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The editor

The editor is a calm, full-bleed page. Most of the time it's just you and the text — the controls appear when you reach for them and step back when you don't. This page covers the basics of writing: the page itself, saving, the selection toolbar, the slash menu, tabs, and moving between documents.

Title and description​

Above the page sits the document's title and an optional description. Both are plain text fields that grow as you type. The title names the document (and is what shows in tabs, search, and links); the description is a short line of context for yourself. Leave either blank if you don't need it.

Autosave​

You never have to save. As you type, φ saves your work automatically a moment after you stop — debounced so it isn't writing on every keystroke. Each save is atomic and verified: φ writes to a temporary file, reads it back to confirm the bytes landed, and only then swaps it into place. A crash or a full disk can't leave you with a half-written document.

If you want to save right now — for instance just before stepping away — press ⌘S. That flushes the current document immediately and also writes a version checkpoint, so you have an explicit point to return to.

The bubble toolbar​

Select any text and a small toolbar floats above it. It holds the formatting you reach for mid-sentence:

  • Bold (⌘B), Italic (⌘I), Underline (⌘U), Strikethrough, and Inline code.
  • Link — turns the selection into a link and asks for the URL. (See Links.)
  • Alignment — left, center, right, justify.
  • Look up word (the book icon) — opens the offline dictionary on your selection. See Dictionary & thesaurus.
  • Highlight & comment (the highlighter) — opens a small palette: pick a color to highlight the selection, choose a custom color, add a comment without a highlight, or remove an existing highlight. Highlights and comments become margin annotations. See Annotations.

Press Esc to dismiss the toolbar.

The toolbar is for prose documents. On the stripped-down journal / morning-pages surface it doesn't appear — that page is deliberately bare.

The slash menu​

To insert a block — a heading, a list, a quote, an image, and more — type / at the start of an empty line (or anywhere on a line). A menu opens; keep typing to filter it, then press Enter or click to insert. For example, /quote, /table, /image.

Two more ways to reach it:

  • The + button. Hover near the left edge of any block and a + appears. Click it to open the slash menu and insert a block below.
  • Both routes open the same menu. Which blocks are offered depends on the kind of document — manuscript blocks like verse and footnotes are hidden on the journal surface.

The full catalogue is in Formatting & blocks.

Tabs​

Documents open in tabs along the top, the way a browser works.

  • New document — ⌘N, or the + at the end of the tab strip.
  • Switch tabs — click any tab. When there are more tabs than fit, a ▾ menu lists them all.
  • Close a tab — the ✕ on the tab, or ⌘W to close the current one.

Some full-area views — the graph, characters, the calendar, and others — also open as tabs you can close the same way.

Going back and forward​

Following a link or opening a document remembers where you were. Use the back and forward arrows at the top of the page to retrace your steps, the same as in a browser — handy when you've jumped down a chain of wiki-links and want to return.

Smart typography​

As you type, φ tidies common punctuation for you: straight quotes become curly "smart quotes", two hyphens become an em dash, three dots become an ellipsis, and so on. You write naturally and the text comes out typeset.

Reading mode​

When you'd rather read than edit, View → Reading mode (⌘E) makes the page read-only and lets a plain click follow links. Toggle it off to edit again.