Quick Notes
Quick Notes is the sticky-note scratchpad on the right side of Desktop. It works exactly like you’d expect a sticky-note panel to work, except it syncs with your project and persists across sessions. Type a note, pick a color from the palette, hit Ctrl+Enter or click Save. The note lands in the panel. Click it to edit inline. Drag to reorder. Trash to delete, with undo. Six colors. Per-project. Nothing fancy. It exists because every writing session generates small thoughts that don’t belong in the outline yet, don’t belong in the Legendry yet, and definitely don’t deserve a whole document — and without a scratchpad, those thoughts end up on a Post-it stuck to the monitor or a text file called random.txt that nobody will ever look at again.
Creating a note
Section titled “Creating a note”The quick-capture input lives at the bottom of the panel. Type your note, pick a color from the palette (or leave the default), and either press Ctrl+Enter or click Save. The note appears at the top of the panel.
Notes are plain text only. No Markdown, no formatting, no links. The cap is 2000 characters, which is long enough to write a full paragraph of reminder and short enough that nobody tries to drop a chapter in here. If you find yourself writing more than two or three lines, that’s probably a sign the thought belongs in an outline node, a Legendry entry, or a document — not a note.
Editing a note
Section titled “Editing a note”Click any existing note to open it for inline editing. The note expands into an editable text area with the color palette visible at the top. Change the text, change the color, press Ctrl+Enter or click Save to commit. Press Escape to cancel without saving. Click outside the note to blur-save (same as Ctrl+Enter).
Edits update the note in place. The order doesn’t change when you edit an existing note — it stays wherever it was in your custom sort order, regardless of when you last modified it.
The six colors
Section titled “The six colors”Six color options, each stored as a hex value:
| Color | Hex | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Amber | #fef3c7 | The default. For general-purpose notes with no special urgency. |
| Blue | #dbeafe | Reference notes, research pointers, “remember this resource” items. |
| Green | #d1fae5 | Positive things — ideas that worked, things to do more of. |
| Pink | #fce7f3 | Character voice notes, dialogue scraps, relationship beats. |
| Purple | #ede9fe | Worldbuilding ideas, lore thoughts that aren’t ready for the Legendry yet. |
| Orange | #fed7aa | Urgent — things to handle before the next writing session. |
The table above is a suggestion, not enforcement. The colors don’t mean anything to Ishvana itself — they’re visual markers that mean whatever you decide they mean. Some people use all amber and ignore the palette entirely. Some people develop an elaborate color system and use all six. Both approaches are fine.
The last color you picked persists across sessions in your local settings, so if you’re always saving amber notes you don’t have to re-pick amber every time you create a new one. If you want to switch, pick a different color once and it becomes the new default.
Reordering and deleting
Section titled “Reordering and deleting”Drag and drop to reorder. Each note has a drag handle that lets you move it up or down in the list. The order persists across sessions — you’re not stuck with chronological order, and the panel remembers your custom sort.
Delete a note by clicking the trash icon on the note. Deletion is soft — you get an undo prompt that lasts for a few seconds, and clicking it restores the note. If you don’t undo, the note is gone permanently.
Per-project, not global
Section titled “Per-project, not global”Notes are scoped to the active project. Switch projects, and the panel reloads with that project’s notes. There is no global notes space that shows notes across all projects, and there’s no way to move a note between projects. The design assumption is that most notes are context-bound — a thought about your fantasy novel’s magic system doesn’t belong on the notes panel of your mystery series.
If you need cross-project reference material, that’s what the shared Legendry entries across projects or external reference tools are for. Quick Notes is intentionally narrow.
What to actually use them for
Section titled “What to actually use them for”The specific kinds of thoughts Quick Notes is designed to capture:
- Check whether Kent’s age lines up with the timeline in chapter 11.
- Rename House Solaris? It sounds too much like the sun.
- Ask [beta reader] if chapter 4 pacing feels right.
- The scar on her hand — did I establish that in book one?
- Research how long it actually takes to sail from Port Royal to Teslan.
- Remember to thank the Kickstarter backers for Chapter 6’s epigraph.
None of these belong in the outline. None of them belong in the Legendry. All of them are the kind of thing you’d lose if you didn’t write it down the moment you thought it, and all of them are things you’ll need to come back to later.
That’s what Quick Notes is for. It’s not a task tracker — it’s the scratch space on the corner of the page.