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Writing drops

Drops use Markdown, the same style Obsidian uses. Plain text works fine too: just type. Each tip shows what to type, then how it looks. A drop can be up to 80,000 characters, room for a short story.

In a hurry? Tap ✨ on the bar along the bottom of the box where you write: a heading, bold, a list, a quote, a link, a color and the rest, each a tap. (With live formatting off, Formatting shows the marks you'll use most, each over what it makes, ready to copy.)

A pond's description and its rules (which its moderators write in Moderator tools, and which show above its box) are written the same way.

Your bio (in Settings) keeps to the marks that work inside a line: bold, italics, crossed out, highlight, spoilers, colors and effects, code, math, links, @mentions, #tags and [[pond]] links work as below, and notes stay hidden. Headings, lists, quotes, callouts and tables show just as you typed them, a code block as code, and a picture as a 🖼 link, so a bio never takes over your page.

Logged in, ✍️ live formatting shows your drop in the box as it will look while you type: big headings, a bar down quotes, and most of the marks (a heading's #, **, ==, [[ ]] and the like; %% notes and list marks stay) tucked away, except on the line you're on, where they show faded so you can change them. Pressing Enter on a list item starts the next one, and since you can see it already, Drop sends it at once. Type @ and the start of a name and it offers the people you mean, the ones you follow first; type [[ and it offers ponds, yours first, and after a / the ponds inside that one. After the ponds come your own drops with titles, newest first, your 🔐 ones too (type the start of a title, see Titles). Tap any of them, or press Enter, and it's written in for you, a drop as the link that reaches it. Paste a YouTube link, a tweet or an article, and a moment later its card shows under the box, the card your drop will have. Settings turns it off, for the plain box with its Preview button, which shows the drop exactly as it will look.

Text

A new line in what you type is a new line in the drop.

Start a line with a tab, or four spaces, and it shows indented, one step for each tab, the way Obsidian shows it. So a story pasted from Word or Google Docs keeps its indents, and an indented line is always just text, never code.

A long drop of ordinary writing formats in a few thousandths of a second, and the slowest drop anyone has found so far in about a seventh. If reading a drop's marks gets stuck for a quarter of a second, or its page would grow huge, it shows as plain text, just as you typed it, with everything from its first || hidden as one spoiler to tap. In a paragraph packed with thousands of brackets or unfinished links, like [a]( over and over, the links after them show as text. Ordinary writing never comes near.

Headings, lists and quotes

# Big heading
## Smaller heading
- a list item
1. a numbered item
- [ ] a task
- [x] a done task
> a quote

a quote

On your own drop, tap a task's box to tick it, and tap it again to untick it. Everyone sees your list the way you left it, and the drop doesn't count as edited.

Quotes and lists go inside each other up to 32 deep, all kinds together, and a list counts twice (the list and its item), so that's 16 lists. A line that would go deeper shows as text where it is.

Every heading has its own link: #h- and its words, like coponder.io/pens/43#h-smaller-heading. On a wide screen, a drop with two headings or more lists them beside it, under On this page, so a long piece is easy to find your way around. A heading inside a quote, a list or a callout isn't listed.

Your headings sit one step under the page's own name, so a screen reader hears your # as a second level heading, under the drop's title, and the page keeps one name. They look just as before, but for #####, which is now muted, like ######.

Callouts

Like Obsidian's. Add + or - after the type to make it fold open or shut.

> [!tip] A title
> Text inside.

A title

Text inside.

Code blocks

Put three backticks on the lines before and after. Only that makes a code block: an indented line is just text.

```
code goes here
```

Tables

| Fish  | Size |
|-------|-----:|
| trout | 40cm |
Fish Size
trout 40cm

A table has up to 64 columns. A row with fewer cells than the top row gets empty ones to fill it out, up to 10,000 in a whole table, and after that each row shows just the cells it has.

Footnotes

A claim.[^1] and, on its own line, [^1]: The source.

Creation tags

Creation tags describe a picture, any picture anyone drops, as on e621. The tags you write with a # in your own drops are topic tags, yours alone (see CoPonder extras). Open the picture and tap 🏷️ in its bar. Anyone whose account is a week old can add tags there, or take one off, and 🕘 History shows every change. Private 🔐 drops take none.

CoPonder extras

Properties

Like Obsidian, a block between --- lines at the very top of a drop holds its properties. It never shows on the drop (you see it when you edit), and a [[!pond]] in it still puts the drop in that pond, quietly. A title: line in it becomes your drop's title (below). Plain links in it do nothing, since no one sees them:

---
[[!story-writing]]
---
Your words start here.

