Features

Section Management

• Sections: Organize your workspace seamlessly, acting similar to separate browser tabs for different workflows.
• Rename Sections: Double-click on a section name to edit it.
• Sections Scroll: When your sections exceed the available horizontal screen space, simply click and drag anywhere in the section bar area, or use your mouse wheel, to scroll left and right.
• Reorder Sections: Click and hold a section, drag it vertically first (up/down), then move it horizontally (left/right) to snap it into your desired location, then release.
• List View: All your sections and notes are also available in a hierarchical, organized view list. You can easily transfer notes to different sections and reorganize the order of sections from this hub. The number of sections per line in the grid view can be configured in Settings.

Workspace Navigation

• Event Storage: Enables real-time synchronization between multiple windows.
• Panning (Drag to Move): Click and hold the Left Mouse Button (or Middle Button) on any empty area of the background to "grab" and move the entire workspace.
• Auto-Expansion: Simply drag notes or resize them towards the edges of a section. The workspace will automatically grow to provide more space as you approach the boundaries.
• Smart Cleanup: When you release a note, the section automatically shrinks to fit your notes' footprint, ensuring your workspace stays organized without unnecessary empty space.

Note Controls

• Drag and Drop: Click and hold the handle of any note to move it. You can also multi-select notes with Ctrl + Shift + Click to move several at once.
• Toggle/Collapse: Click the arrow icon in the note header to expand or collapse it. Notes directly below will be automatically pulled up or pushed down. The proximity limit for this behavior can be adjusted in Settings. This distance creates a unity of organization: notes within this range are handled as a logical group, ensuring that related items move together to maintain your layout's structure even if they are not perfectly aligned or touching.
• Focus Note: If a note is partially off-screen, simply click it to automatically bring it into full view. The Focus scroll offset can be adjusted in Settings.

Text Formatting & Blocks

• Bulleted Lists: Type * + Space at the start of a line to create bulleted points.
• Numbered Lists: Type 1. + Space at the start of a line to begin a numbered list.
• Checkboxes: Type < + Space at the start of a line to create an interactive to-do item.
• Toggle Blocks: Type > + Space to make content collapsible.
• Format Conversions: Select existing text and click the list/checkbox buttons in the toolbar to automatically format them line-by-line.

Advanced Functionality

• Environment Variables: Available via the "Vars" (cylinder) icon button. Set global key/value pairs (like IP=10.10.10.10) useful in templates.
• Variable Injection: When hovering over formatted code blocks, click the float icon to copy the content with all matching environment variables automatically evaluated and injected.
• Easy Copy: Toggle via Alt + C. Selected blocks become fully clickable elements that instantly copy their content to your clipboard.

Storage & Persistence

• Auto-Save: Never worry about losing work. NullPad continuously saves your session, including all Notes, Sections, Settings, and Environment Variables, to your browser's local storage as you type.
• Restore: Recover your last saved state from the browser's local storage manually. This is useful for restoring your progress if the page was refreshed with auto-save disabled.

Automatic Title Generation

NullPad can automatically generate titles for your notes based on the content of the first line, preserving your flow without manual naming.

• Smart Extraction: The app monitors your typing and automatically extracts up to 3 words from the first line of an unnamed note to use as a title.
• Customization: You can enable/disable this feature and adjust the generation delay and word limit in Settings under Notes Behavior.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Sync & Storage

Export & Import

Your workspace can be completely exported as a JSON file, providing a portable backup of all your notes and sections.

• Export: Generates a JSON file containing your entire workspace, including all Settings and Environment Variables. Using encryption during export is recommended for safe transport.
• Import: Restore a previously exported workspace. Note that this will overwrite your current local session.

Cloud Synchronization

Our cloud sync operates under a Zero-Knowledge Architecture.

