A note may be a premise/plot point/character sketch/poem/joke/philosophical-political insight/argument/fact/opinion/et cetera.
It may take the form of a single word/paragraph of text/entire work.
All will be referred to as a Note.
Notes are referenced under separate headings – Categories, Projects, et cetera – for efficient storage and retrieval.
These headings represent discrete areas of interest, based on the type of Note stored under them/its intended use/et cetera.
Think of each heading as a separate section in a library.
Each heading centres on a stage in the process of bringing a work from initial idea, through full realisation, to publication.
The top-level headings are named Categories and Projects.
You may access each by clicking the corresponding tab to the right of the Dashboard tab at the top of each layout.
You may access the Project sub-headings Beats, Chapters, Characters and Campaigns by clicking the corresponding tab in the centre of each Project layout.
Think of each heading as a separate filing cabinet in which you will store your notes.
Each filing cabinet holds a different kind of note.
At a different stage in its development.
The Categories filing cabinet stores notes that have yet to be associated with a Project.
That you have not earmarked for a particular story/poem/essay/dissertation/history/blog post/comedy routine/recipe collection/et cetera.
These notes are stored under a title – a word or phrase – that you define.
Think of each title as a label on a separate folder in the Categories filing cabinet.
A title that might serve as the principal keyword for the notes the folder contains.
Broadly encapsulating its main theme or concern.
So, say a comedian uses the application to log bit ideas as/when they occur to them.
They might store these under broad thematic titles, such as Dogs, Cars, Politicians.
Eventually, the comedian decides that they have accumulated sufficient bit ideas under the Dogs Category to constitute a new stand-up routine.
They sort and export their Dogs notes to a desktop publishing application for further elaboration.
Or convert them into a Project, at the click of a button.
The Projects filing cabinet stores notes that you have associated with a Project.
That you have earmarked for a particular story/poem/essay/dissertation/history/blog post/comedy routine/recipe collection/et cetera.
It is the place where our stand-up comedian might fully develop their next stand-up routine.
Having accumulated a number of bit ideas under the Category Dogs, say, the comedian converts the Category into a Project, called Dogs.
This enables them to organise their Dogs notes further.
Parcel them out under the Projects sub-headings Beats and Chapters.
Notes under the Beats sub-heading may be concerned with the through-line of their Dogs routine, prospective highlights, turning-points, et cetera.
Notes under the Chapters sub-heading may be divided into the separate bits in their Dogs routine.
If they are story-based comedians, they may use the Character sub-heading to build profiles for the people who will feature in their new routine.
The final top-level tab – Notes – enables you to circumvent the heading titles that you employed to organise your notes and query the cache based on content only.
When might you use it?
Our comedian recalls having noted something down about ‘dogs in cars’, but can’t find a match under the Dogs Project title.
So, they search for it under the Notes tab, and discover that they filed it under the Category title Cars.
They reassign it to their Dogs Project at the click of a button.
Should they later want to return it to the Cars Category, they may do so as easily.
Or copy the note to both headings.