When you have an ESC/POS receipt printer sitting on your desk collecting dust, the obvious question becomes: how can I actually use this thing? That's exactly what led me to build EscNotes — an open-source macOS app that transforms simple notes into printed receipts. What started as a weekend project to breathe life into old hardware has become an unexpectedly effective productivity tool.
About six months ago, I was working on a proof-of-concept for a local deli interested in adding self-service online and in-store ordering. As a Shopify developer, I naturally suggested building their system on Shopify's platform. With a free weekend and an old ESC/POS printer gathering dust, I created an end-to-end solution where customers could customize their sandwiches online, and orders would automatically print in the kitchen via WebSockets and a desktop app.
The deli ultimately passed on the project (they still don't have an online presence), but I was left with functioning printer code and a nagging feeling that this hardware could serve a better purpose.
Fast-forward to recent weeks. Work has been intense with a new client and a particularly complex project involving multiple moving parts. I found myself using Postman to manually print receipts for tasks and reminders — and discovered something interesting: physical notes demand more attention than digital ones.
There's something about holding a printed task that makes it feel more real, more urgent. Small productivity wins like this are always worth pursuing, especially when they emerge from repurposing existing tools.
Rather than continue with my makeshift CLI solution, I decided to build something more polished. Over a weekend, I used Tauri with TypeScript, React, and shadcn/ui (styled with Tailwind) to create a simple app that lives in my dock. Now I can instantly convert any digital note into a physical receipt.
The tech stack choice was deliberate: Tauri provides the perfect balance of web technologies with native performance, while the React ecosystem offers the UI components and styling tools needed for a clean, functional interface.
Here's where things get frustrating. I'd love to distribute EscNotes through the Mac App Store, but Apple's £79 annual developer fee for independent creators is unreasonable. I understand charging for App Store listings, but requiring payment just to share open-source software without forcing users to compile it themselves feels like corporate greed — the kind I refuse to support with my wallet.
Instead, EscNotes is freely available on GitHub. If you have a receipt printer collecting dust or you're curious about turning digital notes into physical reminders, you can find the complete source code here.