Folio

The key

row starting at Z

lower octave, white keys left to right; the row above holds its sharps

row starting at Q

the same shape, one octave higher; its sharps sit on the number row

last key of each row

the octave above (C)

period, delete

clear the step, and on two steps as a note does

the arrows

all four move the cursor by one step (wraps): up or left is back, down or right is forward. This is how a sixteenth is placed — step back one, and write

home, end

step 1, step 16

page up, page down

base octave up, down (C2–C6)

space

play or stop; playback loops

L

loop length: the whole page → 8 → 4 → whole again

tab

the other voice — the lead, the bass, and round again. Everything you type goes into the one named above the page

the two keys past the end of the upper row

O solos the voice you are in, P mutes it; either again undoes it

ctrl + S

export the page you are on as a .folio.json — or, with the quest log open, every workspace at once as quest‑log.json

ctrl + O

import either (or drop a file on the page); a quest log opens as a quest log wherever it lands

F2

the roll: the page drawn instead of written — time runs right, height is pitch, colour is the note

K

the names on the drawing, away and back: the home rules' names in the margin, the guide's, and the interval between the voices. They are on to begin with, and nothing on the page changes either way

F1

close this page of the key

F3

open or close the quest log

F4

the pad's entry method: relative (contour) or absolute

shift + B

the quiet background: paper → forest → sea

escape

closes whichever page is up, the pad's settings crossbar included

the arrows, here

the key of the piece: left, right move the tonic; up, down make it major or minor

here, the two keys left of backspace

the tempo, down and up by four (60–180); with shift, by one

in the quest log

the arrows choose a quest; enter opens its page and works there; enter on the quest you are already in returns to free play; C marks it complete; F3 or escape closes

Notes are entered by position, not by letter, so the layout is the same on any keyboard. Entering a note advances the cursor two steps, and so does clearing one: a step is a sixteenth, sixteen of them are a bar, and eighths are what most of this is thought in — so writing straight ahead lays notes on 1, 3, 5, 7 and counts nothing. A sixteenth is one deliberate movement away: step back with an arrow and write there. Nothing is snapped to a grid; it is two steps on from wherever the cursor is, and it wraps around the page as the arrows do.

The page holds two voices — a lead and a bass — and they play together, from the one clock. They are written one at a time: the strip above the page names both and marks the one in hand, the column gives each a place of its own beside the step number, and in the roll they are drawn in the same field, the voice you are not in a shade back. Tab changes hands. Everything else — the key, the tempo, the loop, the whole page — the two share; only the notes and the timbre are their own. The bass is rounder and darker, so a bass written up in the melody's octave still sounds like the bass. Solo (O) and mute (P) act on the voice you are in; solo, if any voice has it, is what decides, and a change is heard on the next step without a restart. A page written before there were two voices opens exactly as it always did, with a silent bass under it.

The drawing names what it draws, in its margin rather than on top of itself. The home note of the page — the tonic of its key — is ruled across the roll at every octave in view and named once, at the side of its line, with the word home under the name: in C major those rules are the Cs, in G major the Gs, in A minor the As, and they move the moment the key does. Home is therefore a line you can see, and how far a note sits from it is how far it is from home. The octave is numbered the international way, so that C4 is middle C and the page runs from C2 to C6. Place a note, or move one, and a line of its own is drawn at that note's pitch, parallel to those rules and named beside them; it holds for a moment and then fades, so the pitch is said when you ask for it and the drawing is left alone the rest of the time. The column has always named its notes in the same alphabet, a dash standing in where there is no sharp, so that the two columns line up. Where both voices sound on the same step the roll also writes the interval between them, on a hairline tie drawn from the one bar to the other, so that the name belongs to that pair of notes and to nothing else however far apart the voices are. Below the octave the short names are the usual ones — P1, m2, M2, m3, M3, P4, TT, P5, m6, M6, m7, M7, P8 — and wider than an octave the compound name is used: the simple number plus seven for every octave crossed, so a minor third and an octave is m10, a fifth and an octave is P12, two octaves is P15. The tritone keeps its name and takes the compound number with it: TT, then TT11, then TT18. Only the distance is named, never the direction, so it reads the same whichever voice is on top. Nothing here judges: no interval is coloured, ranked, or marked as wanting anything. The page says what the two notes are; what they are worth is for the ear. K puts the whole lot away and brings it back.

The key and the tempo both belong to the page you are on, and so to the workspace it lives in: each quest keeps its own, free play keeps its own, and changing one changes nothing anywhere else. Either may be changed while the loop runs; the change is heard at the next step, without a restart. A quest's page arrives already tuned — its own key and its own tempo, chosen to suit its constraint — so there is nothing to decide before writing; change them here whenever you like, and the change stays with that quest. Free play always begins in C major at 112.

