PDFs, notes, web and desk tools

PDF

Open a PDF with Choose PDF in an empty PDF node, by double-clicking it in a Folder node, or by dropping it on the canvas and choosing Open in Warpstead. The node shows the pages in rows with the page number under each one, and the slider in the bar at the top makes them bigger or smaller.

Double-click a page, or select it and press Space, to read the PDF full size from that page. The mouse wheel scrolls through the pages, and a strip of thumbnails runs along the bottom: click one to jump to it. ← →, ↑ ↓, Page Up Page Down, Home and End turn pages too, and Esc closes.

Editing pages

Pages are always editable, there’s no mode to switch on. Select one or more and a bar appears at the bottom to rotate or delete them.

Changes are saved into the PDF file itself, about a second after your last change, and the node’s footer tells you when. The first time, Warpstead keeps a copy of the file as it was, named -original.pdf, next to it; click its name in the footer to see it in File Explorer. Bookmarks, links between pages, form fields and the PDF/X profile stay in the file. The save also appears in History.

Three kinds of PDF are never rewritten on their own. A digitally signed file would lose its signature, so the node waits for you to choose Save anyway. A file that doesn’t allow changes is read-only. A password-protected file has to be opened in another program for now.

Merging PDFs

A PDF node takes pages and files from outside. Drag pages from another PDF node and drop them between two pages: a line shows the spot, and the footer says where they’ll go. Between two nodes pages are copied; hold Ctrl as you drop and they’re moved instead, gone from the node they came from. A PDF dragged from File Explorer or from a Folder node goes in the same way, whole, where you drop it. Add, in the bar at the top, picks PDFs to put at the end, and the + that appears between two pages, next to the scissors, inserts one there.

When the pages come from more than one file, a row under the bar lists the source files, one colour each and how many pages each gave; the same colour sits next to each page number. Split → One file per merged PDF goes back the other way. Warpstead copies the pages the moment they arrive, so if you later change or delete the file you took them from, the node doesn’t change. When it saves, they go into the node’s PDF like the others.

To merge into a new file, select two or more PDFs in a Folder node and choose Merge into one PDF from the right-click menu. The files are merged in the order you see them in the Folder, into Merged.pdf in the same folder (Merged (2).pdf if the name is taken), which opens in a node next to it. An empty PDF node works too: drag pages from another node, or several files at once, into it and it becomes Merged.pdf, next to the first file that arrived. A single file just opens in the node as it is. Until you change it, the footer says where it was created and has Rename to give it a name of your own.

Extracting and splitting

Extract, in the bar that appears when you select pages, makes a new PDF from those pages. Split, in the bar at the top, breaks the PDF into several files. The new files are created in the same folder as the original and open in nodes next to it; the original stays as it is. Past six files the nodes don’t open, so the canvas doesn’t fill up: a notice tells you where the files are, with Show in folder.

To split by hand, move the mouse into the gap between two pages: a line and a pair of scissors appear, and a click cuts there. The Split menu also cuts in one go, with One page per file, Every 2 pages, Every 4 pages or, when the pages come from more than one file, One file per merged PDF. If you can’t find where to cut, Show me where to split makes the gaps between pages blink. Each part has its file name above it, which you can change, and Rejoin part 1 removes the cut. When the parts look right, press Create 3 PDFs in the footer. Until then the cuts don’t touch the file, and Ctrl Z undoes them like any other change.

An extracted file is named after the original and the pages you took, for example brief p3-5.pdf, and parts become brief-1.pdf, brief-2.pdf and so on. If a file with that name already exists, Warpstead leaves it alone and calls the new one brief p3-5 (2).pdf. The new files show up in History, and undoing them there moves them to the Recycle Bin.

You can extract from a signed PDF too: the new file has no valid signature, the original keeps its own. Bookmarks that point to pages you left out stay in the new file and lead to the first page.

Printing

Print, in the bar at the top, or Ctrl P with the node selected, opens the Windows print dialog: printer, page range, copies. If you have pages selected, the dialog also offers Selection. What you get on paper is what the node shows right now: the order you gave the pages, the ones you rotated, the ones that came from other PDFs, even changes the footer hasn’t saved yet. A page bigger than the sheet is shrunk to fit, a smaller one prints at its real size, and both are centred; a landscape page on a portrait sheet, or the other way round, is turned. With Microsoft Print to PDF Warpstead asks where to save the file, suggesting the name with (print) added. The Windows Fax can’t be used from here.

