Spans, Notes, and Questions
Zoom tells you where you are in the document. A span tells you what you are working on. Most of the work in Surf starts with a span.
What a span is
A span is a selected stretch of text inside a card. You can select with a drag in the card body. You can also move by sentence, or pick words one by one. The reader stores the card, the text, and the range. That is enough to paint the span again later.
A note can hold more than one span. The first span is the one you selected. Extra spans are related passages. Those related spans often come from a drafted note.
Highlights
A highlight is a span with no title and no body. It is a mark in the text. Use it when you want to find the passage again and you do not need a comment yet. Highlights use a different mark from notes, so the two stay easy to scan.
Notes you write
A written note has a title and a body. You type both. The originating span stays attached. Open the note later to edit the text. Jump from the note back to the span on the canvas.
Notes the reader drafts
You can ask the reader to draft a note from a span. The draft has a title and a body. It can attach related spans from the same document. Those related spans are quotes the draft is using as support. You can edit the draft. You can restore a past version if a later edit is worse.
A drafted note is still your note. It is stored with your account, on that surf.
Questions and answers
A question is tied to a span, not to the whole document. You select the span. You ask. The answer comes back against that same span. You can continue the thread. You can also ask for a short definition of the selected wording.
You can send a span into a longer document conversation. That path takes the span and the surrounding card as context. Use a short question when you want a local answer. Use the document conversation when you want to keep talking.
The side panel lists your questions and your notes. Marks on a sentence can point back to them. You can jump from a mark to the saved thread.
Firehose from a span
Firehose is not a note. It is playback. You can load a whole card into firehose. You can also start firehose from a selected span, so playback begins at that wording. The source card lights the active words as they play.
What is saved, and for whom
Notes, highlights, and questions belong to you. They sit on the surf you are reading. Another person who opens the same document does not see your notes.
A guest on a public reading link or a wave can still select text. The guest cannot save notes or questions to an account. Some actions stay available, such as zoom and firehose. Sign in with your NUU account when you want your work to persist.
See Core Ideas for the noun list. See Ask Questions and Take Notes for the flow.