Projects
The Three Tiers
Jotaid's structure is Design Thinking-inspired, running from broad to atomic:
| Tier | What it is | Like |
|---|---|---|
| Project | A subject of study, a plan | A book |
| Theme | A direction, a thread | A chapter |
| Note | An idea, an observation | A paragraph |
Two more lines cut across all three: tags (what kind of thing this note is) and nodes (which concepts it discusses). The tiers answer "where does it live"; those two answer "what is it, and what is it about".
The Inbox
Every new note starts in the Inbox. The Inbox is not a folder to maintain — it is a state: not yet sorted.
Capture first, place later. Once you can see that a batch of notes belongs to one direction, move them into a project and a theme.
The Inbox is always there, always free, and fully featured: the editor, backlinks, the graph, the co-occurrence matrix, the canvas and iCloud sync all work inside it. Pro adds more projects; it does not cripple the Inbox.
Creating a Project
⇧⌘P on macOS, or the left pane's ⋯ menu → New Project; on iOS, from the PROJECTS section of the left drawer. This is a Pro feature.
The Project Bar
A horizontal bar sits at the top of the left pane, led by Inbox. It is the global scope switch: pick a project and the note list, the canvas, the knowledge graph and the co-occurrence matrix all narrow to it — you will not see another project's nodes in your graph.
- Search narrows with it, covering only the current scope
- The collapse arrow folds the whole bar into a single line showing the current project
The Project Note
A project carries a note of its own — the project note — for the overview of the subject: what it is trying to answer, where it stands, what is next.
- macOS: in the Theme view, click the project icon a second time to open it full width
- iOS: tap the project name in the title bar to open it as a sheet
The project note carries a Theme Summary button, which has the AI read across the project's themes and write a digest.
Moving Notes Between Projects
Right-click a note row → Move to… (on iOS, swipe left → Move to) and pick a project or theme. Long-press a row to enter multi-select and move several at once.
Deleting a Project
Jotaid asks what to do with the contents: keep the child notes (promoted to the parent) or delete everything. Same logic as dissolving a theme — the container and its contents are two different things, and removing one need not take the other.
Next Steps
- Themes — Grouping inside a project
- Tags — Classification across every project
- Free vs Pro — Which tier multiple projects belong to