Every quest is a workspace: a whole page of its own — steps, title, tempo, loop and key — and one more page, free play, belongs to no quest. The page in front of you saves itself into the workspace you are in, on every change, as it always did; choosing another quest simply puts a different page in front of you. Nothing is bound, nothing is loaded, nothing is copied, and so nothing can be written over. The margins of this page carry the same thing quietly while you work: on the left every workspace and where you are, on the right the constraint you are under. A narrow window drops both rather than squeeze the column.

Below the eight, under a hairline, sit the drills: short études written into the quest log from outside, each with its own page already on it. They are workspaces like any other — enter one, write, mark it complete — and when the folio is served, a drill added to the log while this page is open simply appears in the list, quietly, without a reload and without disturbing a line of what you have written.

Opened from a file, the folio keeps everything in the browser alone. Started with folio.cmd and opened at http://localhost:4173, it also keeps the whole quest log in a real file — quests/quest‑log.json — written a couple of seconds after every change, and read back when it opens. The footer says · synced while the quest log is open. If the server goes away the work carries on in the browser and the footer says so; the next change tries again.

A copy of the folio can also be put on an ordinary web host and sent to somebody. There is no server behind that copy, so it never sends anything anywhere: it reads the quest log that travelled with it once, on a browser that has nothing of its own yet, and after that everything the reader writes is theirs and stays in their browser. The footer says · read‑only copy while the quest log is open.

The gamepad

hold L2 (LT)

the crossbar: eight rising semitones, C to G

hold R2 (RT)

the next eight, G♯ to D♯

hold L2 + R2

the last eight, E to B, an octave up

the eight slots

read left, up, right, down: d‑pad ←↑→↓, then □△○✕ (X, Y, B, A)

L3 (left stick click)

the loop length: the whole page → 8 → 4 → whole again

R3 (right stick click)

the roll: the page drawn or written

□ (X), bare

clear the step, and on two steps as a note does

○ (B), bare

back to step 1

△ (Y), bare

the other voice — in absolute entry, where it is free. In relative entry △ is a move, so the voice lives on the settings crossbar's ← and →; the crossbar has it in either method

L1, R1 (LB, RB)

base octave down, up

select (create)

play or stop — from any page, and while any page is up

start (options)

the settings crossbar: the eight slots become items, not notes. Start again, ○, or escape puts it down

… its eight slots

↑ ↓ the workspace, walked in the left margin · ← → the voice, round the ring · □ solo · △ mute · ○ close · ✕ the entry method

… ↑ and ↓ there

the highlight moves down the workspaces in the left margin and you are already in the one it is on — nothing to confirm, and no list opened first. Hold to walk. Free play is the first line, the drills the last

… what is not there

the key page (F1, and R3 off it), the quest log (F3), the view (R3, F2), and the names on the drawing (K). None of them has a slot: all eight are spoken for

d‑pad, bare

any direction moves the cursor one step; hold to repeat. One step back, then a note, is how a sixteenth is placed. In the roll the drawing decides: ←→ are time, ↑↓ nudge the note under the cursor a step of the key

left stick

the same, up and down only; in the roll, both axes

right stick

the cursor by fours, beat to beat

in relative entry

△ (Y) up one step of the key, ✕ (A) down one, ○ (B) the same note again, □ (X) a rest; each writes and goes on two steps, an eighth

… hold L1 or R1

the move leaps: L1 (LB) a third, R1 (RB) a fifth, both together a semitone, out of the key; tapped alone they are still the octave

… d‑pad ←→

nudge the note under the cursor a step of the key, without advancing (in the roll this lives on ↑↓, in either method)

here, d‑pad ←→

the tonic; △ or ✕ (Y, A) make the key major or minor

here, d‑pad ↑↓

the tempo, up and down by four (60–180); hold L1 or R1 for one

in the quest log

d‑pad up, down choose a quest; ✕ (A) opens its page, or returns to free play if you are in it already; ○ (B) marks it complete; R3 closes

on the key page

R3 closes it, as it closes the quest log

The cross hotbar, borrowed: a trigger raises the eight slots, letting go gives the d‑pad back to navigation. Twenty‑four semitones, every pitch of two octaves, counted up from the octave in the header; entry goes on two steps — an eighth, as on the keyboard — and sounds the note. A DualSense and an Xbox pad report the same positions. A browser notices a pad only after you press one of its buttons: press start if nothing answers — the settings crossbar coming up is the pad saying hello. Sound may wait for one keyboard touch.

Bare, the face buttons act alone as in the game — □ clears and ○ returns to the top; raise a trigger and all four are notes again.

Relative entry changes only the bare face buttons, and only what they mean while you write: you give the shape — up, down, again, rest — and the page keeps ordinary notes, as always. A move is one step of the key shown in the header, counted from the last note that sounds before the cursor; rests are stepped over, and the search wraps around the loop. An empty page begins on the tonic. A note that lies outside the key moves first to the nearest note of the key in the direction you asked, and that counts as the step. The crossbar is untouched: hold a trigger in either method and the eight slots are absolute pitches again. Set the key on this page.