MojoPad

Transclusion and Split View

A wiki gets its power from reuse: write something once, see it everywhere it matters. MojoPad takes the page embed further — embed just a section, or just a single block, and open a second page beside the one you're writing. All of it live.

Embed a section

Add a heading's name after the page name and the embed shows just that section — the heading and everything under it, up to the next heading of the same level:

![[Project Plan#Milestones]]

Three ways to make one:

  • Type it![[Page#Heading]] on its own line, on rich text or Markdown pages.
  • Pick it — type / and choose Embed page; after you pick a page with headings, MojoPad offers the whole page or any single section.
  • Copy it from the outline — open the Outline (⌃⌘O), hover a heading, and click the that appears. Paste on any page and it becomes the live embed.

Embed a single block

Any paragraph, heading, or list item can carry a small permanent name — a block id — and be embedded anywhere:

  1. Click into the paragraph you want to reference.
  2. Run Copy Block Link from the command palette (⇧⌘P).
  3. Paste. ![[Page#^ab12cd]] becomes a live embed of just that block.

On Markdown pages the id is plain text — a trailing marker like Some paragraph. ^ab12cd — so it travels with your notes and round-trips cleanly (the marker is hidden when the page renders). You can write your own memorable ids: end a line with ^budget and reference it as ![[Plans#^budget]].

An embed travels with the export

When you export a page — HTML, PDF, Markdown, Word, ePub, a published site — an embedded page comes with it, as a quoted passage under the name of the page it came from. So a manuscript assembled out of ![[Chapter One]] embeds exports as the whole manuscript, not as a page full of holes. Embeds nest three deep and never loop; a live database view names itself rather than pretending to be a table in a file that can't refresh.

Live, and connected

Section and block embeds are live views: edit the source and every embed shows the new content the next time it renders. Click an embed's title to jump to the source, right at that section. Embeds count as connections — they appear in Backlinks and on the Graph.

Split view — two pages side by side

Quickest way in: the button at the top-right of the page you are reading — it opens something beside this page and closes it again. There is a ◫ Split button in the toolbar too; that one is about the window, this one is about the page, and it is the one your hand reaches for without leaving what you are writing. (Prefer the keyboard? -click any page link, or use View ▸ Open Page in Split View….)

Put a second page side by side with the one you're writing — read a source while you write, keep a reference in view, or take notes beside a book. Four ways to open one:

  • Press ⌥⌘O (also View ▸ Open Page in Split View…, or the command palette) and pick the page to open on the right. This is the keyboard way in — no mouse needed.
  • -click any page link to open its target in the split pane.
  • Right-click a page in the Pages panel ▸ ⇄ Open in Split View.
  • On a PDF or book, click ⇄ Open in Split View on its reader toolbar.

Move between the two sides from the keyboard: ⌥⌘O (View ▸ Focus Other Pane) hops your focus from the editor to the split pane and back — the side that holds the keyboard wears a quiet ring, and while the pane is focused the arrow, space, and page keys scroll it. (Press ⌥⌘O with no split open and it just asks which page to open first.)

The right side is a live, read-only reading pane — it shows a page or a book so you can read and pull from it while you write on the left. Drag the divider to resize — the width sticks — and closes it.

Want both sides editable? That mode exists too: click the pane's button — or run View ▸ Open Side by Side (Second Editor)… — and the two pages become two fully editable columns; the caret picks which one you're writing in, and each column saves to its own page. The full story is in Folding and Longform ▸ Side by Side. Rule of thumb: the split pane is for reading beside your writing (it can show PDFs and books); Side by Side is for writing in two pages at once.

If two documents at once is simply how you work, you can turn that round: Settings ▸ Two pages at once ▸ Open the split view ready to write in. From then on opening a split gives you two real editors instead of one editor and a reading pane, without the extra click. A PDF, a book or a locked page can only ever be read, so those still open as a reading pane — which is what the setting says rather than something to discover.

A page in its own small window

Sometimes the reference you keep glancing at deserves its own little window — checklist, style guide, the page of numbers you're writing against. Right-click any page in the sidebar and choose Open in Small Window: the page opens as a compact card that floats above your other windows, so it stays in view while you write anywhere else — even in another app.

The card opens as a live reading view: edit the page in the main window and the card updates the moment it saves. Links inside it work. Close it like any window (⌘W), or click Open in Main Window to continue in the full app.

And you can write in it. Click the ✎ pen in the card's header and the page becomes editable right there — jot the thought, tick the box, fix the number. The pen becomes 👓 eyeglasses; click again to go back to reading (your edit saves as you go, and the main window mirrors it the moment it lands). If the same page ever has unsaved changes in two windows at once, MojoPad never guesses: a small bar appears — Use theirs / Keep mine — and nothing is overwritten until you choose.

📓 Book Notes — the reading room in one click

Every PDF and ePub's toolbar has a 📓 Book Notes button. Click it and MojoPad assembles your reading room: it opens (creating it the first time) a page named <Book> — Notes, docks the book beside it in the split pane, and files the pair under Books ▸ that book — each book on its own shelf. Nothing you've already filed is moved. From there the excerpt loop below does the rest: drag a passage across and it arrives quoted, linked back to the exact spot — notes that argue with the book, page by page.

Writing with the keyboard and want to scroll the book without reaching for the mouse? View ▸ Focus Split Pane / Editor (⌥⌘O) hops focus between the two. While the pane holds the keyboard it wears a quiet ring, and the arrow, space, and page keys scroll the reading — press ⌥⌘O again and you're back in your sentence.

Your layout comes back. The two-pane setup is remembered per document — reading on one side, notes on the other. Quit MojoPad, reopen the document later, and the same page returns to the split pane at the width you left it, so you pick up exactly where you were. Close the pane and it stays closed next time.

And the book remembers your place. A PDF or EPUB you're reading resumes where you left off next time you open it — a PDF at the same page, an EPUB at the same spot in the same chapter (anchored to the chapter, so it holds even if you resize the pane or change the reading font). This works in the main editor too, not just the split pane. EPUBs are reflowable and have no fixed page numbers, so the place is remembered as a position within the book rather than a page count.

Zoom a PDF with the small − 100% + pill at the reader's lower right — or ⌘+ / ⌘− while your pointer is over the pages, ⌘0 to snap back to fit width, or a trackpad pinch. Pages re-render sharp at any size (never a blurry stretch), your highlights stay exactly on their words, and each document remembers its zoom along with your reading place.

PDFs and books read fully in the pane — real pages, selectable text, and the excerpt loop below. The pane is a live, read-only view — edit that page in the editor (even side by side with itself) and the pane updates as you save. Links inside the pane navigate the pane; -click sends a link to the editor instead. Click to swap the pane with the editor, to close, and drag the divider to resize — the width sticks. The pane title opens that page in the editor.

Excerpt into your notes

Reading a PDF or book in the pane, pull the good bits straight into the page you're writing: drag a selection onto the note (or ⌘C it, then ⌘V on the page) and it lands as a quote — dropped as its own block, never split into the line you were on — with a ↩ backlink to the source and its own highlight left in the document. Click the ↩ and the source reopens in the pane at that exact spot, a thread drawing from your quote to the highlight. The same gesture works on a rich-text page, a Markdown page, or a canvas card, so an idea always leads back to where you found it.

Each excerpt owns a separate highlight, so quoting the same passage in two places never tangles them. Highlights are permanent marks: right-click one in the reader to remove it, or clear them all at once with Clear highlights on the reader's toolbar (or the in the split header).