ICOR for Life - Scratchpad

Catch a thought without losing what you were doing.

Press your hotkey in any application. A small note window comes forward, already blank, ready to type. Press it again and it is gone. The thought is in your vault as a normal note, and you never left the app you were in.

Part of the ICOR for Life suite.

What it is for

The gap between having a thought and writing it down is where most thoughts die. Finding the Obsidian window, finding the right note, deciding where it belongs: by the time you have done that, the thought has moved on.

This removes the gap. One key, anywhere, and you are typing.

• In a meeting, catch the thing you must not forget without opening another app on the shared screen.
• Mid-task, park the unrelated idea so it stops circling.
• Away from the desk, jot it from a launcher and let it wait for you.

It is a scratchpad, not a second inbox: every note it makes is an ordinary markdown file in a folder you choose, and your other plugins work inside the window like any other note.

Getting started

1. Enable the plugin under Settings, Community plugins.
2. Open its settings and record your hotkey. Pick something no other app uses; if the chord is taken, the plugin tells you rather than stealing it.
3. Press it. Type. Press it again.

That is the whole setup. Everything below is optional.

The window

A narrow window with your last note in it. It floats above other applications if you want it to, and it remembers where you left it.

Along the bottom: a new note, the actions menu, and the note list. The list shows recent notes so you can pick up something from this morning without opening the main window.

The notes

• New note files into a dated subfolder, named from the clock, the way Obsidian's own Unique note creator names one. Give it a title by typing in the title line at the top.
• Daily note opens today's daily note, wherever Obsidian's own Daily notes plugin keeps it.
• Delete goes to whatever trash you set in Obsidian, with an Undo.

Nothing is appended to a daily note behind your back, and nothing is renamed without you.

From outside Obsidian

The plugin answers an obsidian://icor-scratchpad link, so anything that can open a URL can hand it a note: a launcher, Shortcuts, a script. The settings screen shows you the exact link for your vault, ready to paste.

Settings

Your hotkey. Always on top. Window size and position, remembered, with a button to forget them. Which folder new notes go in, how their subfolder is dated, and how they are named. The menu bar icon, on or off. Which vault owns the icon and the hotkey when you have several. Every change applies at once, and the settings appear in Obsidian's own settings search.

What it touches

Stated plainly, because you should not have to take a plugin's word for it:

• One system-wide shortcut, the one you record. Nothing is registered until you do.
• One menu bar icon on macOS, system tray on Windows and Linux. Switch it off if you only want the hotkey.
• One extra Obsidian window.
• Notes in the folder you choose, plus today's daily note if you ask for it.
• Two small files in Obsidian's own application-support folder, outside every vault, so that exactly one vault owns the menu bar icon and the shortcut. One is Obsidian's own vault list, read only, and only when you ask to see your other vaults. The other is a short record naming the owning vault, written only when you click "Make this vault the owner". Both stay on this machine.

It makes no network connection and starts no process. Nothing you write, and nothing you have, leaves your machine. SECURITY.md names the exact file behind every claim above.

Good to know

• Desktop only. The window, the tray icon and the system-wide shortcut do not exist on mobile, so the plugin does not load there.
• A system-wide shortcut cannot be stolen. If another application already holds the chord, the plugin says so and leaves it alone.
• After restarting Obsidian you may see the window for an instant before it puts itself away. Your hotkey brings it back.
• With the "native" window frame setting, Obsidian gives the window an operating-system title bar that a plugin cannot remove. Everything else works.
• Beta. If something looks off, open an issue.

Support

Open an issue on this repository. For security problems, see SECURITY.md.

Licence

Source-available, see LICENSE. Not open source. Bundled third-party components: none; see THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.md.