When you edit a drop, the ponds it's in show as chips in the box, the pond it lives in first, the same as when you drop it. Tap 🪷 Where it goes… to add a pond, or ✕ on a chip to take it out, then press Save. Take out the pond it lives in, and the drop (and its replies) leaves that pond for your notebook. A chip with no ✕ stays: a hidden pond's drops never leave it, and a [[!pond]] in the words keeps the drop in that pond until you take the tag out.

Titles

Your drop's title is its heading, above your words, wherever it shows (up to 100 characters of it, on one line). Type it in the field above the box where you write, the one that says Optional title. When you edit the drop, your title waits in that field. It's plain text (no bold or links). In a pond only its moderators drop in, like a book or a comic, the pond opens on its Contents, and each drop's line there is its title (without one, its first line of words, as plain words: no bold, links or other marks). Search finds a drop by its title too. A reply has no title.

In a 📕 book every drop needs a title: it's the chapter's name, big on its first page when someone reads it. In a book's box the Title field asks for the chapter's name. Drop a chapter without one and CoPonder keeps everything you wrote and asks for it right under the field. Replies, and drops in a comic, a gallery or a folder, don't need one.

A book's words are a book's, not a note's, so a chapter can't have colors or effects ({rose: words}, {wave: words}). Drop or save one with them and CoPonder keeps everything you wrote and asks you to take the { } marks out. Bold, italics, headings, quotes and lists all work as usual.

A chapter in a book reads like an e-reader: page by page, turned by tapping the sides of the page. Your formatting carries on across a page: bold, italics, links, spoilers, quotes and lists can run from one page onto the next. Headings, code blocks, tables and pictures move to the next page whole, and a heading always has its first line under it. CoPonder remembers the word at the top of your page, so you open the chapter right there next time.

A title: line still works, typed or pasted from Obsidian at the very top of your drop. CoPonder moves it into the Title field when you drop, preview or save, and takes it out of your words, so it shows once, as the heading. Quotes around it don't show, so a title copied from Obsidian looks the same.

---
title: The Pond, part one
---
Your words start here.

Your title is also your drop's address. Drop title: Whats the best pen? in pond/pens and it opens at coponder.io/pens/Whats-the-best-pen, as well as at its number (still the link Share gives). Capitals don't matter, and spaces and hyphens are the same, so coponder.io/pens/whats the best pen gets there too. A drop in no pond lives in your drops, so title: My Story opens at coponder.io/@you/drops/My-Story. The characters that break a file name or a link (\ / : * ? " < > | # ^ [ ]), and %, stay in your heading and drop out of the address.

Link it from any drop with its pond and its title: [[pens/Whats the best pen]], or [[@ana/My Book/Chapter 1]] for a pond under a name. A drop in no pond is linked with its writer's name and its title: [[@you/My Story]]. That works for your 🔐 notes too, and only you can open them: for anyone else the link opens "Page not found.", like a title nobody has. On your drop, a link by title shows just the title, the way Obsidian shows a note by its name: [[pens/Whats the best pen]] shows "Whats the best pen", and [[@you/My Story]] shows "My Story". A link to someone else's drop in no pond keeps their name, "@ana/My Story". While you write, the box still shows the whole link, since it can't tell a title from a pond's name. Capitals, spaces and hyphens work the same as in the address. With live formatting on, type [[ and the start of a title, and your drops show up after the ponds: tap one and its link is written in for you. Open a titled drop and tap Share: its link is right there under the address, ready to copy. On your 🔐 notes, Share is there for you alone, with a reminder that only you can open them. If that title opens a different drop for you (two drops can share one when the first was hidden from whoever reused it), or a pond inside the same pond, Share leaves the link out. A title link shows as a link for everyone, always: if a reader can't see the drop, or nobody has that title, it opens the same "Page not found.", so a link never gives a hidden drop away.

Rename a drop and nothing breaks. When you save, your own links to it change to the new title, the way Obsidian updates links when you rename a note: in your drops and in your 🔐 notes, and any words you put after a | stay. Those drops don't show as edited. Other people's words are theirs, so CoPonder never touches them. Their links keep working instead: the old title still leads to your drop. If another drop in the same place takes that title later, it answers there for whoever can see it. A new title only goes where everyone who reads the link can read the drop. Rename a 🔐 note and only your other 🔐 notes change. Its old title still leads you there from your public drops, and nobody else, since only your locked vault remembers it. Rename a drop in a hidden pond and your drops outside it keep the old title, which still leads its members to the drop. Take the title away, or take the drop out of its pond, and its old titles go with it.

Each title is used once per pond, and once in your drops folder, your 🔐 notes included. If a drop you can see there already has yours, CoPonder keeps your text, links you to that drop, and suggests adding the year: "Whats the best pen in 2026". Drops you can't see never take a title from you, and if two drops share one, the first to take it keeps the address. A title can't be just a number, since numbers are drop addresses. And a drop in no pond can't take the name of one of your ponds, since [[@you/Garden]] opens your Garden pond.

