← Contents
The sidebar shows one folder at a time: its .md, .markdown and .pdf
files by name, then the folders under it that have any. Click a folder to go
into it, and the path above the list to come back out. It skips
dot-directories and node_modules, and remembers the folder you were in.
Typing in Filter… searches every folder at once, as one flat list with
each file’s folder beside it.
In place of the path, which it isn’t in, it says what it found, as “walk” · 3 files, and its × clears the filter, back to the folder you were in.
Open a file from what it found, and the × goes back to that file’s folder instead.
☰ (⌘\) shows and hides the list.
In Work, or on a narrow screen, it comes over the page, and pressing ☰ again, picking a file, or clicking away closes it, still in Work.
New, the page with a plus beside Filter…, creates an empty file in the
folder you’re in, named untitled.md unless you give it another name. If you
name a file that already exists, it’s opened instead. To begin a series of dated
files, name the first one with its date, and Start today’s
makes the rest. PDFs open read-only in the left pane.
The Today button, in the top bar, lists the files dated today in the file list, from every folder under the one reader was opened on, so that a daily file is one click away without knowing where it lives.
They’re listed as a search lists them, each with its folder, and typing in Filter… narrows them further.
In place of the path above the list it says what it found, as Today · 1 file, 2 to start, or with a filter typed Today · “walk” · 1 file.
A workbook opens from there in Work, as it does from anywhere.
Under them, Start today’s lists the folders of dated files with none for today yet, so a morning’s series can be seen without going into each folder: each by its folder, with the file it would start from. Click one to start it there: its file is made, listed with today’s, and Today stays, as does the file you have open, so you can go on to the next. Only a folder whose latest is from the last three days is listed; one left longer still offers Start today’s beside New once you’re in it.
With nothing dated today and nothing to start, the list says so.
The button stays pressed while they’re showing.
Pressing it again, ←, or the × at the end of what it found goes back to the folder you were in, the filter cleared, or to the folder of the file you opened from it.
If the list is closed, the button opens it; in Work, or on a narrow screen, it comes over the page, and picking a file or clicking away closes it, still in Work.
A file’s date is the date: in its front matter:
---
title: To do
date: 2026-11-03
---
Without one, it’s a YYYY-MM-DD in the file’s own name, as in journal/2026-11-03.md.
If there are several, the last counts.
The folders it’s in don’t date it, so 2026/11/03/notes.md and 2026-11-03/notes.md have no date unless they say so.
Something that isn’t a date, like 2026-13-45 or date: soon, doesn’t count, so a date: soon leaves the file dated by its name.
The date is the server’s, in its own time zone.
A day starts at midnight, unless you start reader with --day-starts.
With reader --day-starts 04:00, Today still lists yesterday’s files until 04:00, so a journal written at 1am goes in the day it belongs to.
A folder with a dated file in it offers Start today’s: a calendar with a plus, beside New, for the folder you’re in. Its tooltip says what it’s from, or a long press does on a touch screen. In a folder with no dated file, under Today, or in a file’s versions, it’s there but gray. It makes today’s file from the folder’s latest, with the same headings and labels, every answer on every page cleared, as Start over clears them, and opens it, and Today lists it.
journal/2026-11-02.md the latest
journal/2026-11-03.md started from it
date: wins over the name; not by when it was last changed. A date still to come is skipped.
A version, like 2026-11-02.draft.md, isn’t counted.--day-starts, as Today does.log-2026-11-02.md starts log-2026-11-03.md.date: in the front matter is set to today, if there is one, and a time after it stays.open-until: keeps its distance from the file’s date: a file dated 27 October, open until 28 October at 04:00, started on 3 November is open until 4 November at 04:00.
Nothing else in the front matter changes.Puzzles go back to their start, as Start over puts them. A date in a sentence and a definition stay as they were left.
Make a copy, the icon of two pages in the top bar beside ⧉, copies the open file to a file of its own and opens it, to carry on in with no thought of folding it back in, as a version is. Beside it, Copy for today, a calendar with a sheet behind it, makes today’s from it. They’re there in Edit and in Work alike, so they’re how a workbook open in Work, with the file list out of sight, is copied. Where one doesn’t apply it’s gray, and its tooltip, or a finger held on it, says why: with no file open, or a PDF, both are; Copy for today is too on a file with no date, or one dated today.
-copy on it: notes.md is copied as notes-copy.md, then notes-copy-2.md, and copying notes-copy.md makes notes-copy-2.md too.2026-10-30.md is 2026-10-30-copy.md, as it was.
