Docs/Settings/Object Types
Object Types
An object type describes a kind of note — what fields it has, what icon it wears, how it looks in a gallery. This is where you see the types your project has and change them. Minerva ships a handful to start with, you can add your own, and you can adjust the built-in ones to suit how you actually work.
What you'll see
Every type in your project, one per row: its icon, its name, how many fields it declares, and how many notes are currently of that kind. A label on each row tells you where it came from:
stock
One of the types Minerva ships with — Book, Person, Meeting, Project, Idea, Article — exactly as it comes.
customized
A stock type you've changed. Your version lives in this project and is what's actually used; the original is kept so you can go back to it.
user
A type you created yourself, either here or from a note.
Changing a type
Edit opens the type's definition. Everything about it is here in one dialog:
Name
What this kind of thing is called, wherever it's shown.
Icon
The character that marks notes of this type in every list. On macOS the ☺ button opens the system emoji picker; you can also paste or type one.
Colour
Tints the icon. Pick from the swatches beside the field, use the colour well for anything else, or type a hex value. The × clears it.
Fields
The properties notes of this type are expected to have. Each one has a name and a kind — text, number, date, a fixed list of choices, or a link to a note of another type. Add, remove, and reorder them; the order is the order they appear in on a note.
Card
Tick a field to include it when the note is shown as a card rather than a row.
Cover
Which field holds an image, for the gallery view.
Parent type
A more general type this one is a kind of. It inherits the parent's fields, and counts as one of the parent wherever they're gathered.
Adjusting a built-in type
The stock types are a starting point, not a fixed set. If Book should track which shelf it's on, edit Book and add the field — no need to build your own near-copy.
Saving keeps a customized copy of that type in this project, which then shadows the built-in one. Your existing notes are unaffected: they're still Books, still found by everything that looks for Books. Only the definition changed.
Revert
Appears on a customized type and puts the built-in definition back, discarding your changes to it. The notes using the type are left alone — the type still exists, it's just standard again.
The name stays fixed
A built-in type keeps its name, even once customized. If you want a differently-named kind of thing, duplicate it — that gives you a type of your own that you can name freely.
Adding your own
New type
Starts an empty definition. A name is all it needs; fields, icon, and the rest are optional and can be added later.
Duplicate
Copies any type, built-in or not, as a new one of your own named "… copy". A quick way to start from something close to what you want.
From a note
File → Save Note as Object Type builds a type out of a note you've already written, taking its properties as the fields.
Renaming and deleting
Your own types can also be renamed and deleted. Both take care of the notes that use them:
Rename
Updates every note of that type to match, so nothing is left pointing at a name that no longer exists. If some notes can't be updated, the old type is kept rather than leaving them orphaned, and you're told.
Delete
Tells you how many notes still use the type, then offers to remove the type: line from them as well. Decline and they keep it — it simply won't resolve to anything, which is easy to undo either way.
Types travel with the project
Your types and your customizations are stored inside the project itself, not on your machine. Open the same project elsewhere and they come with it; a different project has its own vocabulary.
A note takes on a type through its properties — see Typed notes. To browse your project by type, use the Objects panel. To fill in a typed note's fields, use the Properties panel.