While the dialog is open Print is dimmed, so a second dialog can’t start. Close the dialog and nothing happens; print, and a notice says how many pages went to the printer. If Windows or the printer refuses, the notice carries the reason, and you can select and copy it. A node with no pages has nothing to print.

Note

A note is plain text on a colored card, in seven colors. Double-click to write, Esc to cancel the change you’re making. It counts the words. Double-click the header to rename it.

Web

The Web node is a real browser on the canvas: back, forward, reload and an address bar where you can type an address or a search. With the page in focus, Ctrl L goes to the address bar, F5 reloads, Alt ← and Alt → go back and forward. It can go full screen like a program. Each node shows one page: for another page, add another node.

The node starts with the proportions of your screen. If a page stops responding, the node offers to wait or reload.

Clipping from the web

Clip in the node’s bar opens a panel beside the node, on the right, or on the left when the node is against the edge. Right-clicking the page gives you Clip… as well, with the form already picked from what you clicked: an image starts on Images with only that one checked, selected text on Selection, a link on a bookmark of that link, anywhere else on Article. While the panel is open the page shows what will end up in the clip, and the highlight goes away when you close the panel or leave the page.

The forms:

• Article: the article as the site shows it, with its fonts and images; menus and sidebars stay out. The rest of the page dims, and a label on the article counts its words and images.
• Zone: you pick parts of the page with the mouse. The block under the cursor gets a dashed outline and a click adds it, numbered. ↑ widens to the block around it, ↓ narrows back, Enter adds, Esc stops picking. The panel lists the zones in the order you picked them, and you can remove any of them. Zones keep the site’s look.
• Selection: the text you selected, with its images, looking as it does on the site. It only appears if some text was selected when you opened the panel, and in that case it’s already chosen.
• Full page: the whole page as the site shows it, with its fonts, plus a long screenshot.
• Screenshot: what you see of the page right now, so the page has to be on screen.
• Images: a grid of the images on the page, 64 px and up, where you check the ones you want.
• Bookmark: title, address and description of the page.

Below the forms you set the title, a note and tags (the panel suggests the tags you already use in that Folder). Where is the Folder the clip goes into: connect the node’s Page output to the From the web input of a Folder node, and if more than one is connected you pick from a menu. With none, Clip into a new Folder adds one next to the panel, already connected. The Folder has to point at a folder before you save.

Images in the largest version is on by default. For each image Warpstead looks for a bigger file than the one the page shows: the largest size listed in the page code, the link around a photo, the original behind a Wikipedia thumbnail, the size written in the image address. It downloads them with the page’s cookies, and an image gets the HD badge only if the file it saved really is bigger. The panel counts them as it goes, for example “12 of 15 found in high resolution”, and shows the estimated weight next to the button. With the switch off the images are saved as the page shows them, which is faster and smaller.

The button says what it saves: Save clip, Save 3 zones, Save 5 images. When it’s done, a notice in the node says which Folder it went to, with Open for the clip and Undo, which deletes the file you just saved, for the 10 seconds the notice stays up.

Each clip is a single .wsclip file named after its title, and Warpstead never overwrites one that exists: the new one becomes Title (2).wsclip. Inside it’s a ZIP archive (rename it to .zip and File Explorer opens it): clip.json with the address, site, author, dates, note and tags, content.html with the cleaned content, the images in images/ exactly as they were downloaded, preview.webp for the card, and capture.png for Full page and Screenshot. A clip keeps 300 images at most: if the page has more, the rest are left out and nothing tells you. Each image can weigh up to 50 MB and the whole clip up to 1 GB. When the images you picked go past 1 GB, the panel says so and Save stays off until you drop some or turn HD off; an image over 50 MB stops the save with an error you can copy.

The Clip node

Double-click a .wsclip in a Folder node, in either view, and it opens in a Clip node next to the Folder. Double-clicking it again takes you to the same node.

