Note Studio Tutorial
Your Books Are Stored In A Library
When you first run Note Studio, you see a list of books. This is known as your Library View. Here you see all of the books you have available. To begin, we've given you your own book, called 'My First Book'. This is yours to write in. We've also given you some sample books to look at.
 |
To open any book, you simply click on its name. Let's test this by going into a sample book. Feeling hungry? We'll look into 'Sample Book: Recipes'. Remember, just click on the book's name.
Tip: If you keep your browser open, you can follow along yourself in Note Studio.
Right, when you open the book, the screen will change to look something like this:
 |
That's how you open a book. It's that easy. Once you're in a book, you can always return to the library by pressing the Library button on your toolbar:
 |
Make sense?
Remember, to go back into a book, click on that book's name.
You Read Your Books Like A Website
Go into the book called 'Sample Book: Recipes'. Have a look at the page. When you're in a book, you can move around just like when you're viewing a website on the internet.
You can move to different pages by clicking links. Links are easy to see - they are a different colour and are underlined. Try clicking on the 'look inside...' link. It takes you to another page:
 |
Have a little look around the book now. You will find it contains a few different recipes. Note how clicking the links takes
you to different pages of information.
As well as clicking on links, you can move around by pressing the Back, Forward or Home buttons (up the top, in the toolbar). These buttons work just like they do when you're browsing the internet.
 |
Tip: If you ever want to jump quickly back to the start of a book, just press the 'Home' button.
It's always just one click away, and it means you can never get lost.
It's like a Website, But Different
You can already see that this is a little different from an ordinary set of notes. One page can link to many other pages.
You can cross-link notes in a way that is not normally possible (note how 'Apple Sauce' is found under 'Roast Pork', and also 'Sauces and Garnishes'). You can look around your notes as if they were a website.
But there's something very important that you can do in Note Studio which you can't do with ordinary websites...
Note Studio Allows You to Change Your Pages.
OK, so you know how to get around in a book. That's a great start - but it's only half of the picture.
You need to learn how to change the pages. And make your own pages. And link them together to create a book of notes! You're
probably thinking it's going to get tricky. Well, don't worry, it's surprisingly easy. We'll take it step-by-step.
Your First Book
We've put a book in your Library for you to play with. It's called 'My First Book'.
To get to that book, first go back to the library (by pressing the 'Library' button, remember?), then locate the book called 'My First Book', and click on it. This will take you to that book's Home Page.
 |
This book is yours to do whatever you want with. You can follow along with these steps using that book.
Editing a page
Let's say you want to make some notes on this page. You might be inclined to just start typing. Go ahead, try it. Nothing
happens. Why is this? Well, because your notes are so precious, we don't want you to accidentally change them. We want you
to be sure. So, you have to tell Note Studio: "now I'm ready to edit!" before it will let you modify the page. It's like taking
the lid off your pen. It tells Note Studio that you mean business.
Edit Mode
To tell Note Studio that you want to edit the page, press the Edit button on the toolbar.
 |
That's pretty simple, right? When you press edit, a few things will change. Firstly, the border around your page will change
colour. This shows you that you are "live", that is, actually editing the page. Also, you will see a flashing cursor, indicating
where your text will go when you start typing. Finally, if you look towards the lower-right of your screen, you will see the
big word "EDIT". Now you can type something.
If you're looking for inspiration, why not type out a short poem? Did you ever learn Haiku at school? It had three lines in
a 5-7-5 syllable format, and is generally both profound and beautiful. Here's one which was inspired by Note Studio:
To store all my thoughts Would be an amazing thing. Thanks, Note Studio.
 |
OK, that's profound. Dry your eyes and read on...
View Mode
When you're finished editing, just press the Edit button again. The screen border will change colour, the flashing cursor will disappear, and the big word at the lower-right
will change to "VIEW". This is called View Mode. Up until now, you have always been in View Mode. This is the normal mode you are in, when you're looking around a book.
You only go into Edit Mode while you are changing the contents of a page.
 |
Easy so far, don't you think?
Some Characters Have a Special Meaning
Now we're going to show you something special. Go back into Edit Mode (by pressing the Edit button again - I'm going to stop saying that now), and change the first line of the poem from:
To store all my thoughts
to
To store *all* my thoughts
Now, leave edit mode (Edit button again - I know - I said I'd stop saying that). Something remarkable happens! The word *all* has changed to all. It's become bold. How is that? Well, putting asterisk characters around text makes it bold.
In Note Studio, some characters have a special meaning.
There are many other effects you can do to make your text easier to read. You can add headings, lines, tables, italics, bullets,
etc. But you don't have to worry about all that just yet. For now, the main thing you have to remember is that some text has
special meaning.
Making a New Page
Now, this next bit is as hard as it gets. But it's the key to Note Studio, so pay attention! We're going to put some square brackets around a few words. Go into Edit Mode and change line 1 from:
To store *all* my thoughts
to
To store *all* [my thoughts]
That's all.
Are you still with me? That was it. This time, when you leave Edit Mode, something more amazing happens. The words you put
in square brackets have become a link. You have made a link! This is a link to a new page, called 'my thoughts'.
 |
Clicking on that link will take you to the new page. Try it now!
Editing the New Page
When you clicked the link, it took you to a new page called 'my thoughts'. You can see the page name at the top of the page. Now you can edit it. Need more inspiration? Look no further:
Hello my old friend - You remember everything I ever tell you.
When you're finished, go back to View Mode.
 |
When you first went to this page, it was - quite naturally - empty. After all, you just created it. But now that it exists,
any time you make a link to 'my thoughts', that link will bring you back to this page.
You can see this by pressing the Home button, then clicking the my thoughts link again. You will see your familiar haiku again.
That's it
Now you've got everything you need to use Note Studio effectively. You can edit pages, create them, link them together, everything.
This is enough to start making your own notes.