TheBrain 15.0.612 *

New Features

✦ Notes Saved as Standard Markdown < MZ: Review and update Markdown bugs & feature requests

• Turn it on in Settings > Brain > Content > Notes Format — or from the Insert menu, where a brain still using TheBrain's original format offers Enable Footnotes and Diagrams
• Notes are then saved as standard Markdown — GitHub-flavored Markdown with extensions for highlights, callouts, and image sizing — so a note file can be read and edited in other Markdown tools and still come back intact
• Task lists, tables, strikethrough, underline, text styling, and inline math use common Markdown syntax that is not unique to TheBrain
• Notes convert one at a time as you edit them, so nothing changes until you touch it. The switch is permanent for that brain, making this a one-way conversion to standard Markdown
• Viewing a note as Text or in Split view always shows standard Markdown in a brain where it is enabled
• Brains created by importing your data use standard Markdown from the start, and opening a secondary .md file that still uses the older format offers to convert it
• Warning: Once a brain is switched to standard Markdown, prior versions of TheBrain cannot open it — you must update to the latest version of TheBrain on all of your devices, including phones and tablets

✦ Footnotes

• Add a numbered mark in your text with Insert > Footnote, then click the mark to write the note at the foot of the page
• The number arrives selected, so you can type over it with a label of your own — ^method or ^{Klein 1978} instead of ³
• Hover a mark to read its note without leaving your place, and click to jump to it
• A mark with no note yet, or a note whose mark was deleted, is outlined so unfinished footnotes are easy to spot — and an empty note shows a hint of what goes there
• Right-click a mark to arrange the notes in the order their marks appear, or to renumber them all — renumbering replaces any labels you typed yourself with numbers
• Saved as standard Markdown, so footnotes read correctly in other Markdown tools as well

✦ Diagrams in Notes

• Insert flowcharts, sequence diagrams, mind maps, Kanban boards, and more with Insert > Diagram — each diagram type starts from a working template
• The editor opens maximized with a live preview: mouse-wheel zoom, fit and 1:1 views, drag panning, line numbers, and a resizable split between the code and the preview — full screen on phones
• Every diagram type follows your note theme's colors, in light and dark modes alike, and you can copy the result as an image or SVG
• Diagrams appear in exported HTML and render fully offline
• Saved as standard Mermaid code fences, so they stay readable in other Markdown tools

✦ A Far More Capable Text View

The plain-text side of notes now edits like a code editor:

• Line numbers are on by default, and you can turn on indent guides and markers for spaces, tabs, and line breaks
• Enter continues lists and quotes and keeps the current line's indentation; pressing it on an empty item ends the list
• Brackets and quotes close themselves and wrap selected text — typing * or _ around a selection does too
• Selecting a word instantly highlights everywhere else it appears in the text
• Alt+Up/Down moves the selected lines and Shift+Alt+Up/Down duplicates them (this has been enabled in the rich text editor as well)
• Ctrl/Cmd+/ toggles code comments, Ctrl+G jumps to a line, Home moves to the first character on the line, and Tab/Shift+Tab indent and outdent multi-line selections
• Everything is configurable in the new Settings > Notes > Text Editor tab, including indenting with tabs or spaces and the tab size

✦ Cerebro AI is better at working with large numbers of thoughts

• Questions about an area of your brain — what is in it, how many, what sits above a thought — are answered far more reliably, and asking about a large area is no longer turned down for being too big
• Ask it to move a group of thoughts under a new parent and it does the whole batch in one confirmed step, instead of one link at a time

✦ Split view improvements

• The formatted pane highlights the line you are editing as you move through the text
• Clicking into a diagram's code centers the diagram in the preview and lets you scroll it freely while you edit; the panes resume scrolling together when you move on

✓ Fixes and Improvements

↑ Notes: Math expressions are typeset with a new version of the rendering engine, fixing incorrectly sized Chinese text in chemistry expressions

↑ The text selection and cursor in a note now stay visible, shown in a muted color, while a menu is open or the focus is on another control

↑ Notes remember your place now also works in the pop-up notes dialog and with content shown on hover, and no longer occasionally loses your place or restores the wrong spot

✓ Fixed: Dragging a hovered note preview by its title bar could still dismiss it; dragging now keeps it open, just like clicking

↑ Opening Find in a note while text is selected now searches for that selection

↑ A thought's note indicator in the plex now appears and clears as soon as the note is saved

↑ A thought icon that comes from an externally linked file now shows the external-link arrow in the plex, just as the content area does

✓ Fixed: Commands added by an update did not receive their default keyboard shortcuts if you had ever customized a shortcut

✓ Fixed: After closing a thought's properties or notes dialog, keyboard shortcuts could still act on that thought instead of the selected one

✓ Fixed: A tag or type with a single assigned thought was missing its expand arrow

✓ Fixed: Switching spell check from Disabled back to Automatic lost the previously selected languages

✓ Fixed: In notes, a list item directly followed by a callout could lose its indentation, and indented lines inside quotes and callouts could be misaligned

✓ Mobile Fixed: The timeline could show a stray oversized month label, and its labels could sit behind the iPhone home indicator