The Core Loop: Reviewing Items in the Queue

This is where you'll spend most of your time with the plugin.

The first important consideration the user has to have is that, from now on, his queue will have a dual nature, intermingling elements with different characters and purposes:

Rem Type	Primary Purpose	Typical Form	Repetition Behavior	Role in the Ecosystem
Incremental Rem	Introduce new information for passive review and processing.	Full articles, book chapters, paragraphs, web pages, notes, images, videos.	Presented in increasing intervals for further reading; tag deleted once fully processed (Dismissed). User-controlled schedule.	Ingestion/Food: Raw material imported into the knowledge base to be broken down and learned.
Flashcard Rem	Test and strengthen memory of atomic knowledge through active recall.	Question-Answer pairs, cloze deletions, multi-line sets/lists, multiple-choice tests.	Presented in algorithmically determined intervals to ensure near-perfect long-term retention.	Functional Tissue: The durable, assimilated knowledge that constitutes the organism's long-term memory.

(Table adapted from the Pleasurable Learning channel)

During a study session, Incremental RemNote presents your Incremental Rems one by one (intermingled with your flashcards). To interact with them, you'll use the Answer Buttons bar at the bottom of the screen.

Each button is designed for a specific action to manage your learning flow efficiently.

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Spoiler Protection

An extract and the flashcard it gives away are often both due in the same session, and the queue used to show them in whatever order came up. When the extract came first, it handed you the answer: the recall was no longer a recall, and the grade you gave the card afterwards measured nothing.

The plugin now holds an Incremental Rem back while a flashcard it would spoil is still due. The card comes up first, you grade it honestly, and the extract returns to the running immediately afterwards — usually a few items later in the same session. Nothing is skipped; only the order changes.

When it releases

The hold is always temporary. The Incremental Rem is shown as soon as any of these becomes true:

• You grade the card. The card stops being due, the Rem stops being a spoiler, and it re-enters the running at its normal priority position. Where several cards hold it — its own plus a few Alt+Z clozes — it is released once the last of them is graded.
• Nothing unspoiled is left. If every remaining due Incremental Rem is holding for a card, the highest-priority one is shown anyway rather than showing you nothing.
• No flashcards remain. With the flashcard queue empty, there is nothing left to spoil, so held items are released.

So a held Incremental Rem is never lost, and never postponed past the end of the session.

What counts as a spoiler

Two kinds of flashcard hold an Incremental Rem back:

• Cards on the Rem itself. You extract a paragraph, then cloze part of it in place, so the same Rem is both the extract and the card.
• Cards on its direct Alt+Z cloze children. An Alt+Z cloze is a separate child Rem that quotes the parent's sentence with one span blanked out — so the parent gives it away just as surely, even when the parent carries no card of its own. This was the common case the first version missed: a plain extract you had clozed underneath had nothing for the check to look at, and sailed through.

Everything else is out of scope. Deeper descendants are not checked, and neither are children clozed by other means — only the direct children Alt+Z marks as its own. An extract can certainly spoil those too, but finding them means walking the whole subtree of every candidate, which is a much heavier operation than reading one tag.

Two behaviours are worth knowing:

• Brand-new, never-practiced cards do count. This is the case that matters most: nothing has been recalled yet, so the extract would be teaching you the answer before your first look at the card.
• Disabled cards do not count. If you switch a two-way card down to one direction in the queue, the direction you turned off stops holding anything back — even though it keeps its review history. The same is true for cards whose practice you have disabled entirely.

Limits

• Normal queue only. Practice All and In Order are unaffected. In those modes every card in scope is going to be shown regardless of its due date, so every dual-type Rem would qualify as a spoiler at once and nothing would ever release them.
• New cards behind a daily limit. If the card holding an extract back is a new one that your daily new-card limit has not reached yet, the extract stays held until the end of the session, then is released. It still gets reviewed — just later than its priority would normally place it.

Across sessions: cooling

This hold is within a session. Its counterpart across days is cooling in the Priority Queue: a flashcard Rem whose answer was shown by a recent review — another card of the same Rem, a sibling Alt+Z cloze, the parent extract, or a descendant's context line — is kept out of the Priority Queue for a window that grows with the card's interval, and cannot set the Priority Shield meanwhile.

Turning it off

Hold Back Spoiler IncRems in the IE Settings popup, under Queue. On by default. Switching it off restores the previous behaviour, where an extract and the cards it spoils appear in whatever order the queue produces.

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The Answer Buttons

Here is a breakdown of each button and its function, from left to right.

• Next: (Shortcut: Cmd+Right on Mac, Ctrl+Right on Windows/Linux) This is your primary action. Clicking "Next" marks the item as reviewed, calculates the next time you should see it based on the scheduling algorithm, and advances to the next item in your queue. The subtitle (e.g., "×1.5 in 3 days") shows the interval that will be set, preceded by a chip naming the scheduler that produced it.

• Swipe-to-Reschedule: (New!) A new gesture for faster scheduling when reviewing Incremental Rems:

  • Click and slide UP: Automatically schedules for tomorrow.
  • Click and slide DOWN: Schedules for today (later in the same day).

• Pro-Tip: This is particularly useful for content you're actively working through (like a book chapter). It keeps your momentum without opening the full Reschedule popup.

