⌘K lists what you can do right here

Open, type, run

How typing finds a row

You rarely need a whole word. The palette looks for your letters the way you would abbreviate, best matches first:

• the start of the label: in finds Inbox
• the first letters of its words: mtl finds Move to Library
• the start of a later word: in also finds Zoom in
• pieces of words: molib
• letters in order: inbx

The letters that matched are bold. Among equal matches, the shorter label wins.

Rows that follow your caret

The first group is about what you are on. With the caret in a row, or zoomed into a node, it is Current node: the things you can do to that node, in a fixed order. First where it goes (Open node, Expand, Collapse), then its state, who has it, a meeting's time and people, when and where it lives (pins, dates, its space), what it is (type and fields), how it looks, the agent, who can see it, its link and export, and last Delete.

Select several rows (⇧↓, or ⌘-click) and the palette leads with Selection instead, counting what each row acts on ("Delete 4 items"). Rows that an action cannot apply to are counted as skipped, and the page's own rows follow under Current page.

Right-click a row, or ⌃-click it, to open ⌘K on that row: the caret goes where you clicked, and the palette acts on it. On a row inside a selection, the selection stays.

Groups and their order

Below the node's own rows, the rest of the palette is always in the same order, so you learn where things are. When you type, the group with the best match moves up as a whole, and groups that match equally well keep this order.

The palette lists commands, never documents. Type something that matches no command and you get one row, Search Tana for “…”, which carries your words into search.

Second levels and pages

Some rows hold a list of their own: Move to …, Set status, Edit assignees and Assign to …, Create new …, Edit visibility and the view options such as Sort by. You can reach their choices without opening them. Once the first two letters you type point at such a row, each choice appears as a row of its own right under it: "Set status to In Progress", "Move to Studio LT", "Assign to Priya", "Sort by Title". Set status and Move to … are short lists, so their choices join in for any query: inb finds Set status to Inbox.

A row whose label ends in … asks you something first. ↩ on it opens a page of the palette, with its own field and rows. esc steps back to the page that opened it, and from the command page closes the palette.

Greyed rows, and why

Orbital shows you every option, even the ones you cannot use right now. A row that cannot run stays in its place, greyed, and its grey hint on the right says why: Go to Home says Current when you are already there, and Go back is grey with nothing to go back to. A read-only node shows Delete greyed. While you are signed out, everything but Log in to Tana is grey.

↑ and ↓ skip greyed rows, and so does the highlight after you type, so ↩ always does something. The exception is a greyed row you can give a key to, such as Clean up before there is anything to clean up: the highlight still stops there so ⇧⌘K can record it.

Your own keys

Any row with a key shows it as a chip at its right end, such as ⌃⇧D on Today. You can give almost any row a key, or change the one it has. Highlight the row, and the field's right end reads ⇧⌘K Set key. Press ⇧⌘K.

The recorder says Recording keyboard shortcut for: and the row's name. Press the combo you want and it appears, with a red dot while it listens. ↩ or Save keeps it, ⌫ or Reset goes back to the row's own key, and esc or Cancel leaves it as it was.

A combo needs ⌘ or ⌃, so typing is never taken over; a function key such as F6 works on its own. Some keys are fixed and refused, with the reason under the keys: ⌘K, ⇧⌘K, the text size keys ⌘0 ⇧⌘+ ⇧⌘-, ⇧⌘⌫, ⇧⌘↑ and ⇧⌘↓. So is any combo another row already has, and the warning names that row.

Your keys follow you to every Mac you sign in on, and the tooltips on buttons show them too.

⌘S: search all of Tana

⌘S opens the same card as a search, Search Tana. Results arrive as you type, each with its glyph, title, tags and a grey line such as a meeting's date. Titles that hold more of your words come first, and those words are bold. ↩ opens the result wherever it lives. ⌘S closes it again, and opening one palette closes the other.

Related results

From four characters on, documents that only Tana's meaning-based search found follow under Related: notes and tasks about your words without containing them.

Filter with #

Put #task, #meeting, #member or # and a type's name anywhere in the query to keep only that kind. #meeting budget finds meetings about the budget; a type name Tana does not know gives no results.

A filtered search lists the newest first: meetings by when they were, everything else by when it was made. The same goes for @ when you link.

Recently viewed

With nothing typed, ⌘S shows the last 20 documents you opened, most recent first. It is the quickest way back to something you just had open.

Open it somewhere else

A row that opens a place, such as a search result, a saved search, a type, Today or This week, can open it beside what you are reading instead of replacing it. Hold a modifier as you press ↩, or as you click:

The same modifiers work on a click: ⌘-click, ⇧-click or ⌥-click a row in either palette, or a bullet in the outline. If the place is already open in another pane, that pane comes forward instead. You can press the key before a search has answered: it waits and opens the right result. While you are making an @ link, ⌘↩ keeps its meaning there and creates a new node.

Keys in this chapter