trilium/docs/User Guide/User Guide/Collections.md

Collections

Collections are a unique type of notes that don't have a content, but instead display its child notes in various presentation methods.

Main collections

	Calendar View which displays a week, month or year calendar with the notes being shown as events. New events can be added easily by dragging across the calendar.
	Table View displays each note as a row in a table, with Promoted Attributes being shown as well. This makes it easy to visualize attributes of notes, as well as making them easily editable.
	Board View displays notes in columns, grouped by the value of a label.
	Geo Map View which displays a geographical map in which the notes are represented as markers/pins on the map. New events can be easily added by pointing on the map.
	Presentation View which shows each note as a slide and can be presented full-screen with smooth transitions or exported to PDF for sharing.

Classic collections

Classic collections are read-only mode and compiles the contents of all child notes into one continuous view. This makes it ideal for reading extensive information broken into smaller, manageable segments.

• Grid View which is the default presentation method for child notes (see Note List), where the notes are displayed as tiles with their title and content being visible.
• List View is similar to Grid View, but it displays the notes one under the other with the content being expandable/collapsible, but also works recursively.

Configuration

To adjust the view type, see the dedicated Collections tab in the Ribbon.

Use cases

Creating a new collection

To create a new collections, right click in the Note Tree and look for the Collections entry and select the desired type.

Adding a description to a collection

To add a text before the collection, for example to describe it:

1. Create a new collection.
2. In the Ribbon, go to Basic Properties and change the note type from Collection to Text.

Now the text will be displayed above while still maintaining the collection view.

Using saved search

Collections, by default, only display the child notes. However, it is possible to use the Search functionality to display notes all across the tree, with advanced querying functionality.

To do so, simply start a Search and go to the Collection Properties tab in the Ribbon and select a desired type of collection. To keep the search-based collection, use a Saved Search.

Important

While in search, none of the collections will not display the child notes of the search results. The reason is that the search might hit a note multiple times, causing an exponential rise in the number of results.

Creating a collection from scratch

By default, collections come with a default configuration and sometimes even sample notes. To create a collection completely from scratch:

1. Create a new note of type Text (or any type).
2. In the Ribbon, go to Basic Properties and select Collection as the note type.
3. Still in the ribbon, go to Collection Properties and select the desired view type.
4. Consult the help page of the corresponding view type in order to understand how to configure them.

Archived notes

By default, archived notes will not be shown in collections. This behaviour can be changed by going to Collection Properties in the Ribbon and checking Show archived notes.

Archived notes will be generally indicated by being greyed out as opposed to the normal ones.

Under the hood

Collections by themselves are simply notes with no content that rely on the Note List mechanism (the one that lists the children notes at the bottom of a note) to display information.

By default, new collections use predefined Templates that are stored safely in the Hidden Notes to define some basic configuration such as the type of view, but also some Promoted Attributes to make editing easier.

Collections don't store their configuration (e.g. the position on the map, the hidden columns in a table) in the content of the note itself, but as attachments.