User Guide

A quick tour of OV's main features. The same guide is available inside the app — ? button in the right rail → "External docs" — or via the starter notes (Welcome, Shortcuts, Markdown, Calendar, Security) in the sidebar.

1. Vault — the folder your notes live in

Every note in OV is a local markdown file. A vault is just one folder where those files sit together.

  • Default vault: ~/Documents/OV is created automatically on first launch.
  • Open another vault: left sidebar (📁) → "Open vault" → choose any folder.
  • Multiple vaults: one open at a time, but you can switch freely.
  • Compatibility: the same folder can be opened in Obsidian, iA Writer, VS Code, and so on. Changes get picked up by OV automatically.

Safe writes:

  • Every write is atomic (tmp + rename) — a crash or power failure mid-save won't corrupt the file.
  • If an external editor changes a file while you have it open, OV catches an mtime conflict and shows a modal asking whether to keep your changes or load the external ones.
  • On quit, unsaved changes trigger a confirmation dialog.

Sync & mobile

Put your vault in an iCloud Drive folder and every device sees the same notes. Run the one-time "move vault to iCloud" in desktop settings and it syncs automatically from then on. Because notes are plain .md files, sync happens through your iCloud only — never OV's servers.

Open the same vault in the iPhone & Android apps (coming soon) and continue right where you left off. Watch the download page for mobile launch news.

2. Writing in markdown

Auto-conversion rules when typing on an empty line:

You typeYou get
# Heading 1
## Heading 2
### Heading 3
- Bulleted list
1. Numbered list
- [ ] To-do checkbox
> Block quote
```Code block
---Horizontal divider

Inline markdown: **bold**, *italic*, ~~strikethrough~~, `code`, [link](url), [[wiki link]].

Slash menu (/): type / on an empty line and every block type is in a menu. If you don't want to memorize markdown, the slash menu is the answer.

Callout colors and meanings:

  • 🔴 Red (Callout · red) — emphasis / danger
  • 🟦 Cyan (Callout · cyan) — info
  • 🟡 Yellow (Callout · yellow) — warning
  • 🟢 Green (Callout · green) — success / confirmation
  • ⚪ Gray (Callout · gray) — side note

3. Note properties (frontmatter)

Click + Add a property in the gray area at the top of a note to add metadata. It's saved as YAML frontmatter at the top of the markdown file.

Supported types: Text, Date, Tags (multiple), Checkbox, Number.

These properties automatically become columns in the database view (⌘2), serve as the group key in Kanban, and place notes with a date property onto the calendar.

4. Database views (⌘2)

  • Table: a list of notes with sorting and filtering. Type to narrow quickly.
  • Kanban (board): group cards into columns by a chosen property. Drag a card to a different column and the property updates automatically.

5. Calendar & schedule

Click the calendar icon (📅) on the left:

  • Month view: a month grid. Click a date to expand its schedule panel.
  • Day view: a day with time slots. The NOW line marks the current time.

Add an event: pick a date → + Add to schedule → title + time (14:00 or 14:00-15:30) + description → save. Events are stored as notes in the Schedule/ folder.

Notes in Schedule/ are ordinary notes — edit them like any other, including the date and time frontmatter fields.

6. AI Copilot (⌘J)

Open the AI assistant from the right panel.

Setup:

  1. Settings (⌘,) → AI Copilot tab
  2. Enter your OpenAI API key → "Save" → it's encrypted in the OS keychain (macOS Keychain / Windows DPAPI / Linux libsecret).

The key never passes through OV's servers — it goes directly to OpenAI. It never sits on disk in plaintext.

Capabilities:

  • Natural-language commands like summarize, continue writing, clean up
  • Read tools (list / read / search) and propose-change tools (create / edit) — every change appears as a diff that you must explicitly Approve before it is applied
  • Time words like "today", "tomorrow", "yesterday" are recognized by an intent router that pre-fetches calendar data

Shortcuts:

  • ⌘J — open / close
  • ⌘↵ — send message

7. Security

App password

Have the app ask for a password every launch. Settings → Security tab → App password.

File password

Lock individual notes.

  • Register a File password in settings
  • Right-click a note in the sidebar → "Lock" → encrypted with AES-GCM-256
  • Unlock: click the note → enter the password (cached for the session)

Algorithm: PBKDF2-SHA256 (200k iterations) + AES-GCM-256, via WebCrypto. The plaintext password lives only in memory.

8. Shortcuts

The full keyboard shortcut sheet is available in-app via ⌘/, and a static version is on the full documentation site.

The five you'll use most:

  • ⌘K — Command Palette
  • ⌘P — Quick file jump
  • ⌘J — AI Copilot
  • ⌘D — Today's note
  • ⌘/ — The shortcut sheet itself

9. Attachments

Attach images, videos, or any file to a note.

  • Drag & drop: drop a file onto the editor
  • Paste: paste a clipboard image with ⌘V
  • Slash menu: /image, /video, /file
  • Embed: /embed → paste a YouTube / Vimeo URL → embedded as an iframe

Attachments are stored in .attachments/ inside your vault.

10. Getting help

  • ? button (right rail) — help menu, jumps to the guide notes
  • ⌘/ — shortcut sheet
  • Sidebar starter notes — Welcome, Shortcuts, Markdown, Calendar, Security
  • Full documentation — covers everything in depth
  • Release notes — version-by-version changes

← Back home