• Reschedule: (Shortcut: Ctrl+J) This button opens a popup that gives you manual control over the item's schedule and priority. You can set a custom interval in days and adjust the priority value at the same time.

• Dismiss: (Shortcut: Ctrl+D) When you have finished processing an item and no longer wish to see it in your queue, click "Dismiss" (or press Ctrl+D). This permanently finishes the item by removing its Incremental power-up. This shortcut also works in the Editor to dismiss the focused Incremental Rem.

• Change Priority: (Shortcut: Opt+P / Alt+P for full widget and Ctrl+Opt+P / Ctrl+Alt+P for light widget) This opens the advanced priority popup. The label on the button itself provides rich, at-a-glance information:

• The Number: The Rem's absolute priority value (0-100, lower is more important).

• The Percentiles: The Rem's rank within your entire Knowledge Base (% of KB) and within the current document (% of Doc).

• The Color: The background color shifts from red (high priority) to blue (low priority) for an instant visual cue of its importance.

• Review in Editor: (Shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+J) (Previously called "Review & Open") This is a powerful workflow tool. It performs a sequence of actions:

• It first reviews the item (rescheduling it) and opens the Rem in the editor, exiting the queue.

• It immediately starts an Editor Review Timer. When finished, clicking "End Review" stops the timer and routes you back to your queue document. This is perfect to avoid friction with the queue interface, and when an item inspires you to do more detailed work, like extensive note-taking or using other features like the AI assistant.

• Scroll to Highlight / Scroll to Bookmark: This button appears for PDF highlights, HTML highlights, and Incremental Rems with PDF sources.

• If you are reviewing a highlight, clicking this instantly snaps your view back to the highlight's position in the document.

• If you are reviewing a full PDF chapter (an Incremental Rem with a PDF source), this button acts as a Scroll to Bookmark. It jumps directly to your last recorded reading position within that chapter/PDF/IncRem.
• See the PDF-Incremental-Reading-Workflow#4-pdf-highlight-toolbar-utilities guide to learn how bookmark positions are automatically tracked when extracting highlights.

• See also: Create-Incremental-Rem-from-PDF-Highlights for how to turn highlights into active learning material.

• 🔖 Read point (hybrid PDF/HTML IncRems): This button appears when a PDF/HTML IncRem also has a read point set on one of its own descendant rems (a "hybrid" — a reading source and its own outline content). Because the in-queue reader can't jump into the outline without leaving the queue, clicking it shows a confirmation dialog with the read point's rem name; on confirm it behaves like Review in Editor — it records a review for the current IncRem and starts its timer — but opens the read-point descendant in the editor so you can resume reading there. A small • latest marker appears on whichever of Scroll to Bookmark / Read point was saved most recently. (Pure Rem-type cards don't need this button — their read point is shown directly in the read-only card.)

• 📑 View outline / 📄 Read document (hybrid toggle): For the same hybrid IncRems (a PDF/HTML reading source that also has a read point on a descendant), a toggle appears in the top-right corner of the queue card. 📑 View outline flips the card from the PDF/HTML reader to a read-only outline view of the IncRem — the same ExtractViewer used for Rem-type cards, where the read point is emphasized and auto-scrolled into view — without leaving the queue. 📄 Read document flips back to the reader. This lets you read the document and consult your outline/notes in the same session. (To instead make a chapter always open as an outline in the queue, add the #extractviewer tag — see PDF-Incremental-Reading-Workflow#extractviewer-mode.)

• Open Editor in New Tab: Clicking this button instantly opens the full source document in a new browser tab, right at the location of your highlight/PDF document/Rem. Use it to take notes of what you are reading in a PDF section, to paste highlighted extracts right there (tagging it "incremental" in the editor note rather than in the PDF highlight itself, for easier manipulation and future flashcard creation), to have access to all of RemNote's formatting tools, and to link to other ideas.

• 📝 Review Note (compact icon, next to Open Editor): Toggles an inline text field to attach a short observation to this repetition's history entry — "stopped mid-proof", "re-read section 3 first", "dismissing: superseded by newer source". The note is parked as you type and saved with whichever action ends the review: Next, Reschedule (Ctrl+J), or Dismiss (where it becomes the dismissal reason). The icon stays highlighted while a note is pending. Notes appear later in the Repetition History popup, the Aggregated view, and the Study Dashboard. Each entry also gets an automatic reading-context snapshot (current page, page range, PDF name, last bookmark) — no typing needed for that part.

• Open URL for Web Clipper 📎 (for HTML-type Incremental Rems): When reviewing IncRems with web pages sources, this button opens the original URL in a new browser tab, allowing you to use the Clipper's side panel for additional notes and extracts, improving the experience of Incremental Reading web pages. The button features an animated design to highlight when you're reviewing web content.

• Document Notes (Sidebar): When reviewing PDF or HTML Incremental Rems (including PDF Highlights and HTML Highlights), a 📝 Document Notes icon appears in the top bar. Clicking this opens the current document in a right-sidebar widget, allowing you to view and make notes and capture thoughts side-by-side with your reading material without leaving the queue. The sidebar syncs with the active queue item automatically. For highlight IncRems, the sidebar discovers all Incremental Rems sharing the same source document and lets you pick which one's notes to view (auto-selects if there is only one).

