Figure Inspectors

To view the inspector panel for the selected figure then either:

• Click an appropriate icon in the inspector bar, or
• Click the Inspector toolbar button to open the inspector shelf.

Style

The style information for a figure includes coloring, borders, fill, font, and much more. With just a click the look of your figure can change completely. You can even save these looks as personal styles to use them again and again.

Inspector Bar

At the far left of inspector bar you’ll find a Style button which displays a quick, popup gallery for the currently selected figure. Simply click on a style to update its look.

Inspector Shelf

You can also use the mini style gallery at the top of the Shape inspector shelf to do the same thing.

And, lastly, you can right-click on a figure and choose Apply Style to choose a style from the gallery that appears.

All of these interfaces give you an opportunity to choose either a bundled or personal style that you have created. Curio Professional users can also select a master style.

Text

Curio has loads of text options for you to tweak!

Inspector Bar

If the figure contains text then you’ll find several controls on the inspector bar itself for fast access to popular attributes.

Font and Font Size

Select a font for the selected figure.

Select or directly enter a font size. Tip: you can also use the standard Command+ and ⌘ keys to increase or decrease the font size.

Text Color

Specify a text color. This color control remembers the last used color even between launches.

Clicking will show a quick color chooser while ⌥Clicking will display the standard Apple Color picker. Hold the Shift key and the color well will show that previously-used color, and then click the color well to apply that color to the selected text.

Highlight/Background Color

Specify a text highlight/background color. This color control remembers the last used color even between launches.

Clicking will show a quick color chooser while ⌥Clicking will display the standard Apple Color picker. Hold the Shift key and the color well will show that previously-used color, the default is a nice light-yellow color, and then click the color well to apply that color to the selected text for instant highlighting.

Character Attributes

Specify attributes such as bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, superscript, and subscript.

Markdown

Enable markdown syntax parsing and rendering. Click here for more markdown details.

Shadow

Click the shadow button to display a popover allowing you to customize the shadow applied to the figure’s text. Note this is different than the shadow which can be applied to the overall figure itself as specified in the Shape inspector.

Paragraph Attributes

Click the paragraph button to display a popover for setting several paragraph properties. You can also set many of these options by right-clicking on the text figure and using the context menu that appears.

Minimum Height

A text figure can have a minimum height which is used when empty or when it contains very little text. As more text is added, it will automatically grow in height as necessary to fit the new text. As text is removed, it will shrink down to that minimum height. This feature is very useful if creating forms or templates and would like to use text blocks for certain areas. After enabling this feature, just resize the figure using the selection handles to set the minimum height. This feature is also useful in combination with the maintain spacing feature in the Geometry inspector so that neighboring figures will push away or pull back as content is changed.

Freeform

If a text figure is freeform then that means you are in complete control of its width and height, clipping any text vertically if necessary. If not freeform then Curio will automatically grow a text figure’s height as necessary to hold its contents.

Line Height

If you have an idea space with only a horizontal grid, like a notebook paper grid, then the line height can be set to match the grid’s spacing. Or the line height can be determine automatically based on font size.

Placeholder Text

You can enter placeholder text for a text figure which is displayed if the content of the figure is empty. Note this placeholder text is displayed with the same text coloring as specified by the figure’s style (that is, it is not grayed or dimmed) so it remains legible regardless of figure, container, or idea space background coloring or opacity.

Inspector Shelf

The inspector shelf includes the same controls described above for the inspector bar, plus more since there’s more room available in the shelf:

Typeface

Select a specific font typeface, such as “Light” or “Medium Oblique”.

Automatic Capitalization

If a figure is selected, not just selected text within a figure, then you can select an automatic capitalization such as lowercase, uppercase, sentence, capitalize, and titlecase. Your text is stored as you entered it but will be transformed right before display with the specified capitalization.

• None - Leave as-is.
  Ex: “the new macos sierra for iMAC and MACBOOK Pro integrates with IOS devices.”
• Uppercase - Uppercase all letters.
  Ex: “THE NEW MACOS SIERRA FOR IMAC AND MACBOOK PRO INTEGRATES WITH IOS DEVICES.”
• Lowercase - Lowercase all letters.
  Ex: “the new macos sierra for imac and macbook pro integrates with ios devices.”
• Sentence - Lowercase all except first word and products.
  Ex: “The new macOS Sierra for iMac and MacBook Pro integrates with iOS devices.”
• Capitalize - Capitalize each word except products.
  Ex: “The New macOS Sierra For iMac And MacBook Pro Integrates With iOS Devices.”
• Titlecase - Capitalize in general but lowercase certain words like ‘for’ and ‘and’, etc.
  Ex: “The New macOS Sierra for iMac and MacBook Pro Integrates with iOS Devices.”

Shape

To change your figure’s shape properties either click the Shape button on the inspector bar, or see the Shape tab in the inspector shelf.

Inspector Bar

The Shape button on the inspector bar brings up the Shape inspector popover, which contains the same inspector panels as those found in the inspector shelf described below.

Inspector Shelf

Shape

The figure shape inspector allows you to change visual properties such as coloring and border style.

Color

Set the color of the figure stroke. In the case of a geometric figure this is the color of the border; in the case of a line this is the line color. Simply click on the color well to see a quick color matrix, or ⌥Click on the color well to see the standard Mac OS Color Picker.

Geometric Shape

Set the geometric shape of the figure such as Rectangle, Triangle, Hexagon, or Cloud.

Dash Pattern

Set the stroke dash pattern.

Width

Set the stroke width. Tip: press the [ or ] keys on your keyboard to decrease or increase the current thickness of the selected shape figure or line figure.

Corner

Set the corner value which determines the radius of certain shapes, like rounded rectangles, or the complexity of other shape, like clouds. In particular, the Left and Right Signpost shapes and the Underline shape will change their look substantially as you change the corners value.

