Settings Reference

Use this page when you want to understand what each configurable option does in Notely.

1. Appearance

Theme

Open Settings -> Theme.

• System: follows the operating system theme
• Light: always uses the light theme
• Dark: always uses the dark theme

Default: System

Use this when you want Notely to stay consistent with your desktop or when you need a fixed light or dark theme.

Zoom

Open View -> Zoom In, Zoom Out, or Reset Zoom.

• Minimum zoom: 75%
• Default zoom: 80%
• Maximum zoom: 200%

Use zoom when UI text or panels feel too small or too large on your display.

2. Landing View

View Mode

Open View -> Tile Notes or View -> Table Notes.

• Tile Notes: visual cards with previews and summary details
• Table Notes: denser list-style view for scanning many notes quickly

Density

Open View -> Comfortable Density or Compact Density.

• Comfortable: more whitespace and larger rows
• Compact: denser rows for large workspaces

Use compact density when you want to see more notes at once.

3. Editor and Writing

Typo Check

Open Edit -> Enable Typo Check.

• When enabled, Notely checks note text for spelling and typo issues.
• It skips code and diagram content so it does not flag technical text unnecessarily.

Default: On

Outline

Open View -> Show Outline.

• Shows a headings-based side panel for the current note
• Hidden automatically while Focus Mode is active

Shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd + Alt + L

Focus Mode

Open View -> Focus Mode.

• Hides the outline and reduces surrounding distractions
• Useful for concentrated writing sessions

Shortcut: Ctrl/Cmd + Alt + F

4. Terminal

Show Terminal

Open View -> Show Terminal.

• Opens or hides the embedded terminal panel
• Useful for project-local commands while staying in Notely

Terminal Shell

Open View -> Terminal Shell.

• Auto: lets Notely choose the shell
• Bash: prefers Bash when available
• CMD: uses Windows Command Prompt

Use Bash if you prefer a Unix-style command line. Use CMD if you prefer standard Windows commands.

5. Screen Capture

Open Settings -> Screen Capture.

• Auto Insert: inserts the captured image immediately into the note
• Review Before Insert: opens the review editor before saving and inserting

Default: Auto Insert

The toolbar capture button shows the current mode:

• A = Auto Insert
• R = Review Before Insert

6. AI Settings

Open AI -> AI Settings.

Provider setup

• Text provider: choose the LLM service for writing, summarizing, or refactoring text (Google Gemini, Groq, or OpenAI / OpenAI-compatible).
• OpenAI Compatible: connect to OpenAI (gpt-4o, gpt-4o-mini) or any compatible endpoint by specifying your API key and Base URL.
• Local ONNX Models: vector embeddings (BGE-small-en-v1.5) and Knowledge Graph extraction (GLiNER2-Relex) run completely on-device and offline via onnxruntime-node.
• HuggingFace token: optional API token for cloud-based embeddings fallback.
• Test buttons: verify that your saved credentials and endpoint connections work.

Feature toggles

• Learn user patterns: lets the app remember how you use AI so it can be more helpful later
• Generate embeddings: turns on meaning-based search and related-note features
• Discover relationships: helps the graph and AI features find links between related notes
• Graph confidence threshold: controls the minimum confidence score (10% to 95%) required for neural-extracted entities and relationships. Adjusting this slider dynamically filters the Knowledge Graph visualization in real time.

Advanced generation tuning

• Max tokens: controls how long AI responses are allowed to be
• Temperature: controls how safe and predictable, or how varied and creative, the response feels

Use lower temperature for predictable output. Use higher temperature for brainstorming or variation.

Data and privacy controls

• Shows where AI-related app data is stored on your device
• Lets you clear saved AI working data and learned behavior

7. Workspace Metadata and Git Safety

If your workspace is also a Git folder, Notely can help keep its own support files out of version control.

• Ignore .notes-app: On: automatically keeps .notes-app/ ignored in .gitignore
• Ignore .notes-app: Off: leaves Git ignore management to you

Use this when your team stores notes in Git but does not want Notely's private support files committed with them.

8. Environment Variables

Notely respects system environment variables for advanced runtime configuration:

Variable	Values	Purpose
NOTELY_TERMINAL_POLICY	permissive | strict	Sets execution policy for embedded terminal. strict enforces role and command allowlists.
NOTELY_TERMINAL_REQUIRED_ROLE	developer (default)	Required user role when operating in strict terminal policy.
NOTELY_TERMINAL_ALLOWLIST	Comma-separated strings	Allowed command executables in strict terminal mode (e.g. git,npm,node).
NOTELY_BASH_PATH	File path	Explicit path to Bash binary on Windows hosts.
GIT_BASH_PATH	File path	Fallback Git Bash executable path on Windows hosts.
NOTELY_LOG_LEVEL	debug | info | warn | error	System logging threshold for LogDB.
NOTES_ROOT	Workspace path	Environment variable override for default workspace directory path.