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Writing notes

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Getting started

This page is for the person who writes the notes. It takes you from the first visit to your first saved note.

The first visit

Open the address of your installation. Because no account exists yet, the page says Create your account. Enter an email address and a password of at least 15 characters, and type the password again to confirm it. Select Create account. A password that a list of leaked passwords holds is refused, so choose one that you use nowhere else. A password that an earlier release accepted still signs in.

That first account is the administrator of the installation. It can invite other people, and each of them gets an account with its own notes. See Accounts and invitations. If somebody invited you, read Joining an installation instead.

Every later visit shows Sign in instead. Enter the same address and password.

If you forget the password, select Forgot password on the sign-in screen. A message with a link goes to your address. See Joining an installation. An installation that sends no mail shows no such link. Then the person who runs the server recovers the account with a command on the server. See Backup and restore.

What you see first

Your new account already holds one note, Welcome to tidy notebook. It is a normal note: you can change it, rename it, or delete it.

The screen has three parts.

  • The header says where you are: your workspace, the folders above the note, and the name of the note or the page. Then the actions of that page, then Search and your account.
  • The sidebar holds your workspace, a row of buttons for New note, New folder, Sort notes and Expand all folders, the whole note tree under All notes, and at the bottom a line that says where your saves are, plus Trash.
  • The rest of the screen is the note you have open.

On a phone the sidebar is hidden. Select the menu button in the header to open it, and Escape or a tap outside it to close it.

Your first note

  1. Select New note, the plus button in the sidebar. The note opens at once with the cursor in it.
  2. Start with a heading, for example # My first note, and write. Markdown works here. See Markdown.
  3. Stop typing for a moment. The note saves itself, makes a version, and takes the heading as its name. Ctrl + S, or Cmd + S on a Mac, makes a version at once. See Notes and folders to give a note a name of your own.

The line at the bottom of the sidebar tells you where your work is. It reads Everything is saved to the server. when your server has it. See Saving and history.

When a page stops

If an error stops a page, the page says so and offers Reload and Open all notes. The sidebar stays, so you can open another note. Your saved work does not change. If a part of the page did not load, make sure that the device has a connection, then reload the page.

Where to go next