The node shows the source, author, publication and clip dates in Warpstead’s style, then the content. Article, Full page, Zone and Selection keep the look of the site, with its colours, fonts and layout, and don’t follow Warpstead’s light or dark theme. A page wider than the node shrinks to fit, and grows again when you widen the node. When the page has no recognisable article, or its text is under 100 characters, the Article is saved simplified, in Warpstead’s type and theme, and nothing tells you so. A Screenshot clip shows the picture; a Full page clip has a Page | Screenshot switch (Text | Screenshot when it was saved simplified); a Bookmark shows the description and the address. The note and the tags can be changed right there and go back into the file: the note when you leave the field, a tag when you press Enter. Links in the text don’t open anything. Original reopens the page in a new Web node, at the exact spot when the clip is a zone or a selection. The images sit in a row with their size: a click selects them, and you can drag one out of the node onto File Explorer or into another program.

The site’s fonts are downloaded into the .wsclip, up to 24 files and 16 MB. Some things don’t come along: backgrounds made from an image, SVG drawings written inside the page, icons the site draws with its stylesheet, form fields, and images that couldn’t be saved. A page over 15 MB, or one that can’t be read whole, is saved simplified, in Warpstead’s type and theme. A sidebar that stays put on the site scrolls with the page in the clip.

Export, in the node menu:

• Page as HTML + images: Title.html with a Title (images) folder beside it, and a Title (fonts) folder when the clip keeps the site’s look.
• Markdown + images: Title.md, with the title, source and dates in a YAML header, and its own Title (images) folder.
• PDF, when the clip has text. It keeps the site’s look, and a page wider than the sheet is scaled to fit its width.
• Image (PNG), when the clip has a screenshot: a PNG named like the .wsclip file, which gets a free name if one exists.
• Only the images, all of them or the ones you selected.

Show the file opens File Explorer on the .wsclip. A clip saved by a newer version of Warpstead opens read-only, and the node says so.

Clips in a Folder

The Folder’s path bar has a Files | Clips switch. Clips shows the .wsclip files of that folder as cards with the preview, type, title, site and date, note and tags, and the Folder remembers the view. The clip you saved last since starting Warpstead is marked New. The tags at the top filter the cards, Ctrl F searches title, note and text without caring about accents or capitals, and the order switches between Most recent and Title. A clip saved from a Web node, or deleted in File Explorer, shows up or disappears on its own. Cards drag like files: onto the canvas they open a Clip node, and they also go into another Folder, File Explorer or the desktop.

From Windows, double-click a .wsclip in File Explorer, on the desktop or in an email attachment: Warpstead starts, or comes to the front if it’s already open, and the clip opens in a Clip node in the middle of the view. If you select several clips and press Enter, they all open in the same Warpstead.

File

The File node holds any file that doesn’t have a node of its own: a Word document, a spreadsheet, an Illustrator drawing, a ZIP. It shows the thumbnail Windows makes for it, such as the first page of a document, or the file type’s icon when there isn’t one. Below it you see the type, the size and when the file last changed.

Double-click it, or press Open with at the bottom, and the file opens in its usual program, in an App node next to it. The button names the program before you press it. The folder icon at the top shows the file in File Explorer.

From the node menu the File node starts empty: drop a file on it or press Choose file…. If the file has a node of its own, like a photo or a PDF, it becomes that node.

If the file has been moved or deleted, the node tells you: Find it searches your disk for its name, Choose another file… points the node somewhere else. Shrunk below about 240 pixels wide, it turns into a desktop icon with just the name and size.

Desk tools

Small tools for the side of your work, in the node picker under Desk:

• Calculator: type a whole expression and see the result as you go, basic or scientific, with memory and history.
• Clock: analog or digital, 12 or 24 hours, more than one time zone.
• Calendar: a month, with short text events on the days.
• Timer from 1 to 45 minutes or a custom time: at zero it rings and flashes.
• Stopwatch with laps.
• Pomodoro: 25 minutes of work, 5 of rest, a long rest of 15 every four rounds. At the end of each phase it rings and prepares the next one, which you start.
• Converter for length, weight, temperature, area, volume, speed, data, time and angles.
• To-do: add items, tick them, clear the completed ones.
• Color: hex, RGB and HSL, with saved colors.
• Counter with a step you choose.
• System: CPU per core, memory, disks, network and GPU, refreshed every half second to five seconds.
• Workspace time: how long you’ve spent in this workspace today, yesterday and in total, day by day.
• Clipboard: everything you copied in this session, up to 200 items (text, links, images, files), with filters and search. Click an item to copy it again, or drag it out.