Build 20: A Live Task Board, External Files, and the Road to Release
Build 20 is the biggest update FoldNotes has had — and it’s the one where the app started feeling finished to me. Here’s what’s new, and where the release stands.
The Task Board is now live. All of it.
The Task Board has been updating live for checkbox clicks and / commands since Build 17. Build 20 finishes the job: every way you change a task now updates its card instantly — editing in the task editor (due date, priority, text, comments), even on notes that aren’t open, and simply typing on a task line, which updates the card as you pause. No save cycle, no refresh.
Task reminders grew up too: every notification now carries Mark Done and two snooze buttons. Mark Done completes the task right in your note — no window opens, and it works even when the task lives in a collection you’re not viewing.
External Files: your files, where they are
FoldNotes has always been built on plain markdown with no lock-in. External Files takes that a step further: point FoldNotes at any folder of markdown files — a git repo, another app’s vault, a folder of drafts — or Bike outlines, and browse and edit them in place. Nothing is imported, nothing is copied, no front matter is added. You’re editing the original files, and they stay yours.
With Build 20, External Files became a first-class citizen:
- Files live in the note list — the sidebar shows your folder structure, the list shows the files, and it follows the same toolbar sort order as your notes.
- Open files in their own windows, side by side with your collection, with search and Back/Forward that remembers exactly where you were.
- Link from anywhere to anywhere. Typing
[[in an external file offers both your FoldNotes notes and the other files in the folder — and inserts portable links: markdown files get relative links that work in any editor, notes getfoldnotes://links that open FoldNotes from anywhere, and Bike files get Bike’s own link format, so those work natively in Bike too. - Hover a note link in an external file and you get the same live preview a wiki-link gives you.
If you keep a folder of markdown that belongs to another tool — or a Bike library — FoldNotes can now be its editor, its search engine, and its connection to your notes, without ever taking ownership of it.
Where the release stands
I’ve been running FoldNotes as my only notes app for years, and with this build the gap between “beta” and “release” is mostly logistics:
- iOS is being submitted to Apple for App Store approval next week.
- The Mac app follows a couple of weeks after iOS approval — it ships as a paid direct download outside the App Store (the command line tool can’t live in the sandbox), and the purchase plumbing is the last piece being fitted.
Help test the last mile
This is the point where more eyes matter most. If you’d like to test FoldNotes on Mac or iOS before release, sign up on the homepage — and if you’re already testing: thank you. The daily-notes timezone fix, the trash view, the first-launch polish, and several of Build 20’s refinements all started as tester reports.
FoldNotes is now on Mastodon, too — follow @[email protected] for release news between blog posts.
— Stephen