Anatomy of the Notes Section
- Click NOTES in the sidebar to enter the Notes section of SmarterHumans.
- The Notes navigation and global functions panel.
- Toggle the panel open/closed.
- Back and forwards control for the notes viewer is similar to the back and forwards controls in a browser tab. In the near future we will offer the ability to views notes side-by-side in separate tabs.
- If you’ve created any flashcards linked to text passages in your note, you will be able to click this button and take those flashcards directly into a practice session. To the righ of this is the Snip Flashcard. We’ll discuss this below.
- Linked Flashcards opens a side panel on the right with the list of flashcards linked to this note.
- Find and Replace works similarly to apps like Google Docs.
- The title of the current note.
- Body of the current note which in this case is a master note for a series of notes created with the webclipper browser extension on the Wikipedia page about Astropyhics.
- You can create a daily note which is perfect for journaling. When you create a note in the library section, linked to some text or a region of interest in a file, or linked to the time code in a video, that note will be pushed to the library inbox and to the daily note on the day for the day you created it.
- Library inbox- when you create a note in the library that is linked to some text or a region of interest in a file, or linked to the time code in a video, that note will be pushed, by default, to the library inbox with a copy sent to the daily note of the day you created it. Linked library notes are aggregated into a single note. [We realize that the terminology “note” is a bit confusing here and welcome your comments in Discord how we should express this more clearly.] In the notes section, each library item for which you’ve create one or more notes, will have a single note that contains a series of notes for that library item. You can direct the destination for any given library note to elsewhere than the Library inbox which we set as the default destination.
- Webclipper Inbox– The default destination for all incoming notes that you’ve created using the SmarterHumans webclipper browser extension. The behavior is basically the same as that just described for notes created in the library. The current note show above, was created from a series of notes created in the library that are linked to the Wkipedia page about Astrophysics. Each individual webclipper note linked to that web page will be appended to this single master note for that page. If you click LINK to webpage,, that webpage in Wikipedia would open in a new browser tab and automatically scroll to the linked location on the page.
- Readwise inbox– soon, we will enable you to connect SmarterHumans to your Readwise account, and your Readwise highlights will be synced into this inbox.
- Kindle inbox– You can sync your Kindle highlights and those highlights will arrive here with one master note for each Kindle book or file. The series of Kindle highlights for a given book will be listed on the master note. Each highlight will have a link you can click that will open the Kindle Desktop App (KDA) on your computer to the relevant book and page of that highlight. There are two important known issues that are out of our control. 1) If you click to view the source link of successive flashcards that happen to be linked to highlights in the same Kindle book, the KDA will not progress from the page of the first highlight to the page of the second if the KDA has remained open between these two events. To prevent this from happening, it is best to always quit the KDA after each opening. 2) For Mac users, your version of the KDA must be 1.39 or older. On versions 1.40 and beyond, Amazon has blocked the capability to sync with exact locations of highlights in books.
- The list of all of your notes. Click the + to create a new regular (not daily) note.
- Click to see a list of all of your favorited notes or create a new favorite note.
- See your list of collections. A collection is a group of notes that you want organized together. For example, a collection named Gardening might be all of your notes pertaining. to gardening.
The Notes Formating Toolbar
When you select some text in a note, or even select an empty space, the notes formatting toolbar will appear. Clicking a tool will either open a submenu of related tools, or perform an action.
- Character formatting, bold, etc.
- font selection
- Font size
- Text color
- Text background color
- Paragraph options, include code block and quote
- Line height
- Emoji picker. Pro tip: add and select a blank space where you want to insert an emoji.
- Click to create insert one or more web page links to the selected text in your note. A modal will appear that enables you to add as many links as you like. If you subsequently click the highlighted text, the modal will appear to add more links, delete one of your links, or to enable you to open a linked web page in a new browser tab.
- Clicking The flashcard icon opens the right side panel flashcard creation form so you can create a flashcard linked to the selected text. As a staring point, the slected text will be pasted into the Q and A fields. As always, you can edit these fields and your flashcard will be source-linked to the selected text. You can even create a redaction flashcard based on the content in the Q field.
If you click the button, Linked Flashcards, in the header of a note, or click on any highlighted text in the body of the note that is souce-linked to a flashcard, the list of linked flashcards for the corrent note will open in the right side-panel.
Coming soon to the toolbar
- A tool to create bidirectional backlinks (actually, multidirectional backlinks, wait until you see!).
- The formula tool for LaTeX formulas.
The Header of A Note
Depending on your screen size, the header of a note will display a number of buttons for performaing actions, with the remaining available actions available from the three-dots kebab menu.
- Practice X Flashcards– takes you into a practice session for all the flashcards linked to the current note.
- Snip Flashcard– opens the flashcard creation from with the region you snipped pasted in as a image into both the Q and A fields. As always, edit as you wish, and create a redaction flashcard, if you like. Technical limitation at this time: we are unable to scroll the note to precise location of the site of the snip or mark that region with a scissors icon. The snipped screeshot is pasted as an attachment at the bottom of the note.
- Linked Flashcards– opens the right side-panel enabling you to navigate to all linked flashcards in the current note, edit, and delte them.
- Find and Replace– search for text in the current note and replace if you like.
- Note Details– opens the right side-panel and dsplays the notes metadata, include word and character count. Add and remove tags to the note to makes searching easier.
- Templates– create templates based on the body of the current note. Select and apply one of your templates to te current note. Be aware that when you apply a template, you will overwrite the content in the current note with the content of the template you are applying. Pro tip: always apply a template before adding any content to a note.
- Favorite– add or remove the current note from your current list of favorites.
- Search all notes– search the titles and content of all notes for matches enabling you to open the current note. Prior open notes can be reached via the back arrow. Use the back and forward arrows like you would in a browser tab. Tags will be autosuggested beneath the search box. Click a match to open that note.
- Download PDF to export the current note as a PDF. In the near future we will release SmarterHumans as native apps for MacOS, Windows, iOS and Android. You notes, flashcards, and library files, will be stored locally on your device and available to you forever.
Workflows in the NOTES section [coming soon]
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workflow 1
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workflow 1
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