Leaving notes

Everything a reviewer does happens on the page itself: point at something, say what is wrong, and come back later to see it fixed.

The toolbar#

The toolbar sits at the edge of the window and slides out when you reach for it. Click the pin at its top to keep it on screen; Notefix remembers.

In Settings you can move the toolbar to any edge of the window.

Add a note#

1. Click the pin, or press N.
2. Click the thing you mean: a button, a heading, a row. The note attaches to that element, not to a spot on the screen, so it stays with it when the page scrolls, resizes or changes.
3. Write the note. The first time, Notefix asks for your name; it goes on every note you write.
4. Press Save, or ⌘ Enter (Ctrl Enter on Windows).

Under the text are three small buttons: emoji, image and label.

• Labels say what kind of note it is: Copy, Layout, Visual, Flow, Behaviour, Content, Bug, Idea or Question. Rename, recolour or add your own in Settings.
• Images: paste a screenshot straight into the note, or use the image button. Up to three per note. They are shrunk automatically, so a large screenshot will not slow the page down.
• Capture the screen: the camera button takes the picture for you. Your browser asks which window or tab to share, and Notefix hides its own panels for the moment the picture is taken, so what lands on the note is the page with your mark on it and none of the tool around it. The button only appears where the browser supports it. Nothing is ever captured without you pressing it.

Draw on the page#

Sometimes the note is the drawing. Click the pencil, then pick a tool from the bar that appears over the page:

Draw, then write a note beside it if you want. Cancel or Esc puts the tools away.

Reading and working through notes#

A note opens as a card beside the thing it is about. One card is open at a time. Drag a card by its top to move it out of the way, and from its corner to resize it; double-click its top to put it back. Where you move a card is shared, so it moves for everyone.

Create issue, at the bottom right of the card, turns the note into a ticket in your connected tracker. Once it is sent, the button becomes the ticket's number, and a link to it.

Each card also has a row of small tools:

Choose which tools a card shows, and in what order, in Settings under Note tools.

Decisions#

Some notes are not problems but agreements: "Keep the green header." Mark a note as a decision and it:

• never counts as open work,
• is never removed by Clear finished,
• gets an Agree button, so people can sign off. Everyone who agreed is listed on the note.

Decisions are the record of what was settled, for whoever asks later.

All notes#

Press the list button, or A, to see every note on the page.

• Filters: Open, Done, Archived, Decisions or All.
• Search matches a note's words, its author, its label and the screen it is on. It searches within the filter you picked.
• Click a note to jump to it on the page.

Keyboard shortcuts#

Settings#

Open All notes, then the gear. Settings are yours: they are kept in your browser and never change anything for anyone else.

Export and import#

Export Markdown gives you a list you can paste into a document, a chat or a ticket. Export JSON is a complete copy you can import again later.

Import merges rather than replaces: notes you already have stay, newer copies win. Two people can swap files and both end up with everything.

On phones#

Notefix works on a phone. Below 560px wide it changes shape rather than size: the toolbar sits along the bottom of the screen instead of tucking into the right edge, and All notes comes up from the bottom as a sheet.

Everything you can do at a desk you can do there. Tap Add note, tap the place, type. Read what other people left, reply, mark something done, search.

Drawing works with a finger, and a drawing can be as many strokes as it takes: circle the thing, then put an arrow next to it. While you are drawing, the page stays still under your finger rather than scrolling or pulling to refresh. Nothing interrupts you: press Done on the bar at the top when the markup is finished, and all of it becomes one note for you to write on.

With the pin armed rather than a drawing tool, the page still scrolls as usual, so you can go and find the thing you want to point at.

The toolbar and the list are one panel: open All notes and the tools sit across the top of it.

One note at a time is its own thing. Press the pin, tap the place, and what comes up is a small sheet with your note in it, not the whole list, and the page you are pointing at stays on screen behind it. Tapping a marker someone else left does the same: that note, on its own.

A sheet like that closes when you are done with it. Send the note, take it back, or just tap the page behind it, and it goes; anything you had typed is kept. All notes is different, because you asked for it by name: it stays until you close it.

Settings on a phone is your name and, where the board sends email, how often it reaches you. The rest of it (marker colours, which tools are in the toolbar, what the labels are called, exporting a copy) is for a desk, and the same browser at one still has all of it.

Two other things are different, because a phone has no room for them. Notes are read in the list rather than in cards beside the page, which is already how any window narrower than about 1070px shows them. And the settings for which edge the toolbar and the panel live on are not offered: on a phone both are the bottom. Whatever you chose at your desk is still there when you go back to it.

If you would rather Notefix did not appear on phones at all, your team can turn it off with data-phone="off" on the tag; see Install options.