Configuration

Everything is configurable from a live ~/.notesiderc buffer (vimrc-flavored, in your home directory) or the in-app Settings panel — they're two editors over the same config. Open the file with :config, edit any line, and :w to apply.

Example

" ~/.notesiderc — Noteside configuration

" appearance
set theme        = noteside-light

" typography
set editor-font  = Newsreader
set font-size    = 19
set line-height  = 1.75
set ui-scale     = 100%

" cursor
set cursor       = block
set cursor-blink = on

" editor
set live-preview = on
set relative-numbers = off

" updates
set auto-update  = on

" keys
set vim          = on
imap jj <Esc>
bind Ctrl-j find

Settings

Appearance

• Theme — 33 bundled themes: Noteside Light/Dark (the warm paper default) plus a curated set of base16 palettes — Catppuccin, Gruvbox, Nord, Rosé Pine, Tokyo Night, Everforest, Kanagawa, Solarized, One, Dracula, GitHub, Ayu, and more. Open the picker with :theme (or :colorscheme), <Space> t, or Settings → Theme: two columns (dark · light), it opens on your current theme, live-previews as you move, applies on Enter, and reverts on Esc. In the file, theme takes a theme id (catppuccin-mocha, gruvbox-dark, …) or a label; the old light / dark values still work as aliases for the Noteside themes.
• Typography — editor-font sets the writing surface: serif Newsreader or Spectral, or mono IBM Plex Mono / JetBrains Mono / Geist Mono. font-size (16–28) and line-height (1.4–2.1) tune the reading rhythm. The surrounding interface is always Geist Mono — there's no separate interface-font setting.
• Interface size — ui-scale (90%–130%) scales the sidebar, panels, and UI chrome, independently of the editor font-size.
• Line numbers — relative-numbers shows a vim-style relative gutter; off (the default) shows absolute numbers.
• Updates — auto-update (on by default) checks GitHub for a newer release on launch, throttled to once a day. It never installs anything — a found update just shows a dot on the Settings button and a download link in Settings → About. Turn it off to keep the app fully offline.

Key mappings

• Vim mappings — nmap / imap / vmap lines apply on :w (e.g. imap jj <Esc>).
• Chord rebinds — bind <chord> <command-id> remaps a conventional chord; bind none <command-id> unbinds it. You can also rebind live in the cheatsheet (⌘/) — see Keybindings; it writes the same bind lines.

The command ids are: find, grep, search, searchNext, searchPrev, commands, palette, notebooks, new, duplicate, rename, reveal, save, saveQuit, quit, reopen, delete, follow, nextNote, prevNote, nav, togglePreview, theme, fontUp, fontDown, fontReset, uiUp, uiDown, uiReset, settings, config, cheatsheet. For example, bind Ctrl-j find puts the finder on Ctrl-J.