File Management — Opening, Saving, and the Psi Library

Rho sees files a little differently: your .md files stay wherever they already live. There's no container you have to move your notes into — Psi is a lens laid over your files in place, not a place that owns them. This page covers opening, saving, making Rho your default .md app, and what the Psi library actually is.

Six ways to open a file

Small kindnesses: the same file never opens twice — opening it again just focuses the existing tab. Launching Rho a second time (say, by double-clicking another file) won't spawn a new window either; the file is handed to the one already running.

Recent files keeps the last 10, waiting in the Recent grid on the new tab page (Ctrl+T).

Saving

• Ctrl+S saves. Unsaved changes put a dirty dot on the tab, and closing the tab or the app asks first — nothing is silently lost.
• If a file changes on disk (another editor, a git checkout), Rho refreshes the view automatically. While you're editing, that watcher pauses — external changes can't clobber the edits in your hands.

Where do new documents go? — the Psi folder

A blank document created in Rho (Ctrl+N) doesn't prompt Save-As on its first Ctrl+S. Instead:

1. The filename comes from the document's first line (a timestamp is appended on collisions);
2. It lands in your Psi folder — a notes folder you choose — and is indexed into the Psi library automatically.

The first time, a folder picker asks you to choose one (changeable any time in Settings › General › Psi folder). From then on, "new → write → Ctrl+S" is the whole note-taking loop — no filename to invent, no path to pick.

Making Rho the default .md app

On first launch Rho asks whether to become your default Markdown viewer. Missed it? No problem:

• Click the ρ icon in the top-left to open the About dialog — the set as default button is there.
• On Windows this writes the registry association; on Linux it goes through xdg-mime. After that, every double-clicked .md opens in Rho.

The Psi library: a lens, not a warehouse

Obsidian asks you to move files into its vault; Psi goes to visit your files where they already live.

Rho gives this system an astronomical vocabulary: your library is a galaxy, each folder is a constellation, each document is a star. The status line at the bottom of the Psi panel reads exactly that: N stars · M constellations.

Three steps to start

1. Click the ✦ Psi icon in the Activity Bar;
2. Click Chart Folder… in its tool bar — the Markdown in the folder you pick is discovered and indexed;
3. Done. The tree mirrors your real directories, the search box does full-text search, and the right bar (Ctrl+Shift+B) shows each document's tags, category, and link relationships.

From there:

• Rescan Galaxy — re-sweep after big changes on disk (day-to-day edits are tracked automatically);
• Open Galaxy — the 3D star map: each folder takes the shape of a real constellation, its documents are the stars, and the most-linked documents shine brightest.
• Link documents with [[double brackets]] (autocomplete included while editing); clicking a [[name that doesn't exist yet]] creates the page on the spot.

Psi is an optional layer — without it, Rho is still a complete reader and notebook. But since new documents land in the Psi folder by default, the library tends to simply happen as you write.

The Files tree (optional)

Want a classic browse-by-folder panel? Turn on Settings › General › Show file tree and a Files tree appears in the Explorer view — pick a workspace folder to browse (remembered across launches). Two companion toggles: list the text/code files Rho can open (.txt, .py, .json… rendered as highlighted code blocks), or list every file.

Quick reference