• How it works: The entire JSON object comprising your workspace is compressed to minimize size and reduce predictability of the data before it undergoes AES-GCM 256-bit encryption locally in your browser. The server handles exclusively encrypted blobs and never perceives the keys.
• Authentication & Restoring: You authenticate using your Google or GitHub account. To completely restore and decrypt your data pulled from the cloud, you must provide the exact configuration: your Encryption Password and Salt (if a custom salt was used).
• Restrictions: Within the cloud environment, you cannot repeat Database Notes titles for the same user, ensuring consistent document tracking and retrieval patterns.

Important: The application has no mechanism to recover your data without your exact credentials. If you lose these keys, your information will be inaccessible.

Collaboration & Sharing

• Sharing by Nickname: You can grant read-only access to any of your cloud documents by entering a user's exact Nickname in the Collaborators section. The authorized document will immediately populate in their "Shared with Me" tab.
• Access & Privacy: Because sharing utilizes only exact nicknames indexed anonymously rather than searchable emails, user enumeration is completely prevented. Shared documents enforce severe read-only constraints mathematically guaranteed by Cloud Firestore Rules.
• Desynchronize Button: While reviewing a document shared with you, you will find a Desynchronize action in the control center. Utilizing this tool cleanly severs the synchronization link to the cloud session while deliberately retaining the document's text offline into your personal interface, allowing you to instantly inherit a workable, private copy.

Security & Privacy

NullPad is built with a deep commitment to user privacy and data ownership. Our architecture is designed to handle sensitive information with transparency and robust security practices.

Data Sovereignty

• Local-First Control: We do not monitor, profile, or have access to your notes. All your data remains strictly on your device unless you explicitly choose to use the cloud sync feature.
• Browser Isolation: Data is stored within your browser's secure `localStorage`, which is isolated from other websites through standard Same-Origin Policies.

No Behavioral Tracking

• Zero Tracking Policy: We do not use third-party behavioral trackers, session recorders, or marketing cookies. Your activity within the app is not profiled or monitored for analytics.
• Infrastructure Logs: Like all web services, our hosting and backend providers (Cloudflare and Firebase) may process essential technical logs (such as IP addresses and request metadata) strictly for security, DDoS protection, and operational reliability.
• Privacy-First Infrastructure: We choose providers that adhere to high security standards, ensuring that technical logs are handled responsibly and are not used for user behavioral analysis.

Client-Side Encryption

• Zero-Knowledge Sync: When using cloud sync, your data is encrypted locally with AES-256-GCM before it ever leaves your browser. Your notes remain indecipherable to our infrastructure and service providers.
• Encryption at Rest: Your password is never transmitted to or stored on our servers. The salt used for encryption can be either the application's default or a custom value provided by you; in the latter case, the full combination of credentials remains exclusively in your control.
• Access Control: The application has no mechanism to recover or decrypt your data without your credentials. This ensures that only you, the owner of the password, can access the content.

Third-Party Authentication

• Identity Providers: NullPad uses Firebase Authentication to allow sign-in via Google or GitHub. This authentication flow is handled directly by these providers and the Firebase platform.
• Third-Party Policies: Use of these authentication methods is subject to the respective privacy policies and data handling practices of Google, GitHub, and Firebase. NullPad only stores your provider user ID and authentication token locally to maintain your session.

Operational Responsibility

NullPad's architecture supports strong data handling practices by keeping user content local by default and applying client-side encryption before any cloud transmission. Users are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their password and salt. Compliance with specific regulatory frameworks (such as GDPR, HIPAA, or internal OPSEC policies) depends on the user's own configuration and usage context.

Solutions & Tips

Behavior Settings Issue after Update

If the application receives an update that adds new behavioral settings and you have auto-save enabled, these values may appear empty in Settings > Behavior.

Fix: To resolve this, go to Settings > Behavior and click the Reset Behavior button to initialize the new settings with their default values.

Updates & Window Communication

If you keep NullPad open for long periods (such as across PC sleep/wake cycles), you may stop receiving automatic updates. Additionally, the Event Storage (which ensures that changes in one window appear instantly in others) may become inactive.

Recommendation: Refresh the page frequently to ensure you are using the most recent version and to maintain active communication between all open windows.