First steps

Not installed yet? Install the editor first — it also says what spelling and git need on your system.

This walks you through a first session, in order. Each step is a few keys; the pages linked at the end of each go deeper when you want them.

1. Open a project

Start the editor with no file — kaivalya-editor, or the launcher. The start screen lists your recent projects; choose Open a folder… and pick the folder your notes are in. That folder is now the project: the explorer on the left shows it, and everything below works across it.

Next time, the same screen offers it under Carry on with, with the files you had open.

2. Write a note

Ctrl+N makes a new file and Ctrl+S saves it: call it Garden.md. Then write:

# Garden

## Beds

Under Beds, on an empty line, type /. A list opens at the cursor: this is the / palette. Type tab and press Enter — the table window opens. Fill in a few cells, press Apply, and a lined-up markdown table is written into your note.

A few more things to try on the next lines:

• select a word and Ctrl+B for bold;
• /math writes a formula block, and Ctrl+Shift+L with the cursor in it opens the formula window, which draws the formula as you build it;
• in a list, Enter starts the next item, and Enter on an empty one ends the list;
• /date writes today’s date.

3. See it rendered

Ctrl+Shift+B puts the live preview beside the text; it follows what you type and where your cursor is. Ctrl+Shift+V shows the preview alone, and the same key brings the text back.

4. See it as a reader will — the heavy preview

The live preview is drawn in the editor’s own theme, for writing against. The heavy preview is the other one: a window of its own that draws the note the way a browser would — your stylesheet as you wrote it, the formula typeset, tables and mermaid diagrams for real.

Press Ctrl+Shift+P, or Open in the heavy preview in the markdown pane. The window follows what you type and keeps your place, and it shows whichever tab is in front. Escape closes it; so does the same key again.

Open it when the question is what will this look like to somebody else — before you send a note, export it, or try a new stylesheet. Keep the live preview for the rest: it costs nothing, and the heavy one holds a renderer in memory while it is open. Nothing to install: it comes with the editor. Why there are two, and what each can and cannot draw: Previews and exports and The heavy preview.

5. Find your way

• Ctrl+P and a few letters of a file’s name opens it.
• Ctrl+Shift+F searches every file of the project.
• Ctrl+Shift+O lists the note’s headings; click one to go there.
• The icons on the left rail open the panes — the TODO pane gathers every TODO in your files and every unticked - [ ].

The User guide shows them all, with a picture of each.

6. Keep it

Save with Ctrl+S. If the folder is a git repository, the rail’s git icon lists what changed: write a message and press Commit. Every save also keeps a version of the file on your machine — File › Local history.

7. Make it yours

Ctrl+, opens your settings file, where every option says what it does — font sizes, the theme, which panes show and where. See Change a setting, Add a theme, Add a stylesheet and Add a template.

Moving around the text

Every other key is in Keyboard shortcuts.