The same sidebar is also the editing surface for plain Rem-type Incremental Rems (text/note extracts). For these, the in-queue card is a read-only preview (see Editing a Rem-type IncRem below) and the Document Notes sidebar opens automatically when the item loads, so you can edit it there immediately — selecting text, formatting, and typing all behave normally in the sidebar pane.

• Editing a Rem-type IncRem (read-only card + "✎ Edit in sidebar"): When the current Incremental Rem is a plain Rem (a text/note extract, not a PDF/HTML/video source), the queue card is a read-only preview of the Rem and its descendants, with an "✎ Edit in sidebar →" button; editing is done in the auto-opened Document Notes sidebar. See Editing a Rem-type Incremental Rem below for why the card is read-only and how the editing flow works.

• PDF Switcher (multi-PDF Inc Rems): When the current Inc Rem has more than one PDF source, a small PDF dropdown appears in the top bar next to the 📝 Document Notes icon. Selecting a different PDF:

• Pins it as active for this Inc Rem (stored in synced storage as the new default for future queue opens, the Editor Review Timer, the PDF Control Panel, etc.),

• Re-renders the Reader on the new PDF immediately — the queue card stays the same, just the PDF view swaps. The new PDF's bookmark auto-scroll, page controls, and reading-time writes all follow.
• The switcher is hidden for PDF highlights and HTML hosts (highlights are tied to a specific PDF; switching would orphan the queue card).

See the PDF-Incremental-Reading-Workflow#multiple-pdf-sources--active-pdf-switcher-and-preferthispdf section for the full resolution chain (pin → #preferthispdf → first PDF) and how it applies across every surface.

• Press 'P' to Edit: This is a non-clickable hint that appears only for certain card types (like regular Rem or PDFs). It reminds you that you can press the "P" key to open the Rem in the pop-up "previewer" for quick edits — a fast alternative when you don't want to use the sidebar. (For Rem-type IncRems the primary editing path is the auto-opened Document Notes sidebar, since typing directly in the queue card is unreliable — which is exactly why that card is read-only; see Editing a Rem-type Incremental Rem below.)

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Editing a Rem-type Incremental Rem

When the current Incremental Rem is a plain Rem (a text/note extract, not a PDF, HTML, or video source), the queue card shows a read-only preview of the Rem and its descendant subtree, with an "✎ Edit in sidebar →" button. All actual editing is done in the Document Notes sidebar, which opens automatically when the item loads.

Why the card is read-only (the keyboard-conflict problem)

Earlier versions embedded RemNote's editable editor for the Rem directly in the queue card. That turned out to be unreliable: the plugin runs in a sandboxed frame while the editor is a "fake embed" rendered in RemNote's main window, and the queue (Flashcard) pane keeps reclaiming the keyboard. In practice this meant:

• the text-selection toolbar flickered shut as soon as you selected text;
• typed characters were dropped (the editor couldn't hold focus); and
• stray keys (arrows, space, digits) fell through to the queue and could rate or advance the card by accident.

A plugin cannot fully capture keyboard input inside the queue pane, so this could not be fixed there. The solution is to keep the in-queue card read-only (it never captures the keyboard — no collapsed selections, no accidental ratings) and route editing to a separate pane that holds focus correctly.

The editing flow

• Read-only preview. The card renders the Rem and its descendants (reactively — it updates live as you edit them elsewhere). Descendants are shown indented under a guide line, separated from the Rem by a horizontal divider.
• Edit in the sidebar. The Document Notes sidebar auto-opens on the Rem when the item loads (or click "✎ Edit in sidebar →"). It is a normal editor pane — selecting text, formatting, typing, and editing children/descendants all work as usual, and the changes flow back into the read-only preview.
• Back to the dashboard on Next/Dismiss. When you press Next or Dismiss (leaving the rem), the History-Queue-Dashboard-and-Mastery-Drill#practiced-queues-history--live-dashboard is restored in the Right Sidebar (if the Auto focus Queue Dashboard setting is on), so you return to your live session metrics for the next item.
• Heavier-duty alternatives. For more space or a full editor you can also use Review in Editor or Open Editor in New Tab, or press P for the pop-up previewer.

Read-point and status emphasis in Rem-type cards

The read-only preview highlights important nodes with colored emphasis boxes (a left border + background tint — the same visual language as the editor's incremental/dismissed left borders), so you can orient yourself at a glance:

• 🎯 Target Incremental Rem — the root rem being reviewed gets the strongest box (thick green border) plus a badge, making it unmistakable which rem is the actual queue item.
• 🔖 Read point — if a read point is set, the bookmarked descendant gets a blue box + "🔖 Read point" badge, and the card auto-scrolls to center it when the item loads. A blue banner at the top of the card — 🔖 Read point: "…" with a Scroll to it button — lets you re-center on demand (and is the fallback indicator when the read point sits deeper than the preview renders).
• Incremental descendants — green box (mirrors the editor's incremental left border).
• Dismissed descendants — amber box (mirrors the editor's dismissed indicator).
• ⬆️ Cloze extract — descendants tagged #cloze-extract (children created via Create Cloze Deletion) get a violet "⬆️ Cloze extract" badge, mirroring the queue's cloze identifier.
• 🚫 Ignored — descendants tagged #ignore get a deliberately understated treatment (a thin dashed grey rule + faint tint and an italic "🚫 Ignored" label), so they read as muted/archived without competing with the emphasis boxes above.

