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🚀 Quick Start: 5 Minutes to FlashNote Mastery

Welcome to FlashNote! This guide gets you up and running with the sidebar workbench, global hotkeys, and the dual-track Notes and Books system.

1. Opening FlashNote & Shortcuts

FlashNote integrates natively into your browser sidebar, allowing uninterrupted note-taking while browsing:

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  • Sidebar Residency: Click the FlashNote icon in your extension bar, or choose FlashNote in Chrome’s side panel;
  • Instant Hotkey:
    • macOS: Command + Shift + F
    • Windows / Linux: Ctrl + Shift + F
  • Pressing the shortcut opens the panel instantly and autofocuses the editor.

2. Notes vs Books (Dual-Track Workspace)

FlashNote separates content into two complementary tracks:

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WorkspaceBest ForKey Capabilities
NotesTemporary ideas, meeting notes, code snippets, tasksFlat listing, instant creation, tag filtering
BooksTutorials, book manuscripts, long-form coursesMulti-chapter hierarchy, drag-and-drop tree, batch publishing

Switch between Notes and Books seamlessly via the top navigation bar.

3. Creating Notes & Web Capture

Scenario A: Quick Note Creation

  1. Open the FlashNote sidebar;
  2. Click the “New Note (+)” button (or press Ctrl/Cmd + N);alt textalt text
  3. Enter a title and write using Markdown or rich text;
  4. Notes are automatically saved locally in IndexedDB without manual saving.

Scenario B: Smart Web Capture

  1. Select key paragraphs on any web page (or clip the full page); alt text
  2. Right-click and choose “Add to FlashNote” or click the clip button in the sidebar; alt text
  3. The DOM sanitization engine strips noisy ads, anchor links, and redundant quotes while downloading images locally for offline availability.

4. AI Engine & Dual Extraction

FlashNote integrates a next-generation multi-provider AI engine to organize your thoughts: alt text

  • Blog Direct FrontMatter & Single Round-Trip Dual Extraction: Click “AI Refine” on the toolbar to generate 150-280 word clean summaries and extract category tags in a single call (saving 50% API quota); alt text
  • Language Alignment: Automatically detects English, Chinese, and Japanese to match output language to input text;
  • 429 Failover: Seamlessly fails over to healthy backup models when hitting rate limits or quota exhaustion.

[!TIP] Next recommended steps: