Introduction

After the internal launch of our first real build a week ago, we have been hard at work. Our git contribution map is as green as the trees on our campus, but it paid off, and now we are very proud to offer you a first look at what we have been building.

Internally we gave this version "The Merge" because halfway through our bug backlog we both wondered why everything is its own window. Until now, each file had its own window, and besides the select view and the settings, what felt natural because of our origins from the "document-based apps on mac" framework now felt wrong in more than one way. It is very strange how I, of all people who is at war with window management on mac, thought it would be a good idea to create an app which has as many windows as functions.

But hey, we realized it, and now everything is contained in one beautiful window.

Nodes Alpha 1.0

Little sketch of our planned Alpha versions:

1.x - The Writing Update (We are here)
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2.x - The Graph Update
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3.x - The AI Update

So what can one expect from this version?

The clear focus for us was to give you a great writing experience, which shines especially in the focus view. You can adjust the font family and their standard size. But I will get into the specific features later. If you are in the market for distraction-free markdown writing and like to play around with very experimental features like our local AI, then you should try this version.

We removed the graph for now because we completely rebuilt the search interface and axed the select view. You can look forward to a dedicated graph view in Alpha 2.0.

Features

• Write markdown
• Change font family and size
• Focus mode — open a fullscreen view which is purely text and only that
• Select and download an AI model within the app
• Use your model to automatically suggest fitting tags — works 2/3 times if you're lucky; more a proof of concept than a feature in this version
• Search based on filenames and filter based on tags — and enjoy the smooth animations while you’re at it, thanks to Luca
• Use Apple intelligence directly in the editor — just highlight a section of your text, and a dialogue option should appear
• Import and export your files — you should definitely export your files from time to time. By the way, it is very possible that you will lose them in a future update, but hey, you get a cool stamp for participation in the alpha.

The road ahead

We will now use the coming weeks to find and fix bugs to really provide a great writing experience. When we think we have created an experience which fits our standards, work will begin on the next major version, the graph update.

Welcome to our guide on advanced markdown features! This post demonstrates various markdown capabilities available in our blog system.