Tip: press the { or } keys on your keyboard to decrease or increase the current corner value of the selected figure.

Margin

Set the margin which determines the distance between a shape’s edge and its contents.

Tip: press the ⌥{ or ⌥} keys on your keyboard to decrease or increase the current margin value of the selected figure.

Smart Coloring

Several smart options can be specified.

The fill color can be determined automatically by Curio so that it matches your selected stroke color. Likewise, the figure’s text color can be determined automatically as appropriate based on the fill color. Curio will automatically choose a white text color when the fill is dark, else a black text color for lighter fill colorings.

Fill

You can fill the interior of the figure shape with a color or gradient.

None

None will allow the figure to be transparent.

Solid

For solid fills, click on the color well to choose a color from the matrix that appears. Or, ⌥Click on the color well to go directly to the standard color chooser.

Simple Gradient

For simple gradient fills, click on the color well to choose a color from the matrix that appears. Or, ⌥Click on the color well to go directly to the standard color chooser. Curio will then make a smooth gradient using that color.

Bowed Gradient

For bowed gradient fills, click on the color well to choose a color from the matrix that appears. Or, ⌥Click on the color well to go directly to the standard color chooser. Curio will then make a smooth bowed gradient using that color.

Linear Gradient

For linear gradient fills, drag the color stops to adjust the gradient ramping. Double-click on a color stop to edit its color. Double-click on the gradient to insert a new color stop.

Drag a color stop down and off the gradient control to remove the stop from the gradient.

The resulting gradient will be rendered along the angle specified by the angle slider.

Radial Gradient

For radial gradient fills, drag the color stops to adjust the gradient ramping. Double-click on a color stop to edit its color. Double-click on the gradient to insert a new color stop.

Drag a color stop down and off the gradient control to remove the stop from the gradient.

The resulting gradient will be rendered with a center point located as specified in the point locator control.

Glossy Fill

For glossy fills, you choose just a single color and Curio will automatically construct the appropriate gradient styling to render a glossy shape.

Effects

Shadow

Enable a shadow for the figure. The shadow can be customized by specifying the color, blur, and x/y offsets.
 By default, if the figure is filled, then the shape’s shadow attributes are applied to the shape itself, otherwise if the figure is unfilled, then those shadow attributes are applied to its text.

You can control whether the shape shadow is automatically used as a text shadow. By controlling this feature you can specify a shadow for the shape and a different shadow style for the text itself, using the text inspector.


Shadow Effects

Enable a shadow special effect:

• A normal shadow is just a typical drop shadow.
• A pinched shadow looks like the figure has been placed on a tabletop where only the bottom corners of the figure are slightly raised from the surface, like you’re pinching the edges and lifting them up. This effect requires a filled, rectangular shape with no curved corners.
• A bulged shadow is the opposite of a pinch: here the bottom center of the figure is slightly raised from the surface, like you’re creating a bulge in the center of the photo. This effect requires a filled, rectangular shape with no curved corners.
• A neumorphic shadow has two shadows: the specified main shadow plus a second slightly smaller highlight shadow in the opposite corner from the main shadow, with values automatically calculated based on the primary shadow’s values. Neumorphic shadows work best where the figure and the idea space closely match in fill color so it appears extruded from the background:
  

Opacity

Set the shape opacity making the entire shape more or less transparent. Note that this effect changes the opacity of the entire figure uniformly.

For more advanced transparency effects, in lieu of setting the overall opacity, you can specify a specific opacity for the shape’s fill, gradient, and stroke colors within the standard Mac Color Picker.

Auto Inflate

Normally certain shapes are set to auto inflate automatically to minimize the amount of clipping that would occur to its content whether that be text or an image.

For example, the Cloud shape automatically inflates itself a few pixels so the bumps of the cloud don’t crowd or clip the content. The result is a nicer looking resulting shape without you having to fidget with margins. You can turn this off if you wish to have more direct control over your shape.

Preview vs Icon

For figures representing files, you can set whether the figure is displayed with the file’s icon & title, like the Finder, or if the figure simply exists as an image preview.

As a tip, you can also right-click on a figure to change its display mode between icon and preview and, when in preview mode, you can toggle the display of the preview caption.

If displayed as an icon then:

• An icon size slider will appear so you can specify its size. Up through a size of 128x128 the default icon for that document type is used, continuing up to 256x256 a Quick Look thumbnail of the file is used for the icon instead. Note that this icon size slider is also used for text figure attachments if one has been attached to a given figure.
• You can change the icon’s title but note that Curio will also rename the underlying asset file’s name as well (if embedded), to keep them in sync. When setting the file name Curio will automatically strip any invalid characters from the title text so macOS doesn’t complain.

Else, if displayed as a preview then:

• If an image file, Curio will simply display that image, else Quick Look is used to grab a preview of the file. Previews can be displayed with an optional caption which is displayed under the preview image.
• Your previews can have captions if you wish. By default, these captions are placed inside the overall shape border, or you can specify that captions should be displayed outside the border. Captions can also be enabled via right-clicking on the figure. Initially the caption will be the same as the underlying asset file’s name. However, you can change this to anything you wish and the asset file’s name will not be changed, thereby allowing long, detailed captions if you’d like.
• Alternatively you can tell Curio to clip the preview image to a specified mask. This is useful when you want your overall figure to have one shape — and perhaps it contains other contents such as text, fill color, and adornments — but you still want your image preview to be clipped to a specific shaped mask, such as a circle.

Geometry

Bounds

The bounds defines the figure’s size and position in the idea space.

X, Y, Width, Height

Set the figure’s x, y location and the width and height.