These last two are badged here because the embedded RemViewer renders outside this preview's stylesheet, so a child's normal cloze/ignore styling wouldn't otherwise show through.

Read points are set with the Set Read Point (Bookmark) command (Ctrl+F7, srp) — place your cursor in the descendant and run it — and managed from the Read Points popup (Ctrl+Shift+F7, vrp). See Read Points for Rem-type Incremental Rems for the full workflow.

Tip: the in-queue preview can only emphasize/scroll to a read point that is actually rendered. If a descendant displays flat (un-nested) in the read-only card, check that the document's "Hide Bullets" option is off — with Hide Bullets on, RemNote renders the embed without its nested structure.

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A Strategic Guide to the Answer Buttons

Understanding the specific function of each button is key to a fluid and efficient incremental learning workflow. This guide covers the primary use cases for each option on the answer bar.

Next

This is your most-used button (shortcut: Cmd+Right on Mac, Ctrl+Right on Windows/Linux). You click it after you have engaged with an item and are ready to schedule its next review.

The Scheduling Algorithm

The "Next" button calculates the next interval with one of two schedulers:

• Multiplier: next interval = ⌈current interval × multiplier⌉. The multiplier defaults to 1.5, so an item left alone goes 2, 3, 5, 8, 12, 18 days — and an interval you chose yourself is carried forward: 50 days becomes 75, then 113.
• Saturating Curve: intervals depend only on the number of reviews. They start at a comfortable First Review Interval (default 5 days) and gradually approach a Max Interval ceiling (default 30 days) without ever exceeding it — better suited to material that needs many reviews, such as a whole book.

Each Incremental Rem uses one of them: its own choice if you set one, otherwise the setting for its type, otherwise the Default Scheduler. A small chip on the Next button tells you which — ×1.5 for the multiplier, curve for the saturating curve.

📖 Full details: the IncRem Scheduler page covers both schedulers, how one is chosen for each item and the settings that control them. To see how a due item is then picked for the queue, read Scheduling and the Queue.

The "One Memory, One Action" Principle

The single most important rule in incremental learning is to always take meaningful action on an item before clicking "Next". Simply viewing an item and immediately dismissing it is a "futile review" that wastes time.

The "One memory, one action" principle, first enunciated by Piotr Wozniak, author of SuperMemo, demands that every review should leave a trace in your memory. Before clicking "Next," you should always perform at least one small, productive step, such as:

• Rephrasing a difficult sentence to make it clearer.
• Creating a highlight on a key passage.
• Reviewing-Items-in-the-Editor#extracting-text a "golden nugget" of information into its own Rem by selecting text and pressing Alt+X (this creates a linked child extract).
• Importing to your knowledge base an article or page that will bring foundational knowledge that you will need to fully grasp the current incremental rem (and tagging this new article "Incremental", using Alt+X or Alt+Shift+X, to bring it into your learning flow).
• Reviewing-Items-in-the-Editor#creating-clozes or standard flashcard from a sentence using Alt+Z.

Conversely, avoid "item perfectionism"—doing too much work on a single item in one session. It is highly inefficient to spend a long time formatting, adding images, and perfecting a single piece of information. Spread these actions over time. The goal is one meaningful interaction per review.

Reschedule

This button (shortcut Ctrl+J) is your tool for strategic postponement.

When to use it: Use "Reschedule" when you encounter a complex topic that you're not mentally prepared for yet. For example, you might be reviewing an advanced physics paper but realize you need to brush up on a foundational concept first.

Instead of struggling or just clicking "Next" (a futile review), you can use "Reschedule" to punt the advanced topic a month into the future. This gives you time to encounter and process first the more basic foundational material you have already imported to your knowledge base, so you'll be ready when the complex topic reappears.

What happens at the next review depends on the item's scheduler:

• On the Saturating Curve, Reschedule is a one-time override. The next "Next" returns to the curve, which only counts reviews — right for a book you are merely postponing.
• On the Multiplier scheduler, the interval you set is kept: the next "Next" multiplies it. Set 50 days and the following intervals are 75, then 113.

Scheduler row: The popup shows which scheduler the item uses and lets you change it for this Rem alone: ← / → switch between × Multiplier and Saturating Curve, and with the multiplier selected ↑ / ↓ (or typing) set this Rem's own value. A preview line shows the intervals that would follow. See Changing it for one Rem.

📝 Note field: The popup includes an optional Note input — record why you postponed ("waiting for prerequisite chapter", "revisit after exam"). The note is stored on this reschedule's history entry and shown later in the Repetition History popup, so future-you knows what past-you was thinking.

