Customize your home

Your home screen is a grid of blocks: what you were working on, recent items, what is waiting for you, your folders, figures, a clock, and more. You can add, move, resize and remove them, start from a ready-made template, keep several layouts and switch between them.

Starting point, the default home

By default, the home uses the Starting point template. From top to bottom:

• The greeting, with the date and what your space holds (files, folders including subfolders, notes), and four buttons: New note, Import (a folder from your computer, with its subfolders), New Folder and Search.
• Pick up where you left off: the folders, files and notes you last opened or changed, as cards with a preview.
• Recent: your recent notes and files, including the ones that just arrived. All, Notes and Files filter the list.
• What’s waiting: your tasks that are overdue or due today, your reminders, and the files waiting to be put away, with Put away. All tasks opens the Tasks page.
• Space: the room your files take, by family, and See what takes up space.
• Pinned folders: your pinned folders, with what they contain, and All folders.

A block with nothing to show steps aside until it has something to say, except What’s waiting, which then says nothing is waiting. A block with little to show, like Recent with two notes, shrinks to fit, and gets its size back as it fills up. Every card and every row can be reached with Tab and opened with Enter.

If you had never changed your home, Filarr switched it once to Starting point, with a message offering Go back to the previous one. If you had already changed it, it stayed as it was. To get the previous home back at any time, choose the Essentials template: see Start from a template below.

Your first day

As long as your profile holds no file and no note, the home shows Get started instead of the blocks: your profile is created, then three steps, Import a folder from your computer, Write a first note and Choose your theme. Each step ticks itself once you have done it.

Below, A home that suits you offers four templates: click one to adopt it right away. Skip these steps and show the home shows the usual home. As soon as you have a first file or a first note, the usual home comes back on its own.

Start editing

You can enter edit mode in three ways:

• At the bottom of the home screen, click Customise home.
• Right-click an empty area of the home screen, then click Customise home.
• Hover a block, click its ⋮ button, then Customise home.

Next to Customise home, the ⋯ button (Home options) gives access to import, export and your layouts.

In edit mode, a bar takes the place of the top of the home screen, with Add an element, Template, the undo and redo arrows, More actions (⋯), Save as… and Done.

Add a block

1. Click Add an element. A panel opens on the side of the grid.
2. Click a block to place it in the first free spot, or drag it onto the grid where you want it.

Each entry shows a live preview with your own data. The panel lists six blocks first: click Show every block for the rest. A block with nothing to show yet stays in the list, greyed out, with the reason written next to it. You can still add it.

Move, resize or remove a block

In edit mode, clicking a block selects it: nothing opens by mistake.

• Move: drag the block by its handle. You can also select it and use the arrow keys, one cell at a time.
• Resize: drag its corner.
• Settings: click the block to open Block settings. You get its Size (Width and Height in cells), its own options, and Remove this block.
• The ⋮ button of a block also offers its options, ready-made sizes and Remove this block.

Customise on a narrow screen

Below 840 pixels wide, on a phone or in a narrow window, the home shows as a single column, and so does edit mode. Each block then carries a bar with its name and four buttons:

• The up and down arrows move it up or down the column. On a wide screen, the home keeps its sizes, and the blocks follow the same order.
• The settings button opens Block settings, above the column.
• The cross removes the block.

Add an element opens the panel above the column. The block you pick goes to the first free spot. To change a block’s size or drag it into place, widen the window: edit mode stays open and switches to the grid.

Save or cancel your changes

• The arrows at the top undo and redo each change.
• Done saves your home. A message Home saved appears, with Undo if you change your mind.
• More actions (⋯ in the bar) sets the width of the home: Centred home or Full-width home. It also holds Start from a template….

Start from a template

1. In edit mode, click Template (or More actions → Start from a template…).
2. In Choose a home template, click a template. Each card shows a map of its blocks.
3. Confirm with Apply.

Template	What it gives you
Starting point	Pick up where you left off, create or import, what’s waiting, recent items and pinned folders. The default.
Essentials	Four figures, where you left off, and the folder grid: the previous default home.
Dashboard	A dense grid: figures, calendar and reminders at a glance.
Workshop	A minimal home whose main block opens the Workshop canvas.
Journal	Today's note up front, and an activity map to see if the rhythm holds.
Library	Files first: four ways to reach one, the trash included.
Garden	No counters. Ways back to what you wrote: chance, hubs, orphans.
Calm	Almost nothing: the time, an intention you write yourself, and what you were in the middle of.

A template replaces the arrangement you are editing. Only the layout changes: no file, note or folder is touched. Until you click Done, the undo arrow brings your previous arrangement back.

See installed templates…, at the bottom of the dialog, lists the templates you installed from the marketplace or imported from a file.

My layouts

You can keep several layouts and switch between them.

• Save as… in edit mode saves the current arrangement under a new name and switches to it.
• Home options → My layouts… lists your layouts with their number of blocks. Click one to switch to it.
• Delete removes a layout. Only the arrangement goes: no file, note or folder is touched. The default layout, Home, cannot be deleted.

Filarr remembers which layout is shown on each device.

Export a layout

A layout file carries an arrangement of blocks, never your content.

1. Click Home options → Export this layout….
2. Give it a Name and, if you like, a Description.
3. Under Links to your content, choose for each block linked to one of your folders, vaults or notes: Empty, or Keep as a placeholder (a label, never an identifier). A free-text search is always emptied.
4. Tick Suggest my theme and font if you want to. It is only a suggestion for the person who imports it.
5. Click Export… and choose where to save the file.

The file has the .filarrlayout extension. A block that cannot travel stays out of the file, and Filarr tells you how many.

Import a layout

1. Click Home options → Import a layout… and choose a .filarrlayout file.
2. Look at the preview. It shows the exact arrangement, with block names instead of real content, and a count of blocks applied, pending and ignored.
3. Click Apply, or Add to my templates to keep it for later.

Apply creates a new layout and switches to it. The layout you have now stays untouched, in My layouts. If the file suggests a theme and a font, Filarr shows them, and nothing changes unless you click Apply them.

A file over 256 KiB is refused, and so is anything that is not a Filarr layout. A block made for a newer Filarr keeps its place, inert, until you update.

Blocks you can add

Family	Blocks
Welcome and shortcuts	Welcome banner (optionally with the starting actions and what your space holds), Search field, Pick up where you left off (as rows or as cards with a preview), Pinned shortcuts (as a grid, a list or chips), Workshop shortcut
Folders and files	All folders, Suggested folders, Recent files, Favourites, Trash, Collections, Largest folders, File types
Notes	Recent notes, Pinned notes, Unfiled notes, A random note, Spotlight note, Daily note, Hubs, Orphan notes, Tag cloud, Calendar (of your daily notes), Activity, Writing
Figures and status	Figure tile, Stat cards, Dashboard, Storage quota, Sync, Vaults, Upcoming reminders, Footer line
Layout	Section heading, Divider, Spacer, Text block, Banner
Time	Clock (with an optional countdown), Timer
This folder	Recent in this folder, Pinned subfolders, Storage for this folder, Members and sharing, Folder tasks, Activity

Several blocks have options that change what they show. Recent files can mix your notes and files, with filters. Upcoming reminders can also show your due tasks and the files to put away. Storage quota can show the room your files take, by family, even without a cloud account. The Starting point template uses these options.

The last family is made for the block band at the top of a folder, see Organize files in folders. Recent notes follows the Recent notes on the home screen setting in Settings → Appearance.

Related articles

• Themes and appearance
• Marketplace and extensions
• Find your way around
• Organize files in folders