To start again with the answers cleared, it’s Copy for today, or Start over in a copy that’s still open.date: set to today, its open-until: keeping its distance, and its answers cleared, from Edit too.
So a file from long ago, or one in a folder of its own, is started again today.date: keeps its name, with -copy on it, and today’s date:.2026-11-03-copy.md beside it.The › at the end of the open file’s row (or → on it) goes one level
further in, to the file’s outline. The path above the list, or ←, comes back
out to the files.
--- between parts, as a day of talks taken down in one file has,
each part is an entry, named by its first heading, or by its first line
when it has none. Its # to ### headings are under it.---, the outline is the # to ### headings, nested.type: slides in its front matter; see
Work and present), each slide is an entry, named by its title, and the headings in a
slide aren’t listed. A slide that holds only a # heading starts a
section, and the slides after it, up to the next one, are under it.Click an entry to go there: the editor and the page beside it both move to
it. A part or a page’s number is beside it. As you scroll, the entry you’re
in is marked, and its part opens. Parts are folded otherwise; ▸ and ▾,
or → and ←, open and fold one. The outline follows the open file, so
⌘⌥↑ and ⌘⌥↓ still step through the folder’s files.
In Edit and Work, any heading on the page can fold its section away, to read a long document a part at a time.
Click the heading, or the › that shows before it, and what’s under it goes, up to the next heading at its level or above, with the asides beside it; click again to bring it back.
A finished section, ## [x] Stretch (see Sections to finish), starts folded, and any other starts open.
Going to a place in a folded section, from the outline, ⌃G or a link, opens it first.
Folding is a way of seeing the page, not part of it: nothing is written in the file, it lasts while the file is open, and a printed or exported page, or a slide, has every section showing.
The arrow-out-of-a-box icon at the end of an entry takes that part out into a file
of its own, beside this one: a talk from a day of them, an idea from a week
of them. The name is made from its title (spring-security-7.md) and can be
changed first; Enter makes it, and Esc doesn’t. In its place, the file
keeps a link to it:
→ [Spring Security 7](spring-security-7.md)
The new file starts with this one’s front matter, and a title: there says
where it came from: DevNexus day 1 - Spring Security 7.
To take out several at once, ⌘-click the entries, ⇧-click for a run of
them, or press ⌘A in the outline for every part; then the icon on any of
them takes each into its own file. Esc lets them go.
The toast that says where it went has Undo, which puts the part back and the new file in the trash. It’s only offered while the toast is up, and not once either file has changed.
⌃G (Control, not ⌘, which is the browser’s find again) asks where to go:
12 is page 12, the twelfth part, or slide 12 of a talk.:340 is line 340.It works in Work too, where page 12 is the page with that number, and while
presenting, where 12 is slide 12.
The editor numbers its lines down the side: a number for each line in the
file, however many rows it wraps to. # at the bottom right turns them off.
To say where something is (to Claude, say, or in a message), copy it:
⌘⇧C copies the file and the line the caret is on,
/Users/me/notes/talk.md:13, or the lines selected, talk.md:13-18.From another device (--host), a path on the server is no use, so what’s
copied is the file’s address instead, http://nas:8734/#notes/talk.md:13.
Opening that address opens the file at those lines.
Files that share a name are versions of one file:
slides.md the main version
slides.arc1.md arc1
slides.sketch.md sketch
They take one row, slides, which opens slides.md. The › at the end of
the row lists the versions, with the day each was last changed. a.b.md is
a version of a when a.md is in the same folder, or another a.* file is:
v1.2-notes.md on its own is just a file. With no slides.md, the row opens
the version changed last.
The branch icon at the end of a row copies the file as another version,
slides.draft.md, opens it, and asks what to call it. The star beside a
version makes it the main one: slides.arc1.md becomes slides.md, and the
old slides.md becomes a version named after the day it was last changed,
slides.oct13.md.
Double-click a row, or press F2, to rename it where it is: Enter keeps
the new name and Esc doesn’t. A document’s .md stays on unless you type
another. Renaming a file’s row renames all its versions with it (slides to
talk makes slides.arc1.md talk.arc1.md), and a version’s row, in its
list, takes just the version’s name. Typing a folder, archive/slides,
moves it there.
The red trash can, or ⌘⌫, moves a file into .reader/trash/, and the
message that says so has an Undo. Nothing there is deleted for good
until you empty that folder yourself. A file’s row with versions has no
trash can, so one click can’t take them all.
⌘S.<dir>/.reader/backups/<file>/ on every
⌘S and at most every five minutes while autosaving. The last 10 are kept.