Technical Note: Reschedule Event Types

The plugin differentiates how repetition/reschedule events are tracked based on their source, with different interval calculation behavior:

Event Type	Source	Counts for Interval?	UI Display
rep (default)	Next button in queue	✅ Yes	Normal row
rescheduledInQueue	Ctrl+J / Reschedule button in queue	✅ Yes	Row with "📅" indicator
rescheduledInEditor	Ctrl+J in editor	❌ No	Event marker (purple)
manualDateReset	User manually edits Next Rep Date slot	❌ No	Event marker (gray)
executeRepetition	Execute Repetition command	✅ Yes	Row with "⌨️" indicator
madeIncremental	Making rem incremental	❌ No (boundary only)	Event marker (green)
dismissed	Dismiss button / tag removal	❌ No	Event marker (orange)

Key distinction:

• Review actions (rep, rescheduledInQueue, executeRepetition) count for interval calculation because you engaged with and reviewed the content before scheduling the next review
• Administrative adjustments (rescheduledInEditor, manualDateReset) only change the schedule without confirming a review—useful for planning but don't advance the review count

"Counts for Interval" is about the review count, which is what the Saturating Curve uses. The Multiplier scheduler works from the interval the item is on instead, so there an editor reschedule or a manual date edit does set the interval the next review multiplies.

Dismiss

This button (shortcut: Ctrl+D) signifies the end of a passive item's life cycle in your incremental reading queue. The Ctrl+D shortcut also works in the Editor context — when focused on an Incremental Rem, it will dismiss it directly (transferring its history to the Dismissed powerup and removing the Incremental tag).

When to use it: The primary goal of incremental reading is to process source materials (like articles, book chapters or paragraphs) and extract the most valuable, "golden nugget" pieces of information. You do this by turning them into active recall prompts (flashcards and clozes).

Once you have reviewed the entire source and are confident you've extracted all the key knowledge into flashcards, the original passive material has served its purpose. Click "Dismiss" to remove the source text from your queue, leaving only the efficient, active-recall cards you created from it.

What gets recorded: a repetition is written into the item's history — with the time you spent on it — only when the queue was actually on that item's Incremental turn, which is always the case for the Dismiss button. Ctrl+D reaches further: it also dismisses a Rem you have merely selected or opened in the previewer (P) while the queue is showing a flashcard or a different item. In that case nothing was being reviewed, so no repetition is recorded and no queue item is skipped — the history is transferred to the Dismissed state and the power-up removed, exactly like Ctrl+D in the editor. A toast names the Rem that was dismissed, since the queue itself does not move.

Change Priority

Prioritization is essential for managing a large volume of learning material.

When to use it: As your collection grows, you'll naturally have items of varying importance. Use the "Change Priority" button to open the priority popup and adjust an item's importance on the fly, directly from the queue. This ensures you see your most critical material more often than less important topics.

For a deep dive into how the priority system works, please see the Prioritization & Sorting page.

Review in Editor

Previously called "Review & Open".

This button (shortcut Ctrl+Shift+J) provides a seamless bridge between the focused queue environment and the full-power RemNote editor.

It performs a powerful sequence of actions:

1. It registers the item as conceptually "reviewed" (rescheduling it for the future, just like the "Next" button).
2. It instantly navigates you to the editor for that Rem, exiting the queue.
3. It automatically starts the Editor Review Timer for that session.
4. Note for PDF Notes: If the item is a pdf-note, this button carefully opens the Rem as a full page in the editor rather than triggering the PDF viewer, maintaining your note-taking context.

With a Rem selected, Ctrl+Shift+J targets that Rem instead. Open something in the previewer (P), select it, and the shortcut opens the Execute Repetition popup for it — the editor flow, where you set the review time and interval yourself and nothing is written until you confirm. Recording a review there deducts those minutes from the item the queue is showing, since that is where they were spent; starting the timer instead asks what to do with the turn you are leaving. The button above, and the shortcut with nothing selected, still act on the queue item itself.

The Workflow Loop

Once you are in the editor with the timer running, you can perform heavy editing, restructuring, or use AI tools. When you are completely finished processing the item:

1. Click "End Review and Back to Queue" on the Timer Widget.
2. The timer will conclude, record your repetition (along with the time spent), and reopen the queue you came from — the same document queue, or the Global Queue if that is where you were — so you carry on with the next item.

When to use it

Use "Review in Editor" whenever the queue interface feels too limited for the task at hand. This workflow is ideal for situations where you need to:

• See the broader context of a Rem within your outliner.
• Perform heavy editing or restructuring.
• Use other features not fully available in the queue, like "Ask AI" or AI Create Flashcards.

Why use this instead of the native "Go to Rem" (Shortcut: G)?

If you use RemNote's native "Go to Rem" command while in the queue, you will be taken to the editor, but your review of the card will not be logged, and the time-tracking timer will not start. This means the same card will likely reappear later in your session, which is inefficient.

The "Review in Editor" button solves this problem by cleanly coupling the review, the navigation, and the time-tracking timer into one seamless action.

Open Editor in New Tab

This button is a direct response to a recent RemNote UI change and serves as an essential workaround to restore a seamless PDF review workflow.

The Problem It Solves

RemNote recently removed the ability to open an editor pane on the left side of the screen when reviewing a PDF highlight in the queue (PDFWebViewer). This made it impossible to take notes and paste extracts without exiting the queue entirely, breaking the review flow (not always the Previewer - pressing "P" - is sufficient to this flow, nor does it allow having the PDF and editor side by side).

ℹ️ This is the same family of limitation that makes the in-queue card for Rem-type Incremental Rems read-only — a plugin can't reliably hold the keyboard inside the queue pane. For plain Rems the editing surface is the Document Notes sidebar; see Editing a Rem-type Incremental Rem.

