No. 02 · Study
Reading is the resting state
What has been written opens read-only. Writing is something you choose to do, and the page always says which of the two you are doing.
Almost every time you open something you wrote, you open it to read it. Yet nearly every notes app opens it as a live editor: the cursor armed, every keystroke a possible change. A paste into the wrong window, a select-all followed by a typo, a cat on the keyboard, and something written months ago is quietly different. Nothing told you it could happen.
The position taken here is the reverse. What has been written is read-only until you choose otherwise. Editing is a small, deliberate act, and it feels a little consequential because it is.
An always-open editor
No mode shownSaved automatically.
Reading first
Read onlyVersion 1.
The same invented note in two editors. Send it a stray keystroke and compare. Then choose Edit, change a word, and choose Done: the change becomes a new version, and the old one stays.
Two states that look alike must not exist
The rule that matters most is about ambiguity. A page should never look locked and secretly take typing, and a blank page should never refuse it. So the mode is always named, in words, over the text. You should never have to guess whether a keystroke will land.
There are places where an always-open editor is right: a draft in progress, a message box. Those are unfinished by definition. The difference is that they say so.
Where it stands
Exists
- The writing page opens what was written as Read only. Edit unlocks it; Done locks it again and keeps the change as a new version, with the old text still in its history.
- A badge over the text always names the mode, Read only, Editing or New note, with editing in amber.
- A blank page takes typing at once, because it has nothing to protect, until it is deliberately saved.
Not yet, or not decided
- The same treatment on every surface. Some writing surfaces are scratchpads by design and announce nothing.