Navigate your workspace with natural trackpad gestures.
What is gesture navigation?
Melo's canvas is designed to be navigated the way you naturally use your Mac — with trackpad gestures. Pinch to zoom, swipe to pan, use multi-finger gestures to switch boards and manage tiles.
Gesture Navigation for researchers
Researchers deal with papers, citations, and literature review. Melo's gesture navigation is particularly valuable here because it lets you organize this work spatially — seeing everything in context rather than hidden behind tabs and folders.
Open a journal article in one tile, your notes in another, and AI chat to help you synthesize findings. Melo's spatial layout lets you visually map relationships between papers. All data stays local — your unpublished research never touches a cloud server.
1.Dozens of browser tabs open with journal articles and no way to organize them
2.Literature review notes disconnected from the papers they reference
3.AI tools that summarize without understanding your research context
4.Collaborative tools that put sensitive unpublished research on someone else's server
Key benefits
1
Natural movement
Pinch, swipe, and scroll through your workspace with the same gestures you use everywhere on macOS. Zero learning curve.
2
Zoom semantics
Pinch to zoom out for a bird's-eye view of your entire workspace. Zoom in to focus on a specific tile. Navigate by spatial memory.
3
Board switching
Multi-finger swipes switch between boards instantly. Each board is a different project context, and switching is as fast as swiping.
4
Mac-native feel
Built for macOS trackpad gestures from day one. The workspace responds like a native Apple app because it is one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Melo good for researchers?
Yes. Melo's spatial canvas is particularly well-suited for researchers who need to manage papers, citations, and literature review. The ability to tile multiple content types on one board means you can see everything relevant to your work without switching apps.
How does Gesture Navigation work in Melo?
Gesture Navigation is built natively into Melo's spatial canvas. It's not a plugin or add-on — it's a core part of the workspace that integrates with your notes, tasks, AI, and other tiles. See the feature details above for specifics.
How do researchers use Melo differently?
Researchers typically create boards organized around their papers, citations, and literature review. They tile relevant documents, tasks, web references, and AI chat specific to their workflow. The spatial layout lets them design a workspace that matches how they naturally think about their work.
How is Melo different from a regular note-taking app?
Melo isn't just a note app — it's a spatial workspace. You can tile notes alongside web pages, AI chat, calendar, todos, and clipboard history on one canvas. It replaces multiple apps with a single visual environment.
Can I use Melo offline?
Absolutely. Since Melo is local-first, your entire workspace works offline. Notes, tasks, canvas arrangement, clipboard history — everything is available without an internet connection. AI features require connectivity.