How It Works & When to Use It

This new button instantly opens the full source document in a new browser tab, right at the location of your highlight/PDF document/Rem.

• Use Case: In-Depth Note-Taking During Review A highlight sparks a complex new idea that requires more space than a simple comment. Or you want to take notes of what you are reading in a PDF section, and paste highlighted extracts right there (tagging it "incremental" in the editor note rather than in the PDF highlight itself, for easier manipulation and future flashcard creation). Use the button to open the full editor, where you have access to all of RemNote's formatting tools, can link to other ideas, and can write extensive notes alongside the original PDF. This allows you to capture detailed thoughts without being constrained by the queue's limited interface.

⚙️ Related Setting: Preferred RemNote Environment

For users who primarily work on the beta version of RemNote, a new "Preferred RemNote Environment" setting has been added. This dropdown menu in the plugin settings allows you to choose whether the "Open Editor in New Tab" button directs you to the stable (www.remnote.com) or beta (beta.remnote.com) environment. This ensures a seamless workflow by keeping you in your preferred version of RemNote.

Open URL to use Web Clipper 📎

This button only appears for HTML-type Incremental Rems. When reviewing IncRems with web pages sources, this button opens the original URL in a new browser tab, allowing you to use the Clipper's side panel for additional notes and extracts, improving the experience of Incremental Reading web pages. The button features an animated design to highlight when you're reviewing web content.

See also: Using the RemNote Clipper.

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Card Stats & FSRS Integration

When reviewing flashcards in the queue, the Card Info Bar widget (formerly Card Priority Display) shows additional card statistics and FSRS memory state information alongside the priority and shield data.

In the Beautiful queue variant the bar is docked just above the answer buttons. See Card Info Bar in the Beautiful queue.

What's Displayed

The info bar includes (from left to right):

Section	Description
(1) Priority	Absolute priority value with KB and Document percentiles
(2) Card Shield	Shield status (if enabled)
(3) Weighted Shield	Exponential priority-weighted workload percentage (if enabled)
(4) Reps & Time	Total number of reviews (with lapses in red parentheses), cumulative review time, card age, and cost (per year of age/coverage) for this card. Hover over it for an explanatory tooltip.
(5) D · S · R	FSRS Difficulty, Stability (time passed since last review, and the stability a Good rating would leave) and Retrievability
(6) SInc	Stability Increase — how much stability a Good rating would add
(7) U-Factor	Used-Interval Increase, comparing the next interval to the one you just cleared (if enabled)
(8) 🔬	Opens the Flashcard Repetition History popup
(9) Incremental Rem Status Indicator	An icon displayed on the right border whenever the current card is also an Incremental Rem

Understanding D, S, and R:

• Difficulty (D): How hard it is to maintain a memory of something. The higher the difficulty, the harder it is to increase its Stability and maintain it in the long term. The larger the number, the greater the difficulty. Its value ranges from 1 (easiest) to 10 (hardest). Difficulty increases when you forget (rate "Again") and decreases when you recall easily. Hover over the DSR stats to see the projected Next Difficulty for each of the four grading options (Again, Hard, Good, Easy).
• Stability (S): The expected interval (in days) at which your recall probability equals 90%. It is the storage strength of memory. A stability of 30d means you'd need to review the card in approximately 30 days to have a 90% chance of recalling it. The exact time passed since your last review of this card is shown in parentheses next to it (e.g., (6.2 m passed)), followed by an arrow pointing to the stability a Good rating would leave the card with — S: 2.5y (1.3y passed) → 4.2y. If your Requested Retention is not the 90% default, the interval that stability actually converts to follows it: → 4.2y (int. 1.7y).
• Retrievability (R): Your estimated probability of recalling this card right now (memory's retrieval strength).The lower it is, the higher the probability that the memory will be forgotten. Shown as a percentage with color coding: 🟢 green (≥90%), 🟡 yellow (≥70%), 🔴 red (<70%).
• Stability Increase (SInc): How much your memory stability will grow after answering. Shown as a multiplier (e.g., 1.42×) for the Good grade. Hover over it to see the SInc for all three recall grades (Hard / Good / Easy) along with the projected new stability after each. A value of 1.0× means no growth; higher values mean faster learning. SInc is influenced by the card's current Difficulty, Stability, and Retrievability — reviewing at lower retrievability (closer to forgetting) produces a larger stability increase, reflecting the desirable difficulty principle.

Flashcard Repetition History

Clicking the 🔬 button (or pressing Ctrl+Shift+H) opens a detailed popup showing the card's full review history — similar to RemNote's built-in Practice History. You can close this popup anytime by pressing Esc.

Header & Summary Information:

• Rem Name: The document's parent name is displayed bolded at the very top.
• Total Reviews & Time: An aggregate sum of your historical effort, the card age, the coverage (time until next scheduled review), and the cost (ignoring any reviews that occurred before a manual Date Reset).
• Optimum Next Repetition Date: Calculates the optimal review date you should practice based directly on FSRS stability formulas (Last practice date + Stability). Hover for a tooltip explaining discrepancies with the scheduled date.
• Date Stale: When the card becomes overdue (Last practice + 2x Interval).
• Current Interval Ratio: Shows what percentage of the predicted Stability the current interval occupies.
• Retrievability Gradient: The R metric is color-coded using a dynamic gradient transitioning from pure red (≤ 70%) to green (100%).