Natural Size

When the Natural Size button is clicked or the N shortcut is pressed, then a text figure or image figure will grow to its natural size, but remain constrained by the current width of the idea space. If the Shift key is held when clicking Natural Size or pressing N then it will grow to its unconstrained natural size, and the idea space will expand if necessary.

Constrain Proportions

Set whether the figure is resized proportionally which is enabled by default for images and asset figures displayed as previews. For non-image figures you can resize proportionally on-the-fly by holding Shift and resizing with the figure’s selection handles.

Rotation

Specify the rotation of the figure, or zero the rotation. Tip: use the R and ⇧R keys to rotate a figure in increments either clockwise or counterclockwise. The Z key can be used to zero the rotation.

Auto Layout

The layout control is a method for defining how a figure should automatically position and size itself if the idea space changes size.

Springs and Struts

Curio uses the “springs and struts” method for laying out items. The smaller, inner box represents a figure, which is contained in a larger box which represents the idea space itself. The red and green lines determine whether its position or size is fixed (a strut, represented by a red line) or flexible (a spring, represented by a green arrow).

Examples

For example, give a figure a flexible width and a flexible top margin and you’ve created a footer figure. Place it down at the bottom of your idea space and as the idea space changes size the figure will remain stuck and centered at the bottom of the idea space.

At the top of this page, click on the subheading (“Set the figure’s geometry..”) and look at its layout. It’s set to remain stuck to the right side of the idea space while its width is allowed to change.

Automatic Layout via Idea Space Guidelines

Idea space guidelines provide a helpful margin around an idea space you can drag and resize items so they snap against the margin or even against the edge of the idea space itself. You can toggle them via the Arrange > Idea Space Guidelines menu.

Start moving or resizing a single figure then hold down the Control key. You’ll notice, as you bump against a guideline, the guideline is drawn with red! This indicates that you have set a new strut as a layout constraint and, indeed, if you watch the Geometry inspector as you do this you’ll notice springs and struts appearing automatically.

Thanks to this feature you can quickly position and size a figure along with setting appropriate auto layout rules, all without touching the layout control.

Autospacing With Nearby Figures

You can tell Curio to automatically scoot figures closely underneath a figure as it is being resized.

This means that as this figure is resized, either by manually resizing or by changing styles or adding/removing content, then the figures closely underneath (within 50 pixels) will automatically scoot down or back up as the figure’s size changes. By setting this attribute, which can be saved with custom figure styles, you can have figures shift themselves down and up as figure contents change!

• The figure being resized must have the auto spacing property enabled.
• Only resizing an auto space figure impacts lower figures, not moves.
• Only those figures within the 50 pixel boundary will be moved up or down. If those figures also have auto spacing enabled, then Curio looks below those figures as well, and below those, etc…
• Moving a figure completely away doesn’t collapse the figures. It’s simply no longer impacting those figures previously underneath it. It still has the auto space property, of course, so now it will impact figures in its new location when it resizes.
• Moving a figure from elsewhere into an area close to another figure doesn’t automatically scoot everything down. Curio allows you to place things where you want it to go.
• Again, resizing is what triggers the auto spacing. This means you can still manually move and position figures anywhere you wish, maintaining the unrestricted, freeform nature of the idea space environment.

Arrange

Drag the slider to bring the selected figures as a group either closer to the top of the figure stack or further back.

If multiple figures are selected then those items are moved independently up and down the figure stack, keeping their same relative stacked distance away from each other. In other words, bringing forward figures placed at 5 and 10 in the figure stack will move them to place 4 and 9, where 0 is at the top of the figure stack.

You can also click on the icons on the far left and right sides of the slider to move the items back or forward in steps. If the Option key is held down while clicking those back/front icons the selected figures are moved together in figure stack as a group. That means they are grouped together into the same stack placement then moved up and down en masse.

Flip

Click the flip buttons to flip an image figure vertically or horizontally.

Align & Distribute

Use the align and distribute buttons to quickly arrange multiple selected figures.

Meta

Curio allows an extensive array of meta data to be associated with your figures including checked state; percent complete; priority; rating; start, due, and done dates; tags; custom key-value data; resources; notes; and double-click actions.

There are many ways to associate this data with your figures, including the status bar, inspector bar, inspector shelf, context menus, figure adornments, and shortcut keys.

This meta data can be searched via Quick Find or Search shelf, collated by the Status shelf, or used to sync with Calendar/Reminders.

Status Bar

You can use the Status Bar to view and quickly enter meta values for selected figures.

Inspector Bar

The Meta button on the inspector bar brings up the Meta inspector popover, which contains the same inspector panels as those found in the inspector shelf described below.

Inspector Shelf

Adornments

An adornment is a little image that appears next to your figure. It may represent a tag, or a due date, or a checkbox.

Size and Position

Set the size of the adornment images. Tip: press the ⌥[ or ⌥] keys on your keyboard to decrease or increase the current adornment flag size for the selected figure.
 Use the radial spinner to position the adornments all around the selected figures. You can also indicate that the adornments should be displayed inside or outside the figure’s border. Note that some collection figures may force the position of adornments.

Clicking on the Adornments

Many of the adornments displayed next to figures can be clicked-on and changed:

• Checkmark Adornment
  Click to check/uncheck. ⌥Click to display the percent complete mini popover. ⌘Click an unchecked item with a due date to check it and change its due date to today.
• Tag Image Adornment
  ⌥Click to display the tags mini popover. If the tag set is “only one tag in set can be active” then if the tag is in a set with 3 or fewer tags within then clicking the tag adornment will cycle through the tags. If more than 3 then a handy popup will appear so you can choose one of the other tags.
• Start/Due Date Adornment
  ⌥Click to display the start/due date mini popover.
• Rating Stars Adornment
  Click to display the ratings popover. ⌥Click to cycle through the ratings. ⇧Click to cycle in reverse order.
• Priority Adornment
  Click to display the priorities popover. ⌥Click to cycle through the priorities. ⇧Click to cycle in reverse order.
• Bookmark Adornment
  Click to display the bookmark colors popover. ⌥Click to cycle through the bookmark colors. ⇧Click to cycle in reverse order.
• Jump Action Adornment
  Click to perform the jump action.
• Note Adornment
  Click to display the Notes window.

