Browsing Mental Notes

The list mode is useful if your notes are completely textual. You can edit the text in this mode without going into the full note editor, but any formatting is lost when you do this. You should only edit in the list if your notes do not need formatting (eg. italic, bold, superscript).

You cannot edit directly in the card-based viewing modes, but you can easily rearrange your notes by selecting and dragging them. You can’t drag notes in the list mode.

To select the note viewing mode:
  1. Bring up the note browser.
  2. Click on one of the segments in the control at the top-left of the browser.
To edit plain text content of notes in list mode:
  1. Click once to select a row.
  2. Click again on one of the facets to edit its content (plain text only).
  3. Press tab to move to the next facet or note. Pressing tab on the last row will create a new note.
  4. When editing the tags of a note, use a comma to delimit each tag.
To flip through notes in the stacked view mode:
  1. Click on a single note to expose it.
  2. Use a scrolling swipe to flip over cards, like you are physically hooking them with your finger. With a trackpad, the scrolling swipe is with two fingers; for a magic mouse it is a one finger swipe; and for a standard mouse, use the scroll wheel.
  3. Click and drag across notes to skim through them one at a time.
  4. If you have a trackpad, you can use your dragging gesture to skim through the notes. This is the gesture you use to drag files in Finder. Many people use the option to tap twice, and hold down the second tap, before dragging. Another common option is to use three fingers for dragging. You can change this setting in the System Preferences under Trackpad.
  5. You can return all flipped and exposed notes to the standard upright position by clicking on the browser background.
To see other facets in the stacked view mode:
  1. With the note exposed, click it to select, and then click it again to flap up the front facet, or…
  2. With the note exposed, use a scrolling gesture to the right (e.g. two finger swipe on a trackpad) over the note, or…
  3. Select the note by clicking it, and choose Cycle Through Facets from the Notes menu.
To navigate with the keyboard in the stacked view mode:
  1. Press the Tab key until the browser is selected, and press the right arrow key to select the first note.
  2. Use the arrow keys to move around. Hold down Shift if you want to expose each note as you navigate.
  3. Press return to expose the selected note in stacked mode, and press it again to edit it. You can also hold down Shift while pressing return to immediately jump to editing mode.
  4. To flap up the front facet of the selected note, press the / key.

See also

Organization Topics
Selecting Mental Notes
Navigating in Note Editing Mode