Views & surfaces
Grimoire’s UI is built around a vault of notes and several views that help you edit, navigate, search, and reason about your notes. This page mirrors the view list in the bundled feature guide (featureGuide.js) and expands it for day-to-day use.
For global shortcuts, see Keyboard shortcuts. For chat-specific behaviour, see AI assistant.
Tabs and the note editor
What it’s for: Your primary workspace — one or more note tabs, each with its own editor state.
How to open: Ctrl+N creates a new note; Ctrl+T opens a new blank tab; Ctrl+Click a note in the list opens it in a new tab (see Keybinds in Settings for the exact label).
Behaviour:
- Each tab is either a note or another view type opened as a tab (graph, calendar, and so on, depending on how you navigate).
- Read / edit: You can toggle read mode vs edit mode per note. In read mode,
![[Other Note Title]]can transclude another note; embeds are not tracked as wiki-links the same way as[[links]]. - Markdown supports
#tags,[[wiki-links]], and the usual editing affordances.
Folder sidebar and note list
What it’s for: Hierarchical navigation — folders, unfiled notes, bookmarks, and the list of notes in the current folder.
How to open: Visible by default; F11 focus mode can hide side panels until you exit focus mode.
Behaviour:
- Bookmarks pin notes above the tree for quick access.
- Selecting a folder updates the note list; selecting a note opens it in the active tab (or a new tab with Ctrl+Click).
- Templates (blank, meeting, daily journal, book notes, plus your own) apply when you create notes from the flows the app exposes.
Search panel
What it’s for: Finding notes by full-text and semantic (embedding) search together.
How to open: Ctrl+F.
Behaviour:
- Results tie into the same indexes as chat RAG (see Vault & data and AI assistant).
- When the vault is locked or a folder is password-locked, content that is not unlocked does not participate like normal unlocked notes (see Privacy & security).
Quick Switcher
What it’s for: Fast fuzzy jump to a note by title without leaving the keyboard.
How to open: Ctrl+P.
Behaviour:
- Type a fragment of a title; arrow keys move; Enter opens the match.
- Same shortcut family as the global handler in
keyboardService.svelte.js.
Chat (assistant)
What it’s for: Local Ollama chat beside your notes, with optional context from notes, files, Wikipedia, and the current view.
How to open: From the layout’s chat control (see in-app UI); there is no dedicated global shortcut listed in Settings → Keybinds for “toggle chat” today.
Behaviour:
- Streaming replies, model picker, and context toggles are described in AI assistant.
- Ctrl+Shift+Enter sends the current selection from the editor to chat.
Graph view
What it’s for: A force-directed graph of [[wiki-links]] between notes.
How to open: From the app’s view / navigation entry for the graph (no global shortcut is listed in Settings → Keybinds yet).
Behaviour:
- Useful for discovering clusters and orphan notes.
- Reflects wiki-links; transclusion-only embeds in read mode are not the same as tracked backlinks (see feature guide).
Calendar
What it’s for: A calendar grid with a GitHub-style activity heatmap so you can see writing rhythm at a glance.
How to open: Open the calendar view from the app navigation (exact control is in the main shell).
Behaviour:
- Arrow keys navigate when the calendar has focus (see feature guide).
- Choosing a date typically opens or creates the daily note for that day (see below).
Daily notes
What it’s for: One note per calendar day (often under a Daily Notes folder) for journaling, standups, or lightweight logs.
How to open: From the calendar (pick a day) or any “today’s daily note” style control your build exposes in the shell.
Behaviour:
- Title / naming follows the app’s daily note rules; Settings → Appearance controls how dates display in the calendar while keeping storage consistent with the app’s ISO-style titles (per Settings copy).
- The bundled templates include Daily Journal alongside blank, meeting, and book notes (
featureGuide.js).
Kanban board
What it’s for: Notes grouped into columns by a select-type property — a lightweight board workflow.
How to open: Open a Kanban-type board from your vault (e.g. a folder configured for that view).
Behaviour:
- M on a card starts keyboard move mode (feature guide).
- The “Use view” chat toggle can inject a summary of the current board into assistant context (AI assistant).
Database (table) view
What it’s for: Spreadsheet-style editing of note properties with filters — structured data over a folder.
How to open: Open a folder that uses the database / table view.
Behaviour:
- Properties include text, number, date, checkbox, and select fields (feature guide).
- “Use view” can pass table/board context into chat when enabled.
Wikipedia reader and search (local bundles)
What it’s for: On-disk Wikipedia from Kiwix .zim bundles — read articles and search locally without sending page content to a hosted Grimoire service. Optional catalogue fetch uses HTTPS to list downloadable bundles; indexing and reading use your CPU, disk, and (for embeddings) Ollama.
How to open: After you install bundles in Settings → Wikipedia, use the app’s Wikipedia entry points (article reader / search UI in the shell — exact placement follows the main layout).
Behaviour:
- Chat can include Wikipedia in RAG when Settings → Wikipedia and the chat “Use Wikipedia” toggle are on (AI assistant).
- Opening or searching articles can create audit log entries when the log is enabled (Privacy & security).
- See Troubleshooting for offline / catalogue issues.
File-backed context (File Scanner)
What it’s for: External files and folders (outside the vault) indexed for semantic search and optional chat context — not a separate “tab type” for every file, but a first-class settings + index surface.
How to open: Settings → File Scanner to add paths; see Settings glossary.
Behaviour:
- Paths inside the vault are rejected as scan roots (those files are already part of the vault index). See Getting started.
Settings overlay
What it’s for: All persistent app and vault preferences — LLM, hardware, appearance, security, privacy, data, Wikipedia, file scanner, keybinds, help, and (dev builds only) developer tools.
How to open: From the main Settings entry in the app (gear / menu, depending on layout).
Behaviour:
- Modal overlay; closes with the in-app close control. See Settings glossary.
Focus (distraction-free) mode
What it’s for: Hiding panels so only the editor (and essential chrome) remain.
How to open: F11 toggles focus mode; Escape exits when no modal is open (see keyboardService.svelte.js for guards).
Behaviour:
- Does not change your notes; only layout visibility.
See also
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Settings glossary
- Getting started — first note and first LLM walkthroughs
- Marketing Help — short orientation and FAQ links