Checkmarks

Toggle the display of checkboxes using the on/off switch. Click the adornment itself to check or uncheck the figure.

Figures in Curio which have been completed are displayed with strikethrough and slightly dimmed. You can customize this behavior if you wish.

Percent Complete

You can set a percent complete value from 0% to 100%. Use the stepper arrows to increment/decrement by 1, or hold Shift and click to change by 5.

Checking is a shortcut to setting a percent complete of 100%. Likewise, unchecking is the same as a 0% completion.

Via Child Figures

By default if the figure has children under it, like in a list or mind map, then its percent complete value is automatically computed using the percent complete values of its children.

Via Resources

If the figure has assigned resources then you can specify that the percent complete value is computed using the percent complete value assigned to each individual resource in the Resources tab.

Mini Popover

Curio has a handy mini popover for setting percent complete which can be handy when you don’t want to bring up the inspector.

• To show the percent complete mini popover: ⌥Click an existing checkmark adornment, or press the % key. Use the stepper arrows to increment/decrement by 1, or hold Shift and click to change by 5. You can redefine the shortcuts if you wish.
• To hide the percent complete mini popover: Press the Escape key, or click its little close button.

Status Bar

You can also use the Status Bar to view and quickly enter percent complete values for the selected figures.

Priority and Rating

You can set a priority and a rating to your selected figures via the inspector shelf.

You can also use the Status Bar to view and quickly enter priority and a rating values for the selected figures.

Tags

To view the tags associated with the selected item either click the Meta button in the inspector bar, or see the Meta tab in the inspector shelf.

Tags are words or phrases that you can define and associate with your items as searchable meta information.

Local and Cross Project Tags

You can create several types of tags:

• Local Project Tags. These are tags that are local to the current project. Perhaps you’re working on a novel so you may have a tags for greg, clue, and background, to help you quickly find and key figures in your project.
• Cross Project Tags. These are tags that can be used in all your projects. For example, common tags you may want to use across your projects could include favorite, homework, and question.
• Cross Project Tag Sets. These are tags organized in tag sets that can be used in all your projects. Curio includes several bundled tags sets like GTD (Getting Things Done) which contains tags like active and waiting on, plus you can create your own custom tag sets. By convention this might be written in condensed form as GTD/active or GTD/WaitingOn where the slash is used to separate the tag set from the tag name in the set. Casing and spaces are generally ignored.

Hashtags

By convention, if the tag is in a tag set then In the various tag inspectors you will see tags clearly labeled as described above like clue, homework, and gtd/active.

If mixed with other meta information or as inline meta tags within a body of text you may see tags as “hashtags” prefixed with a # hash character. This turns the above tags into #clue, #homework, and #gtd/active.

Tag Names

You are allowed to use any characters and numbers in your tag and tag set names. You may also use the _ and - characters, which permits tags such as united_states and on-hold.

The / character is reserved as a nesting separator for tags within tag sets, like GTD/active.

Sharing Projects with Others

If you share a project you created with others then obviously those users would have access to the local project tags, but what about your global tag set tags? For instance, say you’ve created a global tag set named Customer with a contained tag of Pepsi, and used it in multiple projects. If you then share one of those projects, how would that colleague see that tag set tag?

Fortunately, Curio will embed an “extract” of any global tag sets you have referenced in the project so your colleagues will see those same tag associations. When they view the Meta inspector on their machines those extracted tag sets will be available but in italics to indicate they cannot delete or otherwise modify those tag sets. However, they can change tag associations from that set — for example, they can change a figure from GTD/OnHold to GTD/WorkingOn.

Assigning Tags

As you’ll see below, there are a number of ways to assign tags to your figures:

1. The tags panel in the Meta inspector on the inspector bar or inspector shelf, as described in this section.
2. The right-click context menu’s Tags submenu.
3. The tags mini popover via the # hotkey.
4. Clicking on a figure’s existing image tag adornment, for a tag that’s in an only one at a time tag set, so you can choose a different tag in that same tag set.
5. Typing an inline tag into a text figure (like #special or #context/home).
6. Entering a tag in the Status Bar (like #special or #context/home).
7. Dragging figures between Stack collections that have tags assigned to their title items.

Assign Tags via Typing with Tag Name Completion

You can associate tags with the selected items simply by typing the tag name. A completion list will appear as you type so you can choose an existing tag, or you can continue typing and press the Return key to create an on-the-fly local project tag, described below. You don’t have to type tag set prefixes or slash prefixes to find a match. All local and global tags are searched. Separate tags nested within tag sets using a slash (GTD/active).

Assign Tags via Hierarchical Tag List

You can also associate tags using the tags list, hierarchically grouped by tag set, by clicking the checkbox next to the tag. You can click the Clear button to clear all tag associations.

Working with Tag Sets and Tags

Use the tags panel within the Meta inspector to modify or create new tag sets and tags. Tags can either be local to your project (aka “keyword tags”) or global and available across projects and for grouping purposes in the Status shelf.

Adding Tag Sets and Tags

• Use the add buttons or the right-click context menu to create new tag sets and tags.

Arranging Tag Sets and Tags

The local project tags and cross project tags are always displayed in sorted order. However, tags within the tag sets can be ordered manually via drag-and-drop, or sorted by choosing Sort Tags In Set via the actions button menu.

You can rearrange the tag sets via drag-and-drop or have them sorted by choosing Sort Tag Sets via the actions button menu.

