Notes

Notes are files

Every note is a plain Markdown file in the notes folder, by default ~/Documents/DevMark Notizen.

• Folders in the notes folder are real subfolders and form the hierarchy.
• The file name is the first line of the note and follows it when it changes.
• Write right away: Cmd/Ctrl-Shift-N, no file name, no saving – autosave takes care of it.
• Daily note: “Heute“ in the navigation or Cmd/Ctrl-Shift-J opens Journal/<date>.md for today and creates it with the date as heading if it does not exist yet. The date is UTC.

Since they are just files, any other program can open, version or sync them.

Find

• Full-text search across all notes with Cmd/Ctrl-Shift-F. A hit shows its folder path (for example Projects / Client X) so notes with the same title can be told apart. The button next to the search field sorts the hits by “Zuletzt“ (last modified, the default) or “Relevanz“ (best match); DevMark remembers the choice.
• Tags as #tag in the text or as tags: in the frontmatter. A note’s tags are shown above the text; click one to filter the list. Tags can be nested with a slash (#client/project): the navigation shows them as a tree, and clicking a parent such as client also lists the notes of its sub-tags.
• Favorites are marked in the list; the “Favoriten“ view shows only those.
• Tasks: the “Aufgaben“ view lists the open tasks (- [ ] …) of all notes, grouped by note, the most recently changed note first. Tasks in code blocks and in the frontmatter are ignored. The box in front of a task ticks it off – DevMark writes - [x] into the file and changes nothing else in it. A click on the text opens the note at that line.

Block view

“Blöcke“ in the title bar (Cmd/Ctrl-Shift-B) shows a note as a sequence of blocks – paragraphs, headings, lists, quotes, code, tables. Blocks you are not editing appear formatted; click one to edit its Markdown. Esc finishes editing, the arrow keys at the first or last line move to the neighbouring block, and a click below the last block starts a new paragraph. The file changes only where you type: a note you did not change stays byte-for-byte the same. This view is an early version for notes; selecting text across several blocks is not possible yet.

Link

[[ opens a picker of existing notes. What gets inserted is a plain relative Markdown link – it works on GitHub and in any other Markdown program too. When a note is renamed or moved, DevMark updates the links. Backlinks are shown below the note.

Capture from outside

devmark --note "Buy stamps" appends the text to Inbox.md in the notes folder – without opening a window, so it works from a shell, a shortcut or a launcher. Without text, DevMark reads from standard input (pbpaste | devmark --note). Each entry gets a heading with the date and time in UTC; Inbox.md is created if it is missing. If the note is open in DevMark, the new entries show up when the window becomes active again.

History, trash, backup

• Version history: earlier versions of a note are kept and can be restored.
• Trash: deleted notes stay in .trash/ in the notes folder for 30 days.
• Backup: the index is backed up daily.

Save a note to the workspace

Notizen → “Notiz im Workspace speichern …“ (save note to workspace) stores the active note as a Markdown file in the workspace – for example when a note grows into a document of the project. In the same menu, “Notizordner im Finder zeigen“ opens the folder and “Notizordner wählen …“ switches to another one.