18+

Turn on 18+ on the box's bar, when you write or edit (it lights up when it's on) to blur your drop's pictures, videos, YouTube video and link card, frosted, until a reader taps 18+ · Show. Your text still shows. Readers who turned on Show 18+ pictures in Settings see them plainly. Pond moderators and admins can mark drops 18+ too.

Members only

What the marks on a pond mean, everywhere on CoPonder:

Every pond that's listed (🌊 Everyone or 🎟️ Invite only) is read by anyone, logged out too, unless it's inside a hidden pond: a members-only: line in a drop there does nothing. Only a 🤫 hidden pond keeps readers out, and there every drop is members only: everyone else sees no trace of it: not in a thread or under a quote, and not in 🌊 Ocean, search, profiles or link previews. A drop there goes public only with two keys: your 🔓 Ask to make public writes members-only: false, your consent, and a moderator then decides. A drop at the top of the pond then leaves it for your drops; a reply made public stays in the pond, for those who get in (before making a reply public, moderators check it doesn't give away the drop it answers). Without the line it is members only again, and moderators can also make a reply members only. Replies start members only, and so does a quote you make there (its Talk about it box). Members-only drops aren't encrypted: the people running CoPonder can read them, and admins can see them so they can act on reports. They can't be reposted or put in other ponds.

---
members-only: false
---
I'd like this one out in the open.

When a hidden pond comes out of hiding, every drop in it becomes readable by anyone, and its moderator says yes to that first.

An invite only or hidden pond's moderators find its invite link under 🔗 Invite on its page. Anyone with the link can join, and people without an account can sign up with it: each sign-up uses one of the invite codes of whoever made the link. A new link replaces the old one, which stops working. A hidden pond's link is the only way in, since nobody else can find the pond, so send it only to people you want there.

Private

A place to think out loud before anyone hears it. In your notebook's box, or Ocean's, turn on 🔐 on the box's bar, beside 18+ (it starts off, and lights up when it's on); the drop goes out with public: false in its properties, which you can also type yourself. The drop lands in your notebook, and in Ocean, marked 🔐 Private, and nobody else can read it. It's stored locked with your key, so not even the people running CoPonder or the admins can. Pictures you add are locked with your key too, and only you see them. Nothing goes out while it's private: no notifications, Wall, tags, search, link cards or copied pictures (its links and pictures from other sites stay plain links), and editing it keeps no earlier versions (a picture you remove is gone). A reply can be one too, a note in the margin: turn on 🔐 on a reply box's bar. Only you see it, under the drop and in your replies, and nobody is told; 🌊 Make public, then 🌊 Send it as a reply, sends it out later, as an ordinary reply in its place. A 🔐 drop can't be a quote. It goes in your own 🔐 folders, and in any pond anyone can see that you can drop in, where it sits in its place for you alone: chapter 5 of your book, drafted right there, while readers see chapters 1 to 4 and never know it's there. Turn on 🔐 in a pond's box; in your notebook's box, find the pond in 🪷 Where it goes and turn it on (your 🔐 folders are there too, and need no tick); and on a 🔐 drop you've already made, ⋯ then 🪷 Add to pond adds it to one, still locked. Titled, it answers at its title there too (/@you/spooky-month/Storyboard-3, /@you/my-book/Chapter-5), for you; for anyone else that's a 404. A members-only pond takes none.

Ready to share? Under it, 🌊 Make public, then 🌊 Drop it for everyone (🌊 Drop it in 📕 My Book for one sitting in a pond, where it takes its place for everyone; or edit it, untick 🔐 Private, then Save and Save it). The same drop opens up, pictures and all: same number, same time, the one you wrote it at, so it sits where it was written, not at the top of anyone's feed. Mentions and tags work from then on. Want people to notice? 🔁 Repost it, or quote it. A drop that's already public can't go back to 🔐 Private. Deleting your account, or an admin resetting your password, deletes your 🔐 drops: nobody else has the key to open them.

---
public: false
---
A thought just for me, for now.

Previews

In the plain box, drops with Markdown, a mention, a GIF or a link that gets a card show a preview first, card and GIFs included ("Not dropped yet" says so above it). With live formatting on, they go at once. Pictures you add show in the box right away and go at once too. They stop at the preview only in the plain box without JavaScript, and in a comic's own box, where it asks whether each picture is a page of its own or they share one. Press Drop it to send it as it is in the box, or Preview to see your changes first. A preview shows only right after you press: leave without dropping and come back, and your words wait in the box exactly as you typed them, with Drop. Long drops show their first three paragraphs (up to 1,000 characters) with Show more.