Promoting Local Tag to Cross Project

You can drag-and-drop a local tag to either the cross project tags or a tag set to promote the tag to a cross project status.

Within the current project all existing tag associations with the previously local tag now refer to the newly promoted global tag.

Note, however, that you cannot perform the opposite move: a global tag cannot become a local tag because that could break other projects that relied on that global tag.

Renaming Tag Sets and Tags

• Change a name by double-clicking it.

Deleting Tag Sets and Tags

• Select a tag set or tag and click the Delete button or press the Delete key.

Importing Tag Sets

• Use the action button or context menu to import an extracted tag set from a foreign project into your own shareable global tag sets. For instance, from the example above, if you’re viewing a colleague’s project with that “Tasks” extracted tag set then you can select it and use the action button to import it into your own global tag sets. All internal identifiers are kept the same so you can continue to share projects with your colleagues that use that same tag set.

Setting a Tag Emoji or Character Symbol

Assign an emoji or character symbol to a tag:

1. Select a tag.
2. Click the little Character Viewer button to bring up the standard macOS Character Viewer (or click in the text field and type ⌃⌘Space).
3. Double-click on an emoji or character symbol and instantly it will be entered as the “image” for the tag.

Emoji are great because they’re perfectly scalable and consume very little disk space for the project.

If you choose a text symbol then use the little color control next to the text field to specify a tinting color for the symbol. This way you can turn a boring black down arrow symbol into a noticeable red down arrow.

When a tag has an emoji or symbol then it is displayed as an adornment next to the figure’s other adornments. Use the adornment size slider to change its size.

To remove a tag emoji or symbol select the contents of the text field and press the Delete key then press the Return key.

Setting a Tag Image

Alternatively you can assign an image to a tag:

1. Select a tag.
2. Drag an image from the Finder to the small image control.

As a note, you can drag multiple images (icns, png, or jpg) from the Finder into the tags panel to add lots of image tags to an existing tag set, where their tag names are derived from their file names.

Download perfect tag images from sites like IconFinder or search SmashingBuzz or Google for icon sets for more recommendations.

When a tag has an image then it is displayed as an adornment next to the figure’s other adornments. Use the adornment size slider to change its size.

To remove a tag image select the image control and press the Delete key.

Setting a Tag Keyboard Shortcut

All tags in Curio are displayed under the Format > Tags main menu item. This means you can use the macOS System Settings > Keyboard > App Shortcuts panel to create keyboard shortcuts to any tag, or any other Curio menu item.

For example, if you wanted to assign ⌃⇧A to the GTD/action tag then you could use the App Shortcuts panel to create a new Curio app shortcut to the menu Format->Tags->GTD->action and assign it to the ⌃⇧A keystroke.

Generally we recommend using ⌃⇧ for your shortcuts to avoid conflicts with existing Curio interface shortcuts.

More info about creating keyboard shortcuts in macOS can be found in this Apple Support document.

One Tag Active

When a tag set is selected, note the ‘tag set only allows one tag to be checked’ checkbox. Checking this option is perfect for those tag sets which represent a specific state or status. Choosing a tag in this set will automatically turn off the previously associated tag from this set.

For example, with the Detailed Tasks tag set you are specifying a GTD-style state for that task like pending, active, or done. If the current state of a figure is active then setting a tag of done will automatically turn off active.

These types of tag sets have a couple of extra ways to assign tags to a figure:

• If your tag set has 3 or fewer tags with images then clicking the tag’s image adornment will cycle through the tags in the set.
• If your tag set has more than 3 tags, then clicking the tag’s image adornment reveals a popup so you can quickly choose the new tag.

Tag Set Visibility

If you have lots of global tag sets but only some are applicable to the current project, you can now easily hide them so they don’t clutter up your tag choices.

There are two ways to do this:

1. You can select a single tag set and uncheck the ‘tag set is visible in this project’ checkbox.
2. You can select multiple tag sets, then right-click to show the context menu (or click the action button) and choose Set Selected Tag Sets as Hidden. Note you can also set multiple tag sets as visible via the same menu.

Revealing the Hidden Tag Sets

Normally hidden tag sets are not visible, of course. However, you can make them visible by clicking the Show Hidden checkbox or choosing the Show Hidden Tag Sets context menu item (or via the action button).

Note this is an in-session setting so tag sets marked as hidden will be hidden again when you re-launch.

Assign Figure Tags via Context Menu

Right-click on a figure and choose a tag from the context menu that appears to toggle the tag association.

Assign Figure Tags via Mini Popover

Curio has a handy mini popover for setting tags which can be handy when you don’t want to bring up the inspector.

• To show the tags mini popover: Option-click an existing tag adornment, or press the # key when a figure is selected. You can redefine the shortcuts if you wish.
• To hide the tags mini popover: Press the Escape key, or click its little close button.

Assign Tags via Inline Tags

Inline meta detection is enabled by default. You can toggle this globally via the Format > Default Figure Settings > Detect Inline Meta menu item, or for a specific figure using the # button in the text inspector.

This means you can enter inline tags anywhere within the contents of a text figure using the # prefix, such as #special and #GTD/active and they will be matched with existing project tags. If you enter an inline tag which is unrecognized Curio will create the meta element automatically.

Note that matches are case insensitive and spaces should be removed from tag set names and tag names and, if appropriate, a slash is used to separate a tag set name from the tag name. So, for a tag named On Hold within the Detailed Tasks tag set you should enter #DetailedTasks/OnHold.

Inline tags are useful for those that want to have always visible meta tag associations. After editing, behind the scenes Curio will associate or disassociate the figure with the given tag as appropriate, as if you had selected it from an inspector.

