Notes

Notes is a Markdown focused notes extension for Visual Studio Code that takes inspiration from Notational Velocity and nvAlt.

Features

Notes are stored in a folder anywhere on your system you'd like, with as many subfolders as you want, and each project can also keep its own Workspace Notes. This allows you to store notes locally or inside a cloud service like Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, OneDrive, etc., and notes added or changed outside of VS Code show up on their own. Notes are written in Markdown and are stored as .md by default, but you can change this to whatever you want, or type an extension with the name of a new note, like query.sql.

The extension can be accessed using the Notes icon that is placed in the Activity Bar, or in the Command Palette (CMD+Shift+P or CTRL+Shift+P) by typing Notes.

• quickly create new notes by using the Alt+N shortcut, or by clicking the New Note icon at the top of Notes.
• quickly access your list of notes by using the Alt+L shortcut to bring up a searchable list at the top of VSCode, including the notes in folders, with the notes you opened recently first. If what you type isn't a note, press Enter to create it.
• search inside your notes with Notes: Search Notes, the search button at the top of each section, or Search in Folder in the right-click menu of a folder. It opens VS Code's Search view limited to your notes, wherever they are stored.
• sort notes by name or by date modified or created with the Sort By button at the top of Notes.
• right-click a note or folder to rename, delete, move or search it, or to reveal it in your file explorer, and a Markdown note to open its preview. Deleting a note is permanent, so be careful.
• notes open the way they do from the Explorer, with the editor VS Code uses for their file type, so images open in the image viewer.
• move notes and folders by dragging them onto a folder (or onto empty space for the top level), between Workspace Notes and Notes, or with Move To... in the right-click menu. Select several with Cmd/Ctrl to move them together, and drag a note onto the editor to open it.

Getting Started

Notes will prompt you for a storage location the first time you access the extension from the Activity Bar or through the Command Palette. If you would like to change the storage location, later on, you can access the Notes extension settings from Settings in the ... menu at the top of Notes, or from the Command Palette. After you've selected a storage location, you can access your notes from the Notes icon in the Activity Bar, or through the Command Palette.

Workspace Notes

Notes for a single project can live with that project. When the open workspace has notes, a Workspace Notes section is shown above Notes, the same way the Explorer shows Outline and Timeline below the files. Notes keeps showing the notes from your user settings in every window.

• run Notes: Set Up Workspace Notes (also in the ... menu of Notes) to create a .notes folder in the workspace and use it for its notes, or Notes: Select Workspace Notes Location to pick another folder
• the location is saved in the workspace settings, relative to the workspace folder when it is inside it, so it works for anyone who opens the project
• to give every project that has a .notes folder its own notes, set notes.workspaceNotesLocation to .notes in your user settings instead
• the New Note and New Folder buttons of each section create in that section, and Notes: New Note (Alt+N) asks which one to use when both are available
• add .notes to the project's .gitignore if the notes are only for you

A multi-root workspace uses the first folder for relative locations.

Extension Settings

This extension contributes the following settings:

• notes.notesLocation: location of the notes in the Notes section, set in your user settings and not synced between machines. In a portable VS Code, a relative path is relative to the folder holding VS Code, so the notes can travel with it (for example data/Notes on Windows and Linux)
• notes.workspaceNotesLocation: location of the notes in the Workspace Notes section, relative to the workspace folder or a full path
• notes.notesDefaultNoteExtension: extension used for new notes that don't have one in their name
• notes.newNoteName: name filled in when you create a note, using VS Code's snippet date and time variables, for example ${CURRENT_YEAR}-${CURRENT_MONTH}-${CURRENT_DATE} ${CURRENT_HOUR}-${CURRENT_MINUTE}; press Enter to use it or type a name instead
• notes.sortOrder: how notes and folders are sorted, by name (A to Z or Z to A) or newest first by date modified or created, also set with the Sort By button at the top of each section
• notes.notesExtensions: list of extensions recognized as notes or '*' for all extensions
• notes.watchExternalChanges: update the Notes view when notes are added, renamed or removed outside of VS Code
• notes.watchIntervalSeconds: how often the open folders are checked for those changes while the Notes view is visible

Future Plans

• custom Notes editor with shortcuts for common Markdown functions (bold, italic, link, code block, etc.)
• option to have an automatic Markdown preview pop up when you start editing a note
• allow for front matter in Notes like tags and categories (with possible tree structure based on tags and categories)
• allow for multiple Notes' storage locations and make them switchable

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.