docs / people

People.

A person in Paperkites is a note with a type. There's no contacts table and no form to fill in: everything about someone is prose in their note, and @username in any other note mentions them.

A person note

Each person is a markdown file in the people/ folder of your vault, named after their username: ~/notes/people/dasha.md.

---
type: person
username: dasha
aliases: [dk]
---
# Dasha Komsa

Met at the soil workshop. Runs the community garden on Elm Street.
KeyRequiredWhat it is
type: personyesmakes the note a person
usernameyeswhat you type after @
aliasesnoother names that resolve to the same person

The body starts with # Their Name. There's nothing beyond those three keys; write whatever you like below the name.

Making a person

While typing a mention, press ⌃n in the @ completion list to make a new person. You can also write the file yourself, in Paperkites or any other editor.

Mentions

Type @ and a name in any note.

A mention shows in the person colour. If no person file has that name, the mention has a dotted underline. Paperkites never makes a person or rewrites a mention for you.

@ completion

Rows read Dasha Komsa @dasha, with how many times they've been mentioned.

KeyInserts
⏎the mention: @dasha
⇥the name and the mention
⌃nmakes a new person

The person page

Opening a person shows:

Getting to people

Key or commandDoes
gd or gpin a note, open the person under the caret
Kpeek at the person without leaving the note
gpoutside a note, the people list in ⌘K
@ first in ⌘Kpeople only
@dasha in a / searchsearch only notes that mention Dasha
gr on a personthe graph, showing who and what is within two links of them

The sidebar (⌘\) lists your people too. There's no separate "all people" page; @ in ⌘K is that.

Renaming

To change someone's username, open ⌘K, type @, select the person and press ⌃r. Paperkites renames the username in every file and renames the person's file, as one operation. :undo reverts it.