Notebook

What it drawsCopy Anchor Link

An electronic lab notebook: a list of experiments on one side and the open experiment on the other. An experiment has a title, tags, and a body written in markdown, and it is yours — nothing here is generated for you.

The body can be read in three ways: as source while you write it, as the rendered document, or as a split of both. Images pasted into the body are stored alongside the experiment rather than inside the text, so a notebook with figures stays a text document you can export.

What opens in itCopy Anchor Link

Experiments you create. Notebook entries are not a file format that arrives from outside — they are written in the app and exported out of it as portable markdown, which is what makes an entry readable in ten years by something that is not this application.

What this computesCopy Anchor Link

Nothing about your science, on purpose. An experiment is yours — nothing here is generated for you, and no number in a notebook body is computed, checked or rewritten by the application.

What it does compute is the cross-reference resolution that makes an entry navigable, and the guarantee behind it:

• References extracted from the body as you type, from three sigils: @ for a construct, ! for an action you performed, & for a bench artefact such as a gel.
• Each one resolved against real entries. An @ naming a construct that does not exist stays plain text rather than becoming a chip that goes nowhere — a chip is a promise that the thing on the other end is real, and that promise is the whole point of the convention.
• The scope of that convention. These sigils are a notebook convention specifically, so an @ inside an ordinary markdown file opened elsewhere in the app stays an @.

Images pasted into a body are stored alongside the experiment rather than inside the text, which is what keeps a notebook with figures a text document you can export — as portable markdown, readable in ten years by something that is not this application.

Reading itCopy Anchor Link

The notebook's one convention worth learning is cross-references. Three sigils are recognised inside a body and drawn as clickable chips rather than as plain text:

A reference is extracted as you type and is resolved against real entries: an @ naming a construct that does not exist stays plain text rather than becoming a chip that goes nowhere. That is the point of the convention — a chip is a promise that the thing on the other end is real.

These sigils are a notebook convention specifically. An ordinary markdown file opened elsewhere in the app is drawn without them, so an @ inside a README stays an @.

ControlsCopy Anchor Link

Formatting and insert helpers act on the body as in any markdown editor. Tag filtering and search narrow the experiment list. Experiments can be duplicated — the usual way to start the next run of a protocol you have already written down — deleted, and grouped into collections.

With the caret on a reference, a keyboard shortcut jumps to what it names, so following your own trail does not require reaching for the mouse.

Export writes one experiment as a self-contained markdown document.

Where it appearsCopy Anchor Link

As a stage tab, and docked in the right rail beside whatever you are working on — which is the arrangement the notebook is really for, since an entry is usually written while the thing it describes is on screen.

Performance and limitsCopy Anchor Link

The body is a text document and behaves like one: very long entries stay responsive, but a single entry holding hundreds of pasted images is better split into several, since images load with the entry that owns them.

There is no version history of an entry beyond what your project's own history records, and no locking — the notebook is a record you keep, not an audited instrument.

ScreenshotsCopy Anchor Link

No frame is committed for this canvas yet. What one would show: cells and their results in one scrolling document.

The absence is stated rather than left as a blank heading: a picture that does not exist yet is worth knowing about, and a placeholder would be worse than either.

RelatedCopy Anchor Link

Any tool whose result you want to remember; the provenance surface, which records what was done where the notebook records why.