Burst Notes - What are the different modes?

What are the different “Modes” all about?

For most daily use, you can just stay in Normal mode. In it, you navigate through the header hierarchy of your current Markdown file, append items, switch files, add and remove files, create new files from templates, and so on.

The other four modes reuse the same command window for related jobs. The footer of the window always tells you which mode you are in.

Sometimes it is useful to jump straight to a particular line of a file and change it in the editor, rather than appending something new. That is what Navigation mode is for. The list shows the entire content of the file, not just the headers: every paragraph, bullet, to-do, numbered item, quote and table row, each with a small icon for its type. Type a few letters of the line you are after and press Return: the built-in editor opens with the cursor on that line.

Edit Mode

Edit mode is for when you want to write a whole paragraph or tidy up a section rather than drop in a single line. The list shows only headers and file commands. Press Return on a header and the built-in editor opens at that section, at the end you have chosen with the Position setting: Mode: Edit · End of Section puts the cursor after the last line of the section, Mode: Edit · Below Header puts it right under the header line. Shift-Return uses the other end. To drill into a header’s sub-headers instead, press Command-right arrow.

You do not have to switch modes for this. In every mode, Command-Return opens the editor at the start of the highlighted section and Command-Shift-Return at its end.

Copy and Paste Modes

One advanced use for Burst Notes is to keep text snippets in a Markdown file: addresses, boilerplate replies, commands you keep forgetting. In Copy mode, you navigate through the whole file as in Navigation mode, but when you press Return the selected line is placed on the clipboard, ready to paste into any application.

Paste mode goes one step further: it copies the line and pastes it straight into the application you were using before you summoned Burst Notes, so the command window works like a snippet manager.

Pasting into another application requires the Accessibility permission, since Burst Notes has to send a paste keystroke on your behalf. The first time you switch to Paste mode, macOS shows the permission prompt; you can also grant it later under System Settings, Privacy & Security, Accessibility. Without it, Paste mode still copies the line to the clipboard.

Switching between Modes

You can see what the current mode is by looking at the label at the bottom of the command window.

There are various ways of changing modes:

By default Burst Notes starts in Normal mode every time it launches. If you would rather it remembered the mode you were in, turn on Store App Mode on Disk under Settings.

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