Writing notes

Select a note in your vault and start typing. Nether saves as you write, half a second after you pause and at least every two seconds while you keep going, back to the note’s Markdown file.

Markdown as you type

Type Markdown at the start of a line, and it becomes the block it stands for:

Type	To get
`#` , `##` up to `######`	A heading of that level
`-` or `*`	A bulleted list
`1.`	A numbered list
`[ ]` or `[x]`	A task, open or done
`>`	A quote
``` and a space, or a language such as ```ts	A code block
`---`	A divider

Formatting works the same way around words: **bold**, *italic*, ~~struck~~, ==highlighted== and `code`.

In a list, Enter starts the next item, Tab moves an item in, and Shift+Tab moves it back out.

Type / at the start of a line, or after a space, to open the list of blocks: text, headings, lists, tasks, quotes, callouts, toggles, code, math, diagrams, queries, dividers, tables and columns. Keep typing to narrow it, as in /head or /todo, then press Enter, or click a block. Escape closes the menu and keeps the slash as text.

Moving and changing blocks

Point at a block and a handle appears to its left. Drag the handle to move the block, or click it for the block’s menu, which turns a block of text into a heading, a list, a quote or code, moves the block up or down, duplicates it or deletes it. The menu works from the keyboard too: the arrow keys move through it, Enter picks, Escape closes it.

Each of these has a shortcut for the block the caret is in. On a Mac, use Cmd for Ctrl.

Press	To
Ctrl+Shift+Up, Ctrl+Shift+Down	Move the block up or down
Ctrl+D	Duplicate the block
Ctrl+Alt+0	Turn it into text
Ctrl+Alt+1 to Ctrl+Alt+6	Turn it into a heading of that level
Ctrl+Shift+8, Ctrl+Shift+7, Ctrl+Shift+9	Turn it into a bulleted, numbered or task list
Ctrl+Shift+B	Turn it into a quote
Ctrl+Alt+C	Turn it into code

Math, code and diagrams

Math is written in LaTeX, between $ signs in a line, such as $e^{i\pi}$ , or between $$ lines on its own. Click math, or select it and press Enter, to edit its LaTeX; Escape, or Ctrl+Enter in display math, shows it again.

A code block highlights the code of the language in its corner, which you can change there. A code block in the mermaid language draws its Mermaid diagram below the code, and says what is wrong when it cannot. Nether draws diagrams with Mermaid’s dagre layout: it does not include the ELK layout, whose license is not compatible with Nether’s, so a diagram that asks for ELK shows an error instead. A code block in the base language shows the notes its query finds.

Images, PDFs, audio and video

Paste an image into a note, or drop files on it, and Nether adds them to the vault’s attachments folder and embeds them where they land, as ![[Pasted image 20261030153000.png]]. It never writes over a file: a second photo.png becomes photo 1.png. The slash menu’s Image and File blocks take a path or a link, or a file you choose.

Nether finds the file a link names as Obsidian does, whatever the case of its letters: at that path from the note’s folder, then from the vault’s folder, then any file whose path ends with the link, the nearest to the note first. So ![[photo.png]] finds attachments/photo.png from any note, and links written in either app find the same files.

Write	To show
`![[photo.png]]` or `![](attachments/photo.png)`	An image
`![[photo.png\|300]]` or `![alt\|300](photo.png)`	An image 300 pixels wide
`![[paper.pdf]]`	A PDF, in the app’s viewer
`![[talk.m4a]]`, `![[clip.mp4]]`	Audio or video, with a player
`![](https://example.com/photo.png)`	An image from the web

A PDF’s card can open it in your system’s PDF app, and any other file’s card shows it in your file manager. On Linux, whose web view has no PDF viewer, PDFs show as cards.

Web links

A web address alone on its line, written <https://example.com>, shows as a card. Nether reaches no server to show it: click Show preview to fetch the page’s title, description and site, which the vault then keeps, in .nether/previews.json, and shows from then on. A preview has no image, so showing it later fetches nothing. Open opens the page in your browser.

Markdown source

Press Ctrl+/ (Cmd+/ on a Mac), or the Markdown source button above a note, to see and edit the note as its Markdown, exactly as the file holds it, frontmatter and all; press it again to go back to blocks. Nothing is lost either way: what you change in one shows in the other, and the file keeps its line endings. Notes stay in the mode you chose as you move between them.

In source mode, Ctrl+F finds and replaces, Tab indents, and Escape then Tab leaves the editor. Turn on Vim keys to edit with Vim’s modes and commands; Nether remembers the choice.

Right-to-left text

Each paragraph, heading, list item, quote and table cell reads in the direction of its own text, as each line does in source mode: write a paragraph in Arabic, Hebrew, Persian or Urdu and it starts at the right, beside paragraphs in English that start at the left. Nothing is added to the file for it.

What happens to your file

Nether rewrites only the blocks you change. The rest of the file keeps its exact bytes, so a note you also edit in another app, or keep in Git, shows only your real changes. See Your notes as Markdown for the syntax Nether reads and writes.

Every change you make is kept in the vault’s index on your computer as you type, before it is written to the file, so a crash or a power cut loses nothing.

If another app changes a note, whether Nether is open or not, Nether merges that change into the note: what the other app changed and what you typed meanwhile both stay, even in the same paragraph. A paragraph both of you rewrote keeps both versions, one after the other, for you to choose between. Sync your vault with one tool only, Nether’s own sync or another, so that no change arrives twice.