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Add a toolbar control to show and hide notes #79963
Description
What problem does this address?
When a post has notes, the notes UI (the floating note threads and the All Notes sidebar) is always available and there is currently no way other than distraction free mode to hide it while writing or editing. For users who want to focus on the content, the notes can be visually distracting, and there is no single, discoverable control for managing notes visibility.
Related discussions have explored broader solutions:
- Add a “Minified Notes Mode” for reduced visual footprint (similar to Google Docs' “Minimize comments”) #73417 proposes a "Minified Notes Mode" for a reduced visual footprint.
- Editor: Add compact notes mode for Notes sidebar #74985 implemented a multi-mode notes dropdown (including a compact mode), but the compact mode raised design questions and the PR became stale.
- Add a "Show/Hide Notes Panel" command #73812 proposes a Show/Hide Notes command for the Command Palette.
What is your proposed solution?
Add a Notes dropdown to the pinned toolbar area (shown when the post has notes) with two options:
- Show all notes - opens the All Notes sidebar.
- Hide notes - hides both the floating notes and the All Notes sidebar.
Additional behaviors:
- While notes are hidden, adding a new note via the block toolbar automatically unhides notes so the new note is visible.
- The dropdown reflects the current state (e.g. "Show all notes" is selected while the All Notes sidebar is open).
- The control is keyboard accessible and works on narrow viewports.
This is intentionally a more contained scope than the compact notes mode explored in #74985: it only covers showing and hiding notes, leaving a compact/minified mode to #73417.
Implementation
This issue is implemented by #76024, the top of a two-PR stack that reworks how notes are presented in the editor. The PRs should be merged bottom-up:
- #79864 - Notes: overlay floating notes on space reserved inside the canvas. Reserves a margin column inside the canvas, moves the floating threads into it, and adds the boundary divider. This is the presentation foundation the display modes build on.
- #76024 - Editor: Add notes display modes to the Options menu. Implements this issue: adds a Notes group to the editor Options (ellipsis) menu with Expand notes / Minimize notes / Hide notes. The minimize choice addresses Add a “Minified Notes Mode” for reduced visual footprint (similar to Google Docs' “Minimize comments”) #73417.
Note: the implementation wound up in the Options (ellipsis) menu rather than the pinned toolbar area proposed above, following design feedback on the PR. The stack was originally three PRs; the Minimize notes mode (#79965) was folded into #76024 so the three-choice menu can be reviewed as one unit.
Activity
[-]Notes: Add a toolbar control to show and hide notes[/-][+]Add a toolbar control to show and hide notes[/+]adamsilverstein commentedon Jul 13, 2026
Punting from 7.1.
adamsilverstein commentedon Jul 13, 2026
Punting from 7.1.
jasmussen commentedon Sep 1, 2026
Here's a simple menu design that puts it in the menu, which @Mamaduka is currently refactoring to be able to use flyouts:
I want to note some past designs that are related:
Or this one which relies on #74546 landing first:
adamsilverstein commentedon Sep 1, 2026
Thanks as always for the design guidance @jasmussen - I'm following the menu work and will refactor here once possible to use the new flyout approach.
adamsilverstein commentedon Sep 1, 2026
@jasmussen can you explain exactly what this setting does? Would it lead to notes showing by default when the editor is opened?
Mamaduka commentedon Sep 2, 2026
The good news is that we've merged the "More Menu" refactoring (#81564), which now makes it easier to have submenus.
P.S. @jasmussen, I think you wanted to handle "Help" submenu-fication in the follow-up. Do you mind creating an issue? We can discuss that separately.
jasmussen commentedon Sep 2, 2026
Please ignore this until a point where #74546 may have landed, I regret if this was distracting to the first image I shared which was the primary piece.
But to answer: right now distraction-free is a locked-in set of changes that happen to your editor when you enable it. The toolbar autohides, block toolbar is moved to the top, and more. The idea of 74546 is that there is simply two appearances of the editor: default, and distraction free, but instead of either of those being locked-into place, you can configure each to your liking:
So the idea of that 74546 is, that instead of adding a ton of appearance toggles to the main ellipsis menu, burdening it, to move them all under either default or distraction free, and let you configure either to your liking.
jasmussen commentedon Sep 2, 2026
Thanks for the reminder, I opened an issue: #82317 -- feel free to edit. I don't think of it as an urgent issue in any sense. Just something to think about.
Notes: move the display modes into a Notes submenu of the Options menu
Editor: Gather the View group of the Options menu into submenus