Ignored Inline Meta

Automatic inline tag detection will not consider a number-only entity as a new tag. So Curio is #1 will not trigger a new tag detection. However, number tags can be still created in the Status bar or the Tags inspector and then you can enter it as an inline tag where it will be detected as an existing tag. You can enable new inline number tag detection if you wish.

If you’d like to type something that shouldn’t be interpreted as inline meta then you can escape it with a backslash (\). When rendered the backslash will be hidden:

A popular hashtag on social media is \#winning. → A popular hashtag on social media is #winning.

Disabling Inline Meta

You can disable inline meta detection completely for a specific figure via the # button on the text inspector bar or text inspector panel. You can globally disable automatic detection of inline meta via the Format > Default Figure Settings > Detect Inline Meta menu item.

You can also right-click on a meta element and via that context menu escape the item (prefixes it with a \), disable inline meta detection for the figure, or disable it globally by default.

Clicking Inline Meta

When you aren’t editing the figure, inline meta tokens are displayed as underlined links. Clicking them will bring up Quick Find to instantly see other figures with the same meta.

Inline Tags and Renames

If you rename a tag in the tag inspector the inline tags within text figures will update themselves with the new name when the idea space is re-loaded.

Inline Tags and Adornments

Normally when a figure is associated with a tag that tag’s image is placed alongside the figure as an adornment. However, for inline tags an adornment is only displayed if an image exists for the tag. You can make it so inline tags never appear as adornments via advanced settings.

Nested Inline Tags and Other Apps

Many popular apps such as Obsidian, Bear, Notejoy, and Noteplan all use / for nested tags. For example, #GTD/active and #All-Countries/United-States. Other apps such as Drafts support / but simply as part of the tag’s name (thus just like a _ or -), not as a true hierarchical nesting separator, but it still works.

This means you can easily exchange Curio text figure contents to or from those apps and any inline tags within those notes will map over automatically.

Unfortunately Apple Notes and Agenda don’t support nested tags, and they don’t support the / as part of a tag’s name either. Fortunately Curio will automatically attempt to match existing tag sets and tag names even if different separators are used. So pasting text from Apple Notes which has the inline tags #All-Countries-United-States and #Apple-iPhone-Pro will automatically match the Curio nested tags All-Countries/United-States and Apple/iPhone-Pro. That way you can easily mimic nested tags in those apps and bring those notes into Curio text figures.

Assign Figure Tags via Status Bar

You can use the Status Bar to view and quickly associate tags with the selected figures, including creating new tags.

Dates

Your figures can have assigned dates for easy task planning. Curio even supports automatic date calculations in collections such as lists and mind maps so that tasks can have precedence ordering.

Start Date

Enable start dates with the on/off checkbox. Then you can set a start date. The date can be entered directly or you can click the little calendar button to pick a date.

Optionally Curio can automatically calculate the start date if you wish. Curio’s pretty smart about this and will check to see if it should be determined by you manually entering a date, or based on when a previous sibling (in a list or mind map) ends, or based on when a previous sibling starts, or when a parent starts. Or you can directly choose one of those options if you wish. For example, if an item is the first child in a list then Curio would automatically choose ‘based on when parent starts’. If the item is a middle child then Curio’s chooses ‘based on when previous sibling ends’.

Due Date

Enable due dates with the on/off checkbox. Then you can set a due date. The date can be entered directly or you can click the little calendar button to pick a date.

As with start date, Curio can automatically calculate the due date if you wish. In this case, the due date can be determined by you manually entering a date, or automatically determined when this figure’s children have all ended, or based on the start date plus an entered duration. If the due date is at midnight then the due date adornment next to the figure reports the day before. For example, say in the date inspector for a figure you set the start date to June 6th at midnight and the due date to June 8th at midnight, thus it a 2-day duration. The resulting adornment will show “6/6 - 6/7” since that looks more appropriate (i.e. you have to work on the 2-day task on 6/6 and 6/7). This change was made so it matches what is displayed in applications such as Calendars where the task would be displayed from 6/6 to 6/7.

Start/Due Date Action Button Menus

Note both the start and due date areas have action button menus which allow you to specify if ‘manually’ should always be used as the default.

Via the action button you can also specify your project work schedule including work days and work hours. Curio will use this work schedule to automatically determine task end dates based on start dates and durations within the current project. For instance, click to turn off Saturdays and Sundays if you want Curio to ignore weekends when calculating due dates and durations. This same work schedule is taken under consideration when using the +1 Day, +1 Week, and +1 Month buttons.

The start date action button also allows you to specify what time should be used: either midnight, the current time, or the workday start.

Duration

Specify a duration for the figure in minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years.

Curio can use these durations when computing start and due times for siblings and parents figures in a hierarchical collection such as a list or mind map.

Note that if the due date is determined by some means other than Start Date + Duration then the duration and most appropriate duration units will automatically be determined and displayed.

Done Date

The done date is completely independent of a figure’s specified end date. You can think of the former as when the task was actually done, while the latter is when the task needs to be done.

By default the done date is automatically set when a figure is checked or marked as 100% completed. The reverse is also true, if you set a done date Curio will make sure the figure is marked as 100% completed and checked if the figure checkmark is visible.

The done date also has an action button menu where you can fine-tune the done date’s automatic setting, and also specify how the done date time should be reported: start of the day, the end-of-work day as specified by the Workday Schedule (set via the dates meta actions menu), or the end of day.

Added Date

The added date is set by Curio automatically when you add a figure to an idea space. However, we allow you to change the date if you’re trying to mark a specific date of entry for note-taking or research purposes.

Assign Dates via Mini Popover

Curio has a handy mini popover for setting dates which can be handy when you don’t want to bring up the inspector.

• To show the date mini popover: ⌥Click an existing date adornment, or press the D key. You can also press ⌥D to toggle start date or⇧D to toggle an end date. You can redefine the shortcuts if you wish.
• To hide the date mini popover: Press the Escape key, or click its little close button.

Assign Dates via Status Bar

You can use the Status Bar to view and quickly associate dates and durations for selected figures.

Resources

Assign resources to your figures and Curio can perform more advanced task tracking.

Adding Resources to the Project

You can specify a name, email address, and image for each resource either manually or by drag-and-dropping contacts from the macOS Contacts app directly to the Resources inspector panel.

Deleting Resources

Select one or more resource items then click the Remove button to remove them.

Assigning Resources

Click the resource’s checkbox to actually assign a resource to a figure.

Here you can also double-click the ‘% Complete’ field to enter that person’s percentage complete value for this task. Curio can use all of these assigned completion values to determine the figure’s overall completion value as noted above in the Meta tab discussion above.

The resource’s image will be displayed next to figures as an adornment. In a hierarchical collection, such as a mind map or list, you assign resources to child nodes and the parent nodes automatically inherit them. You cannot assign resources to a parent node directly unless you uncheck the inherit from children checkbox in the resources inspector.

Assign Resources via Inline Resources

Inline meta detection is enabled by default. You can toggle this globally via the Format > Default Figure Settings > Detect Inline Meta menu item, or for a specific figure using the # button in the text inspector.

This means you can enter inline resources anywhere within the contents of a text figure using the @ prefix, such as @george and @SteveJobs and they will be matched with existing project resources. If you enter an inline resource which is unrecognized Curio will create the meta element automatically.

Note that matches are case insensitive and spaces and commas should be removed from resource names. So, for a resource named Browning, George you should enter @BrowningGeorge.

Inline resources are useful for those that want to have always visible meta resource associations. After editing, behind the scenes Curio will associate or disassociate the figure with the given resource as appropriate, as if you had selected it from an inspector.

Ignored Inline Meta

If you’d like to type something that shouldn’t be interpreted as inline meta then you can escape it with a backslash (\). When rendered the backslash will be hidden:

Definitely check out \@zengobi on twitter. → Definitely check out @zengobi on twitter.

Disabling Inline Meta

You can disable inline meta detection completely for a specific figure via the # button on the text inspector bar or text inspector panel. You can globally disable automatic detection of inline meta via the Format > Default Figure Settings > Detect Inline Meta menu item.

You can also right-click on a meta element and via that context menu escape the item (prefixes it with a \), disable inline meta detection for the figure, or disable it globally by default.

Clicking Inline Meta

When you aren’t editing the figure, inline meta tokens are displayed as underlined links. Clicking them will bring up Quick Find to instantly see other figures with the same meta.

Inline Resources and Renames

If you rename a resource in the resource inspector the inline resources within text figures will update themselves with the new name when the idea space is re-loaded.

Inline Resources and Adornments

Normally when a figure is associated with a resource that resource’s image, or a generic “person” image, is placed alongside the figure as an adornment. However, for inline resources an adornment is only displayed if an image exists for the resource, thus generic “person” images won’t appear. You can make it so inline resources never appear as adornments or appear even if generic, via advanced settings.

Assigning Resources via Status Bar

You can use the Status Bar to view and quickly associate resources with the selected figures, including creating new resources.

Actions

The figure actions inspector can be used to specify what happens when a figure is double-clicked within the idea space.

Setting an Action

Choose the desired action from the popup menu at the top of the inspector. The choices of action include:

• Default
  Do the default double-click action for this figure. For example, for an image figure it would open the image, a URL would go to the web location in the browser, an asset figure would open the asset file.
• Go to Idea Space
  Choose an absolute item like first or last; a relative item like next or previous; or backward or forward in history.
• Open URL
  Enter a URL that should be opened.
• Create Mail Message
  Enter a default ‘to’ and ‘subject’ field. Note that the message will be created and displayed but not actually sent.
• Open File
  Choose a file that should be opened.
• Go to Jump Target
  Begin by copying a figure or idea space so its jump location will be on the clipboard. then click Retrieve from Clipboard here to retrieve it.
• Run AppleScript
  When you click the Edit button the script associated with the action is dumped to a temp file then Script Editor is launched to edit it and save to that location. When you click the Update with Edits button Curio retrieves the contents of that temp file and stores it back into the figure’s action data.
• Do Nothing
  Handy when you want to override the default so nothing happens when this figure is double-clicked.

Adornment

By default Curio will show a little adornment next to a figure that has an assigned action. You can specify whether that adornment is displayed or not.

Editing Figure Text

If you have a figure that has an assigned action, and a visible actions adornment, then double-clicking will edit the figure’s text. To perform the action you have to click the adornment.

If a figure’s actions adornment is hidden the double-clicking will perform the action. To edit the figure select the figure and press Return or click-pause-click.

You can make it so double-clicking an adorned figure performs the action instead with this setting.

Custom Data

Curio Professional users can create their own per-project custom data keys, such as Cost and Effort, and then enter figure values for those keys.

Automatic formatting plus prefixes and suffixes are supported as well.

Custom Data vs Custom Variables

A related feature is custom variables. In short:

• Custom data allows you to create project-wide formatted keys, such as Price or Score, and then assign values to those keys for each figure, adding custom meta data to every figure for searching and export purposes.
• Custom variables are text replacements for variables you create and use throughout your project. For example, you can create a custom variable named Author and give it a value of George, then use the {{Author}} variable markup syntax in your project’s text figures.

Creating Custom Data Keys

Select any figure then, using the Custom Data inspector panel in the Meta inspector, click the action button menu (or right-click in the custom data list) and choose Add Key.

You can specify an optional prefix and/or suffix, which is prepended/appended to the formatted value, respectively.