Each row contains:

• Rating: The score given (Again, Hard, Good, Easy), color-coded.
• Response Time: How long you spent answering.
• Target Date: When the review was originally scheduled.
• Practice Date: When you actually reviewed it.
• Delay: How early or late you reviewed relative to the target ("On Target Day", "2 days late", "3 months late", etc.).
• Next Interval: The interval that was assigned after this review ("9 hours", "6 days", "1.3 months", etc.).
• D & S: The FSRS Difficulty and Stability values after each review step, showing how memory state evolved over time. (Note: RESET events restart the learning state from scratch).
• SInc: The actual Stability Increase ratio applied at that step (×1.35 = stability grew by 35%). Null (—) for the first review since there's no previous stability to compare against.
• pluginData: Any data recorded by plugins during that review (historical; only present for reviews performed via the plugin's custom scheduler).

The heading summary also shows the current SInc for all three recall grades, color-coded: 🟠 Hard / 🟢 Good / 🔵 Easy. Hover for a tooltip with projected stability values.

Forgetting Curve

Every FSRS figure above describes the card right now. The Forgetting Curve shows how it got there and where it is going: the card's whole history replayed into the retrievability FSRS predicts, and a forecast of what each of the four answer buttons would do to it.

It appears in two places — at the top of the Queue Dashboard for the card on screen, and inside the Flashcard Repetition History popup for every card of a Rem.

The two panels

Retrievability (top). A solid line through the past, snapping back to 100% at each repetition and decaying between them, then four dashed branches from now — one per answer button, with Good drawn heavier because it is the answer that describes the card's normal trajectory. A dashed horizontal rule marks your Requested Retention, and a vertical rule of the matching colour marks each repetition.

The history line is coloured by retrievability, on the same scale the info bar uses for its R value: green at 100%, through yellow, to fully red at 70% and anything below. So a glance tells you whether the card was caught near its scheduled moment or left to decay well past it, and a card the info bar calls red draws a red curve.

Past now that same line carries on, in long dashes, as If not reviewed — the card left alone, decaying on the stability it has. It is the baseline the four branches are measured against: each one shows what an answer buys you over doing nothing, which is the comparison that makes them mean anything.

The weights say which is which. What the card is really doing — its history and that projection — is drawn heaviest; the four branches are hypotheses and sit lighter, with Good picked out among them. The projection cannot rely on colour to separate itself, since it is painted by retrievability and so is green on a healthy card, exactly like Good: its much longer dashes are what tell them apart.

Stability (bottom). A staircase on a logarithmic axis, labelled with the ×SInc each repetition bought — the same Stability Increase shown in the info bar, but for every review rather than the next one. This is the part a plain forgetting curve hides: two cards sitting at the same retrievability today can be on completely different paths. Where repetitions are too close together for their labels to fit, hovering a step gives the number and the stability either side of it.

Past now the staircase fans out into the same four branches, in the same colours, showing what each answer would leave the card's stability at. There is no "if not reviewed" line here: stability only moves when a card is answered, so leaving it alone would draw a flat continuation of the last step and say nothing. They run flat, because stability only moves when a card is reviewed. Their ×SInc is not written on the chart — four more labels there would crowd it — so hover anywhere in the forecast to read all four, each with the multiplier it applies.

Log and linear time

The Log / Linear toggle changes the time axis, and the two answer different questions.

Log is the default. A mature card spends days in its first intervals and years in review; on a linear axis its first weeks are a few pixels and everything interesting about its early life is invisible. The log axis gives both ends room. Once a card is a day old the axis starts at 12 hours, so its same-day learning steps sit on the left edge rather than claiming the width and a one-day interval stays clear of it. The axis opens on the window where Easy reaches your target retention — the whole of the next stability, which costs almost no width because a log axis compresses its right-hand end.

How to read the log axis: equal widths are equal ratios of time, not equal durations.

Linear shows real elapsed time, so intervals are comparable by eye. Here every day added to the right steals width from every day already drawn, so the window is balanced between the forecast and the history:

• It aims to follow Good down to your target retention — the whole next interval, which is what shows how long that memory is meant to last.
• But the history is owed width first, and how much depends on how many repetitions it has to fit: 5% of the chart per review, at least a quarter and at most two thirds. A card with a handful of reviews reads fine in a quarter of the width and gets the full forecast; a card with twenty keeps two thirds and the forecast stops short of the target.
• Whatever the history needs, the window always runs at least until Good is 6 points above target, so there is always a forecast to read.

The number of reviews, not the length of the history, decides how much of the width the past keeps.

Both scales size the window by the forecast's timescale, which collapses after a lapse: stability drops to days while the card's history is still years, and the branches would end up in a sliver at the right edge. So the window also never ends sooner than 40% of the card's age past now, whichever reaches further. The whole history stays on screen either way.

The same card as above, on the linear axis: the repetitions that the log axis spread across half the chart are now crowded into its first fifth — which is the trade the toggle makes.

