Desktop Settings

Open Settings with Cmd/Ctrl + ,, from the app menu, or by running Open Settings in the Command Bar. Use the search field to find a setting by name or keyword.

Most settings belong to the current workspace. Window settings apply to the app window instead.

Preferences

The Preferences page controls day-to-day workspace behavior:

• Theme — choose light and dark themes from visual previews or randomize the theme at startup
• Startup — reopen the last tab, open a new tab, Ask Octarine, the daily note, or Views
• Fonts — choose interface and monospace fonts, and adjust the interface font size
• Calendar — choose the first day of the week and place the calendar above or below the sidebar
• Date & Time — customize displayed dates and use 12- or 24-hour time
• Tasks — show completed and total task counts
• Navigation — use compact sidebar navigation
• Split Panes — dim panes that are not focused or remove tab borders with Subtle Tabs
• AI — hide visual AI buttons and menus, require a modifier when sending, and choose the weekly recap period

Hide all AI removes Ask Octarine from the sidebar and hides AI buttons and menus in the editor and app chrome. It does not disable the configured providers, AI features, or their keyboard shortcuts, so you can still open them from the Command Bar or with a shortcut.

Editor

Editor settings cover typography, editor width, paper style, spelling and autocorrect, links, content display, and interface helpers.

Notable controls include:

• Overscroll — add a small, medium, or large amount of space below the end of a note
• Content Alignment — center constrained editor content or align it to the left
• Focus Mode Dimming — highlight the current sentence or disable dimming
• Typewriter in Focus Mode — keep the active line centered while writing in Focus Mode
• Editor Stats — show word, character, line, and reading-time statistics
• Show Outline, Show Heading Guides, Show Image Captions, and Render Math Equations
• Wrap Long Lines — wrap long text and code-block lines instead of scrolling horizontally
• Show Raw Frontmatter in editor — edit a note's YAML directly above its body; this requires Pro
• Wrap selected text — typing quotes or brackets wraps the selection instead of replacing it
• Doclink click behavior — open linked notes in a tab or a sheet
• Linked Notes Display — show a link's full path, shortest unique name, or note name only
• Wikilink Folder Tooltips — show folder context beside suggestions in the [[ menu

Per-note Appearance

An individual note can override the workspace's editor appearance. Open the note, then click the paintbrush icon in the breadcrumb or run Customise Note Appearance from the Command Bar.

You can override the note's width, editor font, heading font, font size, line height, and letter spacing. Choose Reset to workspace defaults to remove every override and follow the Editor settings again.

Per-note appearance requires an active Pro or trial license. Octarine stores the overrides in the note's reserved oct.* frontmatter, so they travel with the Markdown file without changing other notes.

Files

File settings control:

• Delete confirmations and dot-folder visibility
• Directory item counts and modified-time labels
• Created and modified timestamps on hover
• Whether non-Markdown files appear in the tree
• Automatic note naming and the default note folder
• Additional external-file extensions
• Refreshing indexed tags and property definitions from the Markdown files currently in the workspace

Use Refresh Tags and Properties in the Command Bar, the Tags/Properties sidebar header, or Settings → Files → Tags and properties when indexed metadata is missing or stale. Octarine re-reads the Markdown files, rebuilds .octarine/properties.json, and removes unused definitions without changing the notes themselves. This is narrower than Refresh Workspace, which resets the full workspace database and other local workspace UI state.

Window

Enable Always on Top to keep the current Octarine window above other apps.

Enable Don't show system tray to hide the Octarine menu bar or tray icon. While it is enabled, Quick Capture is disabled across all workspaces, including its global shortcut and direct clipboard capture. Turn the setting off before trying to use Quick Capture again.

On Windows, enable Hide app menu to remove the app menu from the title bar while keeping the window controls available.

These are app-level settings rather than workspace preferences.

Customizing the Sidebar

Open the Workspace actions menu beside the Workspace heading and select Customise sidebar.

From the dialog you can:

• Switch Compact Navigation on or off
• Drag Notes, Templates, Views, Graph, Inbox, and Attachments into a different order
• Hide destinations you do not use
• Show notification badges as a number or a dot

Hidden destinations remain available from the Command Bar.

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