Organizing

Status

Every piece is inbox, working, published, not now, or done.

Every piece carries exactly one status, written as a status: line at the top of its own file. A new piece starts at Inbox, which is also what a file with no metadata block at all reads as.

The five

• Inbox — where a new piece starts.
• Working On — in progress.
• Published — it went somewhere. Publishing sets this and records where as a tag. See Destinations.
• Not Now — set aside, and still wanted.
• Done — finished with, and nothing was published. A handout that has been printed and taught from is done.

Inbox and Working On are what the front page shows. The other three take a piece off it, and each collects behind its own link. See Finding a piece.

Changing it

Open the action bar with ⌘K and choose Move…, then a status. Actions that work on a single piece carry its title, so that entry reads Move “Field Notes”… for a piece called Field Notes. The status a piece already has is not offered.

Mark Done sits at the top level of the action bar rather than inside Move…, because it names no destination and it is the common answer. A piece that is already done offers Bring back instead, which returns it to Working On.

Right-clicking a row in the list carries the same moves without opening the action bar: Mark done and Not now, or Bring back on a piece that is already done or set aside.

While you are writing, the inspector (⇧⌘I) carries a STATUS list. Click one and it is saved with the piece.

Done is not Published

Both take a piece off the front page, and they are not interchangeable. Published asks which destination and writes the answer into the file. Done claims nothing, which is why it costs one keystroke and no decision.

Tags

Destinations you type by hand, instead of folders.

There are no folders to file a piece into. A piece carries any number of tags on a single tags: line at the top of its file, and that one line holds two kinds of tag: the destination names Dispatch writes when you publish, and any word you type yourself.

Adding and removing

In the action bar, Tag… opens a small sheet for the piece. Type a tag and press Return. Tags already in use on other pieces are offered underneath as Used elsewhere — click one to add it. Click a tag the piece already carries to take it off.

While you are writing, the inspector’s TAGS panel does the same: type into add tag and press Return, or click the × beside a tag.

Tags are matched without regard to case, so “Recipes” and “recipes” stay one tag rather than becoming two. Commas, square brackets and line breaks cannot appear inside a tag — a comma separates the list and a line break would end the metadata block — so they are stripped as the file is written.

Where they show

Tags appear with a piece’s title in the list, as outlined pills. At the foot of the editor they are split in two: any tag that matches one of your destinations sits under published to, and the rest under tagged.

That split is worth knowing about. Dispatch reads “published to somewhere” as “this piece is tagged with that destination’s name”, so a tag whose text is exactly a destination name will read as a publication record. Any other word is unaffected.

Filtering by one

Every tag in use is listed in the action bar — Tag: recipes — with the number of pieces carrying it, most-used first. Choosing one filters the front page down to those pieces and shows the tag with an × beside it at the top of the list. Clear tag filter, or esc, puts everything back. See Finding a piece.

Starring

Hold a piece on the front page.

A star marks a piece you keep coming back to. Nothing is filed anywhere: the file stays exactly where it is, keeps its status, and goes on appearing in the list as it did before. The star is a starred: true line in the file, and unstarring removes that line rather than setting it to false.

⌘D stars the piece you are writing, or the row the cursor is on in the list. The same key unstars it. ⇧⌘D opens Starred. Both are in the action bar as well, as Star — or Unstar — and Show Starred.

A starred piece shows a small star beside its date in the list. As soon as anything is starred, STARRED appears as the first of the links at the foot of the front page.

What it composes with

Starred gathers every piece that carries the flag, whatever its status. That pairing is the point of it. A piece marked Done is off the main list and still one click away under STARRED — what a piece you come back to, but that no longer belongs in the list, needs.

Archiving is the exception, because it moves the file into a folder of its own. An archived piece leaves Starred along with everything else, star or no star.

Archive

Move a piece out of the list entirely.

Archiving files a piece away. Unlike a status, it moves the file — into a folder called Archive/ beside your writing, where the Finder can still see it. Dispatch builds its lists from the top level of the folder only, so an archived piece drops out of the front page, out of MORE, out of Starred, and out of what the action bar searches.

⌃⌘A archives the piece you are writing, or the row the cursor is on. ⇧⌘A opens the Archive. Both are in the action bar as Archive and Show Archive.

The piece keeps its name, its status, its tags and its star. Nothing in the Archive expires: deleted pieces are held for thirty days, but an archived one is kept as long as you keep it.

Inside the Archive

Return opens a piece to read or edit — it stays in the Archive while you work on it. The action bar there is short — Open, Unarchive, Delete — and esc, or the BACK link, returns you to your writings.

Unarchive moves the file back to the top level, and the piece reappears in the list. If something up there already has that name, the returning file becomes Draft (2).md rather than replacing it.

When to reach for something else

Archive is the strongest way to put a piece aside, and the wrong one for a piece you intend to finish — it is out of the list, out of search and out of sight. Not Now keeps it in the library behind its own link, and a star keeps it one click from the front page. See Status and Starring.

Deleting is a third thing again. It moves the piece to a trash Dispatch keeps for thirty days, and from there to the macOS Trash. See Where your files live.

Finding a piece

MORE, PUBLISHED, NOT NOW, and search.

The front page shows only the most recent pieces still in progress. Everything else sits behind a short row of links at the foot of it, and a link appears only when there is something behind it.

• STARRED — the pieces you have starred.
• MORE — the in-progress pieces beyond the front page.
• PUBLISHED — everything you have published.
• DONE — pieces marked done.
• NOT NOW — pieces you set aside.

Each opens a plain list of titles. The heading in the top left names where you are and takes you back, as do esc and the BACK link at the foot.

The Archive and the trash are not on the page. Both are in the action bar, as Show Archive and Show Trash.

By keyboard

The up and down arrows move through the rows and on through the links below them. Return opens the piece the cursor is on, or follows the link. esc steps back one level at a time — out of a filter, then out of a section, and from the editor back to the list.

Search

There is no search field. Open the action bar with ⌘K and type. Every piece is listed there as Open: followed by its title, and what you type is matched against the title and the piece’s opening — the first eighty characters or so after the title, not the whole text. The sixty most recently changed pieces are listed this way. Archived and deleted pieces are not.

Narrowing the list

Tag: entries filter by tag; see Tags. Filter by Destination… narrows Published to a single place, and Show Website, Show Social and the rest do the same by category, for the categories you actually publish to.

Whatever is filtering shows at the top of the list with an × beside it. Clear Filter, or esc, removes it.