Canvases

A canvas is a board with no edges. Put your notes on it as cards, add sticky notes, text, tags and shapes, and draw links between them. Ask works beside a canvas the way it works beside a note: it reads the board and, when you agree, changes it.

Make a canvas#

Choose File › New Canvas, New canvas in the sidebar's + menu, or right-click a folder and choose New canvas. A canvas lives in your folders like a note, opens in a pane like a note, and goes to the Trash like a note.

A new canvas says Blank canvas — start anywhere. Scroll to pan, and hold ⌘ while you scroll to zoom.

Tools#

The tools are in a rail on the left. Each has a one-letter key:

A new note card or tag card asks which note or tag it shows: type to filter, then ↩. Double-click a card that has none yet to choose one. Open note in a card's right-click menu opens the note.

Links. Drag from the handle on a card's edge to another card to join them. Right-click a link to Edit label or Delete link.

The selection bar. Select cards and a small bar appears over them: a colour (yellow, green, blue, red, purple or plain) for stickies, tags and shapes, the shape itself, Duplicate (⌘D) and Delete (⌫). Right-click a card for Edit label, Duplicate, Bring to front, Open note and Delete.

Keys#

Canvas helpers#

The ✨ key beside the zoom controls opens Ask and canvas helpers:

• Ask about this canvas (⌘J) opens Ask beside it.
• Link related notes joins note cards whose notes are alike, found on your Mac by search by meaning. It needs two or more note cards and no chat.
• Arrange automatically lays the cards out so nothing overlaps.

The last two are also in the canvas's right-click menu, and each is one undo step.

Ask on a canvas#

Beside a canvas, Ask reads its cards and can change the board. Before your first message it offers a few starts that fit the board:

• Map and connect my notes about…: find your notes on a topic, put each on the canvas and link the related ones.
• Mind-map a topic.
• Brainstorm on sticky notes.
• Add my notes about…, Link related notes and Tidy this canvas.

Ask asks once per answer before it changes the canvas. If you say no, it answers in words instead. Everything one answer changed is one step: Undo under the answer, or ⌘Z on the canvas, takes it all back.

Ask works on a canvas with the model on your Mac, a server, or a cloud model if you chose one, exactly as it does beside a note. See Ask about your notes and Let Ask edit.

Canvases elsewhere#

• Search finds canvases by their words; see ⌘K and search.
• Projects can hold canvases; see Organize your notes.
• Sync: canvases sync with your notes; see Sync between your Macs.
• The Trash keeps a deleted canvas for 30 days by default, and Open read-only shows it before you restore it.