Getting Started
First-run flow, the hybrid editing model, source mode, and the controls worth learning before you brute-force the UI.
What Noteism is trying to do
Noteism is built around a hybrid editor: rendered Markdown is the main surface, but any block can drop back to source exactly where you need it. No split panes. No separate preview ritual. One canvas, two editing modes, same document.
The short version
Click rendered content to edit its Markdown source. Blur, keep writing, or move on, and the block settles back into rendered form.
First session checklist
Open a file or start with a blank document. Noteism supports tabs, so you do not need to treat every file like a one-window prison sentence.
Click into a heading, paragraph, list item, code block, or table cell. Watch the block swap into the editing path that makes sense for that content.
Open the TOC, the find panel, and preferences. These three surfaces do a lot of the real work once the novelty wears off and the document gets long.
Toggle source mode on a real document. The app keeps the same file and lets you round-trip back to the hybrid view without lossy conversion nonsense.
The two editing modes
Hybrid mode is the default. Blocks render as headings, tables, callouts, quotes, code, math, Mermaid diagrams, and normal prose. When you focus a block, Noteism swaps in the editing path for that block instead of making you leave the document context.
This is where Noteism does its signature move:
- headings edit in place with dedicated heading syntax handling
- lists continue intelligently with
Enter - task list checkboxes stay interactive
- tables use structured inline cell editing
- code blocks can open an inline highlighted editor
- math blocks expose raw
$$...$$when focused
Source mode is the whole raw file at once with syntax highlighting and line numbers. It is for when you want total Markdown visibility, fast movement across a large file, or a clean way to do broad edits without hopping block to block.
Source mode still matters because:
- it uses the same document, not an exported copy
- find and replace still works there
- state persists across sessions
- the trip back to hybrid mode is lossless
Keys and behaviors worth learning first
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
Enter | Continue editing inside the current block |
Ctrl+Enter | Create a new block below |
Shift+Enter | Insert a visual line break |
Backspace on an empty focused block | Remove the block |
Ctrl+F | Open Find |
Ctrl+H | Open Find and Replace |
F3 / Shift+F3 | Move to next / previous match |
Ctrl+, | Open Preferences |
Things that are easy to miss
- Blank or short documents still let you click the canvas and start working.
- Mouse drag selection can span blocks and produce a sane combined copy result.
- The tab workspace keeps dirty-state tracking, so unsaved files are not invisible landmines.
- The footer already reports line, word, character, and cursor information.
- The output log exists for real and is useful when export, theme loading, or file operations get weird.
Recommended first experiment
Create a document with all of this in one file:
- A few headings
- A task list
- A fenced code block
- A Markdown table
- A Mermaid block
- A callout
- A
[TOC]marker somewhere near the top
That one file will show you more about how Noteism behaves than ten paragraphs of sales copy ever could.
If the editor feels calm while the document is getting more complicated, it is doing the job.
Where to go next
- Installation if you still need a build path
- Markdown Features for what the parser/editor already supports
- Navigation & Tools for TOC, file browser, output log, and find/replace