Stacks, the Spring, and the Fan
Stacks
Drag one note onto another and they snap into a stack: a pile that moves as one. A stack holds up to 20 notes.
- Click a buried note and it peeks out so you can read or edit it, then returns to the pile. Up to ten notes can be peeked out at once.
- The stack’s bar carries Collapse , which folds the whole stack into a bubble, Compress , which tightens the pile, More , which opens the stack menu, and Close or Unstack , which asks whether to close the stack or unstack the notes. It sits on whichever end matches the close-button side you chose for your notes. A fifth control, Recall Notes , appears only while notes are peeked out, and sends them home.
- Double-click the stack’s title bar to compress it: the pile tightens so the front note is fully readable with a thin sliver of every other note above it. Click a compressed stack to spread it back out.
- The More menu holds Save as Folder…, Compress Stack, the window behaviors (float on top, glue to desktop, show on all desktops), Switch Stack, Sort Stack by title or by last edited, Color Notes, Unstack, and the Notel Library. Color Notes is on the right-click menu of any stacked note’s title bar too, and its Spectrum… option paints the whole pile as a gradient.
The Spring
Collapse a note to a bubble (the Collapse chip in the hover rail) and the bubbles gather into the Spring: a column that grows from a corner of your screen, topped by a disc with the Notel icon. Click the disc to open or tuck the column; click any bubble to open or close its note. Each bubble takes its note’s colors, and hovering shows the title.
The Spring holds up to 10 bubbles. If it is full, a new bubble is refused with a shake.
Show Spring on Mouseover (on by default) tucks the Spring out of sight and leaves a slim pill at the screen edge. Mouse over the pill and the Spring glides out; it hides again a few seconds after your cursor leaves. Right-click the Spring to move it to the other side of the screen, clean up the bubbles, or change its behavior. All of it lives in Settings → Fan too, including turning the Spring off entirely (the Collapse chip then peeks the note instead).
The Fan
The Fan shows every note at once. Open it with ⌥F, by double-tapping Option, from the menu bar, or by clicking the floating Fan bubble.
- Cards show live previews with their reminder, favorite, and lock badges. Right-click one to open it, file it into a folder, favorite or lock it, set a reminder, or delete it.
- The folders sidebar filters the Fan by folder, and a folder can be opened as a stack.
- Typing while the Fan is open goes into the centered note: your words land at the bottom. Press Return to keep the jot, Esc to discard it. Type something like “dentist tomorrow 9am” and Notel offers to set the reminder as part of the jot.
There is no search field in the Fan; typing always jots. For searching, use the Library.