---
title: Notes and descriptions
description: Calendite's notes are plain Markdown files in a folder you choose, so you can edit them from Obsidian or any other editor.
order: 11
---

# Notes and descriptions

Calendite's notes are **plain Markdown files in a folder you choose**. Not rows in a
database, not a proprietary format. You can point it at an Obsidian vault and edit the same
files from either side.

> Notes are **Android only for now.** On iOS and web the notes UI doesn't appear.

---

## Description vs notes

- A **description** is the one bit of prose attached to the event itself. One per event,
  shared across all its occurrences. Stored as `Description.md`.
- A **note** is anything else you want to write. An event can have many, and a note can be
  attached to the whole event or to one specific occurrence.

---

## Three kinds of note

When you create one, the **Make** control offers:

| Kind | Where it lives |
|---|---|
| **Whole Event** | at the event's folder root: one copy, shared by every occurrence |
| **This Instance** | inside a single occurrence's folder: only that day |
| **Recurring** | a master template that's seeded fresh into every future occurrence |

"This Instance" only appears when you're looking at a specific occurrence.

**Recurring** is a template: each occurrence gets its own independent copy to fill in. A
"Handover" note on a shift, a checklist on a weekly meeting. Seeding is **forward-only**:
creating a recurring note today doesn't back-fill into occurrences that have already
passed.

---

## Where the files go

Set the location at More → **Notes & files** → *Storage location*. Either app-private
storage (the default, invisible to other apps, deleted on uninstall) or a folder you pick,
including an Obsidian vault.

Inside, Calendite makes an `Events/` tree bucketed by time:

```
Events/
├── Past/
├── Today/
│   └── Work/
│       ├── Description.md
│       ├── Contacts.md                   ← whole-event note
│       ├── .templates/
│       │   └── Handover.md               ← recurring master
│       └── 2026-06-15 -- Sunday/
│           ├── Handover.md               ← this occurrence's copy
│           └── Stand-up/                 ← inner event's notes
│               └── Blockers.md
└── Future/
    └── 2026/
        └── 08 - August/
            └── Zoo Day/
```

- Recurring events get a folder per bucket; one-off events are filed by year and month.
- An occurrence is a **folder**, not a file, so it can hold several notes plus inner-event
  subfolders.
- A variant day suffixes the folder: `2026-06-15 -- Sunday -- Late Shift/`.
- File names are sanitised (`\ / : * ? " < > |` become `_`) and collisions get ` (2)`.
- Month and weekday names in paths are English regardless of your locale.

A nightly job re-files occurrence folders between Past / Today / Future as dates pass. It
moves by copy → verify each file's checksum → delete the source, so an interrupted move
can't lose anything.

> **Caveat:** that nightly sweep only runs against app-private storage. If you've pointed
> Calendite at an Obsidian vault, folders are **not** automatically re-bucketed there.

---

## The editor

One card with a three-way pill: **View**, **Edit**, **Markdown**.

- **View** renders the note.
- **Edit** is a rich-text editor: what you type looks like what you get.
- **Markdown** is the raw source.

### What actually works

Not everything on the toolbar works yet.

**In Edit, these toolbar buttons work:** Bold, Italic, Bullet list, Numbered list (real
formatting); Divider, Quote, Task, Table (insert literal markdown at the cursor).

**These are visible but don't do anything yet:** Heading, Strikethrough, Inline code, Link,
Clear formatting.

**In View, rendering is plain CommonMark.** Headings, bold, italic, links, code blocks,
blockquotes, lists, rules and images all render. **Tables, task checkboxes and
`~~strikethrough~~` do not**. They're GitHub extensions and show as raw text. Checkboxes
aren't tappable.

For anything the editor can't do, use **Markdown** mode and write it directly: the file is
just markdown, and it round-trips.

> **Caveat:** blocks the rich editor can't represent (code fences, tables,
> dividers, quotes, task lines) are swapped for placeholder lines like `[Table · 0]` while
> you're in Edit, and restored on the way out. Editing or deleting one of those bracketed
> lines **destroys that block**. If you need to change a table, do it in Markdown mode.

Only **Save** writes to disk. Switching modes keeps your edits in memory; Cancel discards.

---

## Templates

A recurring note master can carry placeholders filled in when it's seeded into an
occurrence:

- `event.title`
- `event.start_time`
- `event.all_day`
- `event.tags`
- the occurrence date

This makes a per-shift handover template that already knows which shift it's for.

---

## Using it with Obsidian

Point Calendite's storage at your vault and the notes appear as ordinary files. There is
no sync and no import; the vault folder **is** the store.

Deliberately, Calendite writes no frontmatter and no Obsidian-specific syntax: no
wikilinks, no Dataview, no properties. The files stay portable.

Not built yet: pruning notes for deleted events, soft-delete to a `.trash`, and detecting
that you edited a seeded note by hand. And on iOS choosing a folder isn't available yet, so
*Change folder…* does nothing there.

---

## Next

- [Troubleshooting](/docs/troubleshooting.html): the vault re-filing gap, and the placeholder hazard
- [Getting started](/docs/getting-started.html)