In addition to simply treated entered values as text, Curio can perform automatic localized formatting with the following formats:

• Number: 1,234.567
• Percentage: 50%
• Scientific: 1.23E3
• Currency: $1,234.57
• Currency (Plural): 1,234.57 US dollars
• Currency (ISO Code): USD 1,234.57
• Currency (Accounting): ($1,234.57)
• Spell Out: one thousand two hundred thirty-four
• Ordinal: second

Localization of the thousands separator symbol, currency symbol, decimal separator, etc, are all automatically handled by the macOS locale specified via System Settings > Language & Region settings.

Modifying Custom Data Keys

Select any figure then, using the Custom Data inspector panel in the Meta inspector, select an existing key then click the action button menu (or right-click in the custom data list) and choose Modify Key.

Deleting Custom Data Keys

Select any figure then, using the Custom Data inspector panel in the Meta inspector, select an existing key then click the action button menu (or right-click in the custom data list) and choose Delete Key.

Editing a Figure’s Custom Data Value

Select the figure then, using the Custom Data inspector panel in the Meta inspector, right-click on the item and choose Edit Value, or double-click on the value for that key.

Note you’re editing the “raw” value for that key; don’t type commas or dollar signs or prefixes/suffixes. Once you finish editing Curio will show the formatted value using the key’s specified formatter settings.

So if editing a percentage value enter the raw number, like “.8”, and the formatter will turn that into “80%” when you finish editing. Similarly, entering a price as “2.5” will turn into “$2.50” when you finish editing.

Custom Data Adornment

When a figure has a custom data value it will display a special adornment alongside the figure. Hovering over the adornment will display a tooltip with all the custom data keys and values.

Clear a Figure’s Custom Data Value

Select the figure then, using the Custom Data inspector panel in the Meta inspector, right-click on the item and choose Clear Value, or double-click on the value for that key and press the Delete key.

Importing/Exporting Custom Keys

You can easily copy custom keys between projects via the action button menu:

• Choose Import Keys From Another Project, and then choose the project in the dialog that appears.
• Choose Export Keys To File to export your keys to a specified file.
• Choose Import Keys From File to import keys from an export file.

Using Custom Data Keys in Search

The Search shelf support custom data keys as well as a number of operators:

• For text values: Equals, Not Equals
• For numeric values: =, <, <=, >, >=

For example, you can search for where Price > 10 or Completed < 50.

Note that for percentage values you can search for the percentage (like 50), not the raw decimal value (.5).

Search Exports

When exporting Search results your custom data values are also exported in rich text, markdown, and csv. If csv then the raw value is output, else the formatted value.

Custom Data Variables

New {%FigureCustomData} and {%FigureCustomDataDelimited} variables can be used within a figure to insert the formatted contents of the figure’s custom data.

The former, {%FigureCustomData}, shows them all as a block:

Price: $5.00
Pet: Butternut
Country: US

The latter, {%FigureCustomDataDelimited}, shows them all as a single line with each key/value pair delimited by a semicolon by default:

Price: $5.00;Pet: Butternut;Country: US

Specific Custom Data Variable

You can also output a specific variable like this: {%FigureCustomData:Price} and it will be replaced with the variable’s formatted value.

Exporting Custom Meta

If exporting meta is enabled during figure export via Share (or Copy) then custom data is included with that export. Exporting figures as plain and rich text exports include the formatted values for custom data, while markdown output will show the raw values: #Price="123456789.258" #Name="Santa Claus".

Importing Custom Meta

Curio will import meta parsed during paste as list or mind map. Matches existing keys with case insensitive search and stripped spaces.

Example formats supported:

• Hello there @data(KeyOne="Value One", KeyTwo="Value Two")
• Hello there #KeyThree="Value Three" #KeyFour="Value Four"

Note keys must have no spaces, but will match existing custom keys with spaces, and values have to have quotes.

Custom data keys will be created if a suitable key is not found. If custom data keys were created, you can always modify them later to change casing or add spaces. This automatic key creation auto detects numbers and will set as a decimal number type of custom data key, although you may have to fine tune the number of decimals and thousands setting. Otherwise created as a key with text values.

Hierarchical Sum-Ups

In hierarchical collections like lists and mind maps, custom data numeric fields will automatically sum up into parent items.

For example, if you have custom data such as Effort=4, Cost=25.50, etc, then those values will bubble up to their parent nodes.

Negative numbers are allowed, for example to offset an effort or cost.

You can disable this sum-up ability if you wish.

Technical

• Internally if a key has text values then items are stored as strings. Otherwise, if a number format, then a high precision number (NSDecimalNumber) is used.
• This means entering and viewing numbers will automatically localize as appropriate: 1.234 in the US vs 1,234 in Germany.
• If you switch a key type from text to number then Curio will do its best as it works with existing values to convert on the fly (it asks the macOS NSNumberFormatter class to convert it on the fly based on current locale). However, ideally you should stick with either text or a number from the get-go before entering values everywhere.
• Known issue: parent items do not clear sum-up values if you delete all children. This gets messy as the parent nodes don’t know if you previously had children and now you don’t or if you never had children.

Info

The Info inspector is shared with Organizer items so you can find more information in that topic.

Line

If the selected figure is a line figure then you’ll find more options available to you.

Type

Specify how multi-point lines should be drawn:

• Straight
• Curved
• Orthogonal

Midpoints

Add one or more midpoints to your line. Note you can also right-click on the line to add a midpoint at that location.

To remove a midpoint, right-click on it and choose to remove it.

To move the midpoint, you can drag it although, especially with curved or orthogonal lines, you may find using the keyboard arrow keys more reliable. Hold Shift when using the arrow keys to take greater steps.

Tail and Head Arrows

From the two lists you can choose a tail and/or head arrow decoration.

Scale

Set the scale of the arrow decoration which will increase or decrease their size.