The workspace

The workspace at /app is where you study. It works like a code editor: notes and tools open as tabs, tabs live in panes you can split side by side, and a command palette gets you anywhere from the keyboard.

Tabs#

Everything you open is a tab: a note, the home tab, or a tool such as the grapher or flashcards. Open tabs appear in the tab bar at the top of each pane, with an icon showing what each one is.

• Click a tab to switch to it.
• Drag a tab to reorder it, or drop it on another pane's tab bar to move it there.
• Middle-click a tab, or use its close button, to close it.
• Right-click a tab for Keep open (on a preview tab), Close, Close others and Open to the side.
• Choose New tab (+) at the end of the tab bar to open a new home tab.

Opening something that is already open in the pane switches to the existing tab instead of opening a duplicate. Each tool opens once per pane, except the grapher: every time you open it you get a new graph tab with its own expressions.

When you close the last tab in a pane, the pane closes. The last remaining pane always keeps at least a home tab.

Preview tabs#

Clicking a note in the sidebar, in search or in a link inside another note opens it as a preview tab, shown with its title in italics. A preview tab is temporary: the next note you open as a preview replaces it, so browsing through a unit does not leave a trail of tabs behind.

To keep a note open:

• double-click the note in the sidebar
• double-click its tab, or right-click it and choose Keep open
• hold ⌘ (or Ctrl) when you click a link to it inside another note

Notes you open from the home tab, and notes you split into a new pane, always open as normal tabs.

Split panes#

Show two or three things side by side, such as a note on the left and the grapher or cheat sheet on the right.

• Choose Split right at the right end of the tab bar, or press ⌘ \. The active tab is copied into a new pane to the right.
• Right-click any tab and choose Open to the side to split with that tab instead.
• Drag the divider between panes to resize them.
• Click anywhere in a pane to focus it. New tabs open in the focused pane.

You can have up to three panes. The active tab in the focused pane is shown in a heavier weight; active tabs in other panes are lighter. On a phone you see one pane at a time.

Links and URLs#

The address bar always shows the active tab of the focused pane:

Copy the URL to share a note or bookmark a tool. Back and forward work as you would expect between notes. A tool's URL opens the tool but does not carry what is in it, so sharing /tools/graph does not share your expressions.

Your layout (open tabs, panes, their sizes, the sidebar width and whether the sidebar is shown) is saved in your browser and restored next time. It is not synced between devices.

The sidebar#

From top to bottom, the sidebar has:

• The Margin logo, which opens the home tab, and Hide sidebar.
• Search, which opens the command palette.
• Home and the Tools: Grapher, Cheat sheet, Flashcards, Planner, Progress and My notes. Click the Tools heading to fold the list away.
• Contents. Choose a subject from the subject switcher at the top of this section (it shows the subject, its syllabus code and how many courses it has), then pick a course from the tabs below it, such as P1, P3, M1, S1 and S2 in Mathematics or AS and A2 in the sciences. The course's units are listed in syllabus order, like a textbook contents page. A unit with one note opens it directly; a unit with several notes expands when clicked.
• Your account and Settings and help. At the bottom are the sign-in button or your account, and the ⋯ menu with the theme (Light, Dark or System) and links to the documentation and the Margin website.

The sidebar follows you: open a note from search or a link and it switches to that note's subject and course and unfolds its unit. It also remembers the course you last chose and which units you left open.

Drag the sidebar's right edge to resize it (double-click the edge to reset the width), and press ⌘ B to hide or show it. When it is hidden, a Show sidebar button appears at the left of the first tab bar. On a phone the sidebar opens as a menu from the button at the left of the tab bar instead.

The home tab#

The home tab is your dashboard. It has:

• Search notes and tools, which opens the command palette.
• Continue reading, with the note you opened most recently and the few before it. Before you have opened any notes it shows Start here instead.
• A progress strip with your study Streak, notes studied This week, Flashcards due and your Next exam. Each one opens the matching tool. See Progress.
• Subjects, with a card for each course showing its units and number of notes. Click a card to open the course's first note.
• Tools, with a card for each tool and, on wide screens, the main shortcuts.

The command palette#

Press ⌘ K or ⌘ P (Ctrl on Windows and Linux) to open the command palette, or click Search in the sidebar. On a phone, use the search button at the right of the tab bar.

With nothing typed, the palette shows your Recent notes, every tool and the most common commands. As you type, results are grouped:

• Notes, grouped by subject. Every note is searched by title, section headings and body text. Results update on every keystroke, and a result that matched a section heading jumps straight to that section.
• Related. Searches of two or more words also bring in notes found by meaning rather than exact words, when the server supports it.
• Tools. Matched by name or description, so formula finds the cheat sheet.
• Commands. Go home, Split editor right, Close tab, Toggle sidebar, and Use light theme, Use dark theme or Use system theme.

Use the arrow keys to move and Enter to choose. See Keyboard shortcuts for the full list.

Search tips#

• Search matches word prefixes and tolerates small typos, so integ part finds integration by parts.
• Every word must match, so add words to narrow the results.
• Formula names work as well as topic names: try chain rule, ideal gas, Hardy–Weinberg.