Zooming

• Drag across either panel to zoom to that range.
• Scroll to zoom around the pointer — outwards as well as in.
• Double-click, or press Reset zoom, to return to the opening window.

Both panels share the axis, so either one drives both, and the vertical scales refit to what is on screen.

On the linear axis, two presets jump to the ends of the balance described above:

• History stops the forecast where Good is 6 points above target, giving the repetitions the most room.
• Forecast runs Good all the way down to your target retention, whatever that costs the history.

The opening window is always one of the two or somewhere between them. The buttons light up to show which preset the view matches, so on a card whose opening window already runs to the target, Forecast is lit from the start; a view you zoomed by hand lights neither. Reset zoom only appears once the view differs from the opening one. The presets are hidden on the log axis, which has room for both at once, and on cards where the two would draw the same window. Like any zoom, the choice is per card: the next card opens on its own window.

Zooming out goes well past where the chart opens. The forecast is computed until Easy decays to 50% — the point at which that memory is as likely gone as recalled — so you can follow every branch far beyond the next repetition and watch the four separate. On a mature card that is a long way out: FSRS's curve is a power law with a heavy tail, and 50% arrives at roughly ninety times the stability, so do not be surprised to find the axis running into centuries.

What the curve is, and is not

The curve is computed by the plugin's own FSRS implementation, from the weights and retention in FSRS settings — not from the scheduler RemNote actually runs on the card, which the plugin API does not expose. It therefore describes your real scheduling only where those settings match it. If your cards use a per-document scheduler, or Anki SM-2, or FSRS with different weights, treat the curve as an estimate of that model rather than a record of RemNote's decisions.

To hide it in the Queue Dashboard, set Forgetting Curve to Hidden in Queue Dashboard settings. In the Repetition History popup it follows Display FSRS DSR Stats.

FSRS Configuration

The plugin includes a built-in implementation of the FSRS v6.1.1 algorithm that replays each card's repetition history to compute D, S, and R. This is necessary because RemNote does not expose FSRS state through its plugin SDK.

Required Setup: FSRS Weights

To get accurate D/S/R values that match RemNote's internal calculations, you need to provide your FSRS weights in the plugin settings:

1. Go to RemNote Settings → Schedulers → Global Default Scheduler.
2. Copy the weights array (19 or 21 comma-separated numbers).
3. Go to Plugin Settings → Incremental RemNote → FSRS Global Weights.
4. Paste the weights string (e.g., [1, 3, 10, 45, 7.011, 0.46, ...]).

If left empty, the official FSRS v6.1.1 default weights are used, which will produce approximate but likely inaccurate values for your specific study patterns.

Requested Retention

FSRS defines stability as the interval at which recall probability is 90%. That is why "S: 4.2y" and "your next review is in 4.2 years" are usually the same sentence — but only if your scheduler is aiming at 90%.

If you set a different requested retention in RemNote, the interval you get is no longer the stability. Tell the plugin which value you use in Plugin Settings → Incremental RemNote → Requested Retention (default 90%), and the card info bar reports the scheduling you will really see:

• The interval behind the next stability. The → 4.2y after Stability is still the stability a Good rating produces; the interval it converts to is printed right after it — → 4.2y (int. 1.7y) at 95%.
• The U-Factor. It divides by the interval you will actually get, so it stops overstating how far your reviews are being pushed out. Off the 90% default a second value appears in parentheses — U-Factor: 3.11× (3.30×) — the first the real one, the second the textbook figure at 90% retention.

The conversion follows straight from inverting the forgetting curve: the interval is stability × (R^(1/DECAY) − 1) / FACTOR, which is exactly 1× at 90%, shorter for a stricter retention (≈0.40× at 95%) and longer for a looser one (≈1.91× at 85%).

Note: D, S and R themselves are properties of your memory and do not depend on this setting — only the interval-derived figures do.

Limitation: Global Weights Only

⚠️ Important: RemNote allows assigning different custom schedulers (with different FSRS weights) to different documents or folders. However, the plugin SDK does not expose which scheduler is assigned to a specific card. As a result, the plugin can only use a single set of global weights for all cards.

If you use multiple custom schedulers with different weights (or with Anki_SM2 scheduler), the computed D/S/R values will only be accurate for cards using the scheduler whose weights you configured. Cards assigned to other schedulers may show slightly different values than what RemNote computes internally.

For most users who use a single global scheduler, this is not an issue — just paste your global scheduler's weights and the values will match.

Plugin Settings Reference

Setting	Type	Description
Display FSRS DSR Stats	Boolean	Toggle D/S/R display on or off (default: on)
FSRS Global Weights	String	Your FSRS weights, comma-separated (accepts 19 or 21 values, with or without brackets)
Requested Retention	Number	The recall probability your scheduler aims for, as a percentage (default: 90). See Requested Retention

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Incremental Rem History

The Incremental Rem History widget automatically records and displays the Incremental Rems you have viewed in your queue.

Key Features:

• Searchable History: Easily find previously viewed items using the search bar.
• Context Aware: Shows history specific to the current Knowledge Base.
• Recency Tracking: Displays how long ago you viewed each item.
• Quick Navigation: Click any item to jump back to it.

This widget helps you keep track of your reading session and backtrack if needed, complementing the queue's linear flow. It's also a good companion to the History and Final Drill plugin.