# Around the window

> The toolbar, the sidebar, panes and splits, the inspector with Ask, Context and Info, Home, and the status dot.

Applies to Canto 1.0 beta 3 · Updated Oct 10, 2026 · https://lonelyduck.io/docs/canto/the-window

Canto's window has four parts: one **toolbar** across the top, the **sidebar** on the left, the document in the middle (up to three side by side), and the **inspector** on the right with Ask, Context and Info. Settings opens in a window of its own with `⌘,`.

## The toolbar

The toolbar always speaks for the pane you're working in.

* **Back and forward** walk that pane's history (`⌘\[` and `⌘]`).
* **The breadcrumb** names the document and its folder. Click the title to rename it.
* **Search or run a command** is the `⌘K` bar: go to any note, chat, project, folder or Settings page, run any command, or type a question and press `⌘↩` to ask Canto.
* **The status dot** says how sync is doing in a word, and opens a panel with what Canto is doing. See [The status dot](https://lonelyduck.io/docs/canto/the-window#the-status-dot).
* **Ask** opens Ask beside the document (`⌘J`).
* The last button shows or hides the inspector.

On a narrow window the toolbar keeps everything: the status word becomes its dot, the `⌘K` field becomes an icon, and so does Ask.

## The sidebar

`⌘\` shows or hides the sidebar. It's one list in groups, and every group folds and stays as you left it.

| Group                      | What's in it                                                     |
| -------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Home, Search, Inbox, Today | The places you go every day                                      |
| Pinned                     | Notes, canvases and chats you pinned                             |
| Notes                      | Your folders and notes                                           |
| Chats                      | The five most recent chats, and All chats                        |
| Projects                   | Each project opens to its chats                                  |
| Library                    | Attachments, Meetings, Remembered, the vault graph and the Trash |
| Folders on this Mac        | Folders you linked, if any                                       |

Settings sits at the bottom. Nothing replaces the sidebar: All chats, Attachments, a linked folder, a tag, the Trash and the other places open as pages in the pane, like a note. Right-click a row for Move to…, Note info and Move to Trash.

## Panes and splits

Canto has no tabs. Each pane shows one document, with its own back and forward.

* `⌘W` closes the document, and the one you had open before it shows again. `⇧⌘T` reopens the last one you closed.
* `⇧⌘\` (**View › Open in Split**) opens the document in a new pane beside it. You can have up to three panes side by side; they share the window evenly.
* `⌃⇥` moves to the next pane, and `⌃⇧⇥` to the one before. **View › Close Split** closes the pane you're in.

## The inspector

The inspector on the right speaks for the document in the active pane. It has three tabs.

### Ask

Ask is Canto's chat about the note or canvas in front of you, or about all your notes. Beside a note it rests as a slim bar until you click it or press `⌘J`. [Ask about your notes](https://lonelyduck.io/docs/canto/ask) covers it in full.

### Context

What the document is connected to:

* **Linked mentions**: notes that link here, with the sentence each one does it in.
* **Related notes** (on this Mac): notes about the same thing, found on your Mac by search by meaning, with a meter for how close they are.
* **Sources**: the note's references. Click one to open it.
* **Evidence**: a research note's evidence ledger, in brief.
* **Outline**: the note's headings. Click one to scroll there.

### Info

The document's facts: its kind, folder, project, when it was created and edited, its tags, and its counts (words, characters, reading time, links out, linked from, sources). Info also lists the note's earlier versions (`⇧⌘Y` opens its history), checkpoints saved before each AI edit, where a research note came from, and whether the note is published.

### Size and wide chat

Ask opens at about a third of the window, wider on big screens, and never squeezes your note. Drag the edge beside it to resize; it snaps, and works with the arrow keys. Double-click the edge, or press Return on it, to go back to the default width. On a small window the sidebar steps aside before Ask gets cramped.

**Wide chat** (`⇧⌘J`) gives Ask most of the window and keeps your note beside it as a reading column. Esc goes back.

`⌥⌘I` moves the keyboard focus into the inspector.

### Beside Home and chats

On Home, the inspector shows your whole vault's Context, and Home's own message field is the one Ask there. Beside a chat open as a page, it shows that chat's Context: its sources, every note it made, and what it works on. `⌘J` then goes to the chat's own message field.

## Home

Home (`⇧⌘H`) is one calm column:

* a greeting and a message field to ask Canto anything,
* a **Today** strip, with today's daily note and a calendar of earlier ones,
* **Pick up where you left off**: what you opened last (opening a note never counts as editing it),
* **Waiting for you**: what's in your Inbox, when something is,
* and the day's **Spark**, when there is one: a note from your past, found on your Mac without AI.

## The status dot

The dot in the toolbar is green when all is well. Click it to see:

* how sync is doing ("Sync off" when it is off),
* the model's state, in words,
* search by meaning, with **Turn on** or **Try again** when it needs you,
* background work while it runs, such as indexing,
* how much memory Canto uses.

Each row opens the place that manages it. After an update, the panel lists the upgrade's one-time work under **Finishing the upgrade** while it runs.

While the chat on screen runs on a model off your Mac, a small amber cloud sits beside the status word.

## The menu bar

Everything in the window is also in the menu bar, with its shortcut: **File** (new notes, canvases and folders, Quick Capture, import and export), **Edit** (Find), **View** (the command bar, the sidebar, Ask, Wide Chat, the inspector, Note History, splits), **Go** (Home, Today, Inbox, All Chats, Search, the vault graph, back and forward), and **Help** (Keyboard Shortcuts, Release Notes, Account, Send Diagnostics, Open Data Folder). [Keyboard shortcuts](https://lonelyduck.io/docs/canto/shortcuts) lists every key.

## Settings

`⌘,` opens Settings as its own window, on the page you were on last. It has fourteen pages in groups (General, Appearance, Writing and Keyboard; then Models, Assistant, Actions & styles and Memory & privacy; Sync & storage and Connections; Account and Advanced; and About and Updates under Canto) and a search field that finds the lines inside panels, forgives typos and lands on the line. [Settings, page by page](https://lonelyduck.io/docs/canto/settings) lists every row.