Improved User Interface

What's New With the User Interface?

We are introducing three major improvements to enhance your user experience in Goodnotes:

Document View Redesign: A completely new interface that adapts to your workflow, offering better organization and easier access to frequently used tools.
Universal Object Menu: Every object in your document now has its own contextual menu, providing quick access to relevant options and modifications without switching tools.
Enhanced Selection Behavior: Improved selection mechanics that make it quicker to interact with objects.

These three pillars work together to create a more intuitive and efficient user experience. Let's explore each in detail.

Document View Redesign

Navigate the new interface

The Document Tabs Bar - just below the status bar - displays your open documents as tabs, and provides quick access back to your Library.
The Navigation Bar—located just below the Document Tabs Bar—consists of three sections:
- The left section offers access to the Sidebar (for managing pages and special content, like audio transcripts), Search, Goodnotes AI and View Modes (Edit or Read-only).
- The middle section houses the revamped Toolbar. See The New Toolbar
- The right section contains the Add Page, Share & Export, and More menus.

The New Toolbar

Tools are now organized into simple categories based on their function, replacing the previous Edit modes. Most tools have a dedicated secondary-level menu called the Active Tool Menu, making it easy to access any specific tool you might need.

The Toolbar has four main parts:

Lasso Selection - Lets you select and work with objects in your document. See Enhanced Selection Behavior.
Tools - Contains all the basic tools for writing, drawing, and adding content, plus an Overflow menu that shows your last-used tool in the top-level toolbar and dynamically changes based on your usage patterns, keeping your most frequently used tools accessible while maintaining a clean interface.
Accessories - One simple menu for all the extra tools that help with note-taking, like Audio Recording:
Active Tool Menu - A helpful menu that appears when you select certain tools, showing you extra options and settings.

Tip: You can drag the Active Tool Menu to any of the four sides of the screen.

Universal Object Menu

When you select anything in your document, a special menu pops up right above it. This menu, called the Universal Object Menu, shows you different options depending on what you've selected. For example, if you select text, you'll see text-related options, and if you select an image, you'll see image-related options. This makes it quick and easy to make changes to anything in your document.

Now, as soon as you've finished lassoing content, the Object Menu appears immediately—no need to tap the selection.

Show the Object Menu

Select an object by finger-tapping it, or circling it with the Lasso tool.

Tip: In the desktop app, you can use these standard keyboard shortcuts: Cut (Ctrl/Cmd+X), Copy (Ctrl/Cmd+C), Paste (Ctrl/Cmd+V), and Delete (Delete/Backspace).

Enhanced Selection Behavior

We've updated how selection works on the canvas to make your workflow faster and more intuitive. Now, whenever you select an object:

The object is highlighted on the canvas
An Object Menu appears for quick actions
The Lasso Tool is automatically selected in the toolbar

This change moves away from the old model where selecting an object would switch the toolbar to a specific tool (like the Image Tool). Instead, the Lasso Tool remains active so you can continue selecting and working with multiple objects more fluidly.

Sticky Behavior vs. Non-sticky Behavior

Sticky tools remain active after use, allowing you to continue using the same tool without reselection. For example, when using the Pen tool, you can write continuously across multiple pages without having to reselect the tool. The key change is that while all tools were previously sticky, now only these tools remain sticky: Lasso, Writing tools (Pen, Highlighter, Pencil), Eraser, Tape, and Laser Pointer.

Non-sticky tools automatically revert to the Lasso Selection tool after a single use, which is ideal for insertion tasks that typically require immediate editing after placement. This also allows you to quickly select any other object on canvas without switching the tools. The non-sticky tools are: Images, Elements, Shapes, Sticky Notes, and Textbox (enters Typing state after insertion so you can type immediately).

Scaling vs. Resizing

Objects like images, elements, and lasso selections scale proportionally (grow or shrink entirely) to preserve quality, design integrity, and content proportions, while objects like sticky notes, shapes, and text boxes resize flexibly (only change their area) to accommodate content length, custom dimensions, and text expansion.

Quick Selection

The Quick Selection feature allows you to efficiently switch between different objects with a single tap. For instance, while editing text in a textbox, you can immediately select and edit an image or element by simply tapping on it, eliminating the need to manually deselect your current object first.

Tip: If you're typing in one text box and want to type in another, just double-tap the other textbox and continue typing.

Scale an image, element, or Lasso selection

Select the object by finger-tapping it, or circling it with the Lasso tool.
Drag a corner handle for proportional scaling:
Use the edge handles for width/height adjustment.

Resize a shape, sticky note, or text box

Select the object by finger-tapping it, or circling it with the Lasso tool.
Drag corner handles to change overall size.
Use the edge handles for width/height adjustment.

Rotate content

Circle it with the Lasso tool.
Choose the Object Edit mode icon.
Drag the rotation handle that extends from the selection frame.