Markdown Notes on Android

The Notes tab is PlainApp's built-in markdown editor. It's a lightweight place to keep code snippets, meeting notes, a journal, or anything else that fits in a text file — without bouncing between three different apps. Notes live on the phone, sync over your local network when you use the web dashboard, and never touch a cloud server you don't control.

The editor follows Material 3 conventions, so the gesture vocabulary is the same as the rest of the app: long-press to multi-select, tap the FAB to create. A single tap flips the whole editor between raw markdown and a rendered preview — there's no split-screen mode, just a fast toggle so you can check your formatting without losing your place. The underlying file is plain text, readable in any editor if you ever stop using PlainApp.

Key capabilities

• Markdown editor with a preview toggle — write in plain markdown, then tap the preview icon to switch to rendered output. Supports headings, lists, code blocks, tables, links, and inline formatting.
• Undo/redo — dedicated buttons in the top app bar step backward and forward through your edit history within the current session.
• Tag organization — apply one or more tags to each note and filter the list from the chip row. Tags are color-coded and shared with the web dashboard.
• Full-text search — the search box in the top app bar scans note titles and bodies.
• Trash and restore — deleted notes move to a trash tab before permanent removal. Restore individually or in bulk.
• Multi-select bulk actions — long-press a note to enter selection mode, then bulk-tag, trash, or restore the selection at once.
• Auto-save, always — edits are saved automatically about 200ms after you stop typing. There's no save button and nothing to lose.

Walkthrough

1. Open the Notes tab from the Home screen. The list shows your most recently edited notes, with the title, snippet, tags, and modified time.
2. Tap the + button to create a new note. The editor opens with an empty title and a blank body, ready to type.
3. Write markdown — use # for headings, - for lists, triple backticks for code blocks.
4. Tap the preview icon to see the rendered version, and tap it again to go back to editing.
5. Apply a tag from the chip row above the editor. Pick an existing tag or type a new one; tags save automatically as you back out of the note.
6. Search across notes by tapping the search icon in the top app bar and typing a query. The list filters to notes whose title or body contains the term.

Tips & tricks

• Long-press a note to enter selection mode, then tap additional notes to bulk-tag or bulk-trash them together.
• Code blocks with a language hint (e.g. ```rust) get syntax highlighting in the preview.
• If you need to get a note out as a .md file, do it from the web dashboard — export isn't available on the phone itself yet.
• Undo/redo only covers the current editing session — closing and reopening a note starts a fresh history.

Privacy & security notes

• Notes are stored in PlainApp's local app database on the phone, as plain text. Nothing is uploaded unless you explicitly connect via the web dashboard.
• Note content is never logged. Crash reports, if you opt in, contain only counts and timestamps — not body text.
• The Notes screen works fully offline. Creating, editing, tagging, and searching all function without a network connection.

Related features

• Markdown Notes in the Web Dashboard — the same note archive, with export to .md and image pasting, edited from a browser.
• File Management on Android — browse and manage files exported from the web dashboard.
• Encrypted P2P Chat on Android — share a note's content with another PlainApp device over an encrypted channel.