Always show edit controls

In TheBrain, the "Always show edit controls" setting targets the behavior of the formatting toolbar and interactive buttons within your notes and thought properties.

Here is what this setting controls and how it changes your workflow:

What It Does

• When Enabled (Checked): The editing and formatting controls—such as bold, italic, lists, link tools, and attachment buttons—remain permanently visible and active at the top or side of your note/properties pane. They are always ready to be clicked, regardless of whether you are actively typing.

• When Disabled (Unchecked): The interface adopts a "clean" or "minimalist" reading mode. The formatting buttons are hidden by default to maximize screen real estate and reduce visual clutter. They typically only appear when you hover your mouse over the area, click inside a text field to explicitly start editing, or highlight a piece of text to trigger a pop-up context menu.

Why You'd Use It

• The "Power Editor" Approach (Enabled): If you are constantly formatting notes, adding web links, or attaching files, keeping this enabled saves you an extra click or hover action. It makes the app feel like a traditional word processor where every tool is always within reach.

• The "Distraction-Free" Approach (Disabled): If you use the app heavily for reading, reviewing, or brainstorming without constantly changing text styles, turning this off cleans up the UI. It keeps your thoughts and notes front and center without a busy row of icons competing for your attention.

Turning it off gives you a much sleeker look, while turning it on is a great quality-of-life choice if you find yourself constantly hunting for hidden formatting menus.

In TheBrain, you cannot fully customize, reorder, or selectively hide individual buttons inside the native formatting toolbar itself.

• The interface relies on an "all or nothing" approach for that specific row of icons.

However, you can achieve the exact minimalist, muscle-memory-driven workflow you are looking for by combining a few built-in features:

1. Hide the Toolbar Entirely & Use Markdown

If you already have the muscle memory for standard formatting, the cleanest setup is to turn off "Always show edit controls."

• With the toolbar hidden, you can style your notes completely on the fly using standard Markdown shortcuts.

The text will instantly render into clean formatting as soon as you type:

• Bold $\rightarrow$ Bold
• Italics $\rightarrow$ Italics
• # Heading $\rightarrow$ A major section title
• - space or * space $\rightarrow$ An instant bulleted list

(Are you serious, this is more work than taking my hand off the keyboaard and grabbing the mouse to click on the menu. I prefer a simple key-combo *Ctrl+B for Bold ).*

• What happended to being able to use Tab+Shift to indent the paragraph?

2. Rely on the Contextual "Pop-Up" Menu

If you turn off the persistent toolbar but occasionally forget a shortcut, you don't have to turn the menu back on. Simply highlight a word or sentence with your mouse. TheBrain will automatically spawn a tiny, minimalist formatting bubble right above your cursor, giving you quick access to basic tools only when you actively need them.

• I am not seeing this minimalist formatting bubble.

3. Lean on Keyboard Shortcuts

For the actions you use most often, bypassing the menu entirely is usually the fastest route. Most core features have dedicated hotkeys:

• Ctrl + K (Windows) or Cmd + K (Mac) to quickly insert a hyperlink.
• Ctrl + . or Ctrl + / to quickly toggle bulleted or numbered lists.

By unchecking "Always show edit controls" and letting your muscle memory handle the Markdown, you can effectively completely clear the visual clutter from your note-taking space.

• I tried to use these and wondering what they do or how to make it work? I am looking to use a shortcut key combo so that i don't need the toolbar for the content/notes window. (Keep my hands on the keyboard while I am creating notes). Actions I use often is background color for text. (The "text background color" icon is harder for me to find now than the previous icon). Another I use often is the Indent , it's not the same as using tab to indent.

Using the Indent

using Tab