Notes

Sovereign Notes is a Markdown workspace on the board. Each note is a .md file on your disk. A note enters memory through its folder: a folder linked to a vault is indexed on every save.

Opening it

Notes sits on the menu bar of a fresh install. Ctrl+3 opens it too.

The workspace lives in the notes folder of your vault root. The app creates that folder if it is missing.

The layout

The window has four parts, from left to right.

• The ribbon: a thin strip with New Note, New Folder, the import button, the three boards, and the button that folds the tree. It stays visible when the tree is folded.
• The tree: your folders and notes, with a search field on top.
• The tabs: each open note gets a tab. Split View Side-by-Side opens a second pane next to the first.
• The inspector: a side panel on the open note, with five tabs. It folds away.

A narrow window first hides the inspector, then the editor margins. The tree then becomes an overlay that the ribbon opens. The writing column keeps its room.

The tree

The search field has two modes: Title searches names only, and All text searches the whole contents. You can also filter the tree on a highlight colour.

A note row offers Rename note, Delete note, Pin note and Add to favorites. A folder offers Add note, Add subfolder, Rename folder and Delete folder. It also takes a colour, Pin folder and Add to favorites.

Deleting a note asks first. A box reads Permanently delete from disk (irreversible). Ticked, the file is deleted from disk. Unticked, the file stays on disk and the note is hidden from the tree. The tree header then shows how many items are hidden. Show again brings them back.

A button in the tree header makes the tree follow the open note. The header also says when the last refresh happened, and says so when a folder read failed.

Folders and vaults

A folder enters memory once it is linked to a vault. The folder menu offers Link folder to a vault, Detach from vault and Purge memory. Purge removes the folder's indexed passages from the vault. The files stay on disk, and linking again indexes them again.

Link an external folder adds any folder of your disk to the tree. The tree lists everything under a linked folder. A very large folder stops at a budget, and the tree says where it stopped.

Creating a note in a folder linked to no vault asks first. The dialog reads New note: which vault? and offers Create without a vault (not in memory).

Importing

Import notes (.md, .txt, .json…) copies a folder of notes into the workspace. It takes .md, .markdown, .mdx, .txt, .text, .org and .rst as they are. It wraps .json, .yaml, .yml and .csv files into a note, with the content in a code block. The summary names the formats it left behind.

Writing

The editor writes Markdown and shows it formatted. It saves on its own, a moment after you stop typing. The toolbar shows Saved, or Save error when the write failed. It then shows the time the note entered memory.

Type / to open the block menu: headings, lists, a checklist, a code block, a horizontal rule and a [[WikiLink]]. The formatting toolbar adds a table, a callout and a math block. A link to a note that does not exist offers to create it.

Highlights and remarks

Select text to highlight it in one of five colours: Yellow, Green, Blue, Pink or Purple. A highlight can carry a remark. The Marks tab of the inspector lists every highlight of the note in reading order, with its remark. A click takes you to the passage.

Removing a highlight keeps the text. It asks once, and Don't ask again skips the question from then on.

The inspector

The inspector has five tabs: Properties, Outline, Marks, Links and Resonance.

Properties holds the facts about the note:

• Vault: which vault the note goes into, through which folder. A note in no vault says so. Put in a vault… or Change vault… moves the file into a folder linked to the vault you pick.
• The classification: the note's spine, or Auto (from content) to let the engine decide. Manage edits the spine categories.
• Tags, and statistics: words, characters and reading time.
• Read aloud: reads the note with an installed voice engine.
• File Actions: Open in System Explorer, Copy Absolute Path and Export to PDF.
• Translation: translates the note. The mode either replaces the note or creates a translated copy.

Outline lists the headings. Links lists the backlinks and the outgoing wiki-links. Resonance lists the notes closest in meaning, with their similarity.

The three boards

The ribbon opens three boards as tabs.

• Spines Kanban shows every note as a card, in the column of its spine. Dragging a card sets its spine. Dropping it on the Auto column hands it back to the engine, and the card wears the auto badge.
• Conceptual Mindmap centres on the open note. The first ring is its direct connections, by resonance and by wiki-link. A click re-centres the map, and a double-click opens the note.
• Neural map draws every note as a star coloured by its spine. A click shows a preview, and a chip hides or shows a family of spines.

A note in its own window

Detach into its own window pulls the open note out of the Notes window. It becomes its own window on the board, titled with the note's name. That window is the only editor of the file while it is open. Asking the Notes window for the same note takes you to the detached one.

Wiki-links in a detached note open in the Notes app. Backlinks are not scanned there.

The note reader

A link to a .md file in a chat reply or a captured page opens the note reader. The reader shows the note and never writes it. Open in Notes hands the note to the Notes app.

A note written by the assistant can arrive with a proposed title. The reader then shows Proposed title: with Keep, Change and Dismiss.

Arrives in the next build

Notes keep the properties written by Notion or Obsidian in their header. A save writes them back as read. The reader shows them above the text, and a note made of properties only is indexed into memory.

From afar

Zoom the canvas out and the window shows three things. A bar on top names the open note. A large figure gives the age of the note written last. A row of bars shows one bar per day of writing, with the note count. A press on a note opens it and brings the camera there.