Phone-first controls
Interface and editing
New to the interface? Follow the illustrated, step-by-step interface tutorial. This page remains the shorter reference.
Header and menus
The header keeps Search, Menu, Help, and the status badge within reach. Optional shortcuts such as Browse, Tour, and Formula can be set to Always, When there is room, or Never under Appearance. Narrow screens may hide optional shortcuts while keeping mandatory controls.
The workbook selector sits below or beside the header depending on available space. Use its add control to create a tab, select a tab by name, and use the close control when you intentionally want to remove a workbook.
Edit a cell
- Open the cell editor with its edit control.
- Choose that cell’s language or mode in the editor. Changing the new-cell selector does not retroactively change saved cells.
- Select Run to save and rerun the edited cell, or Cancel to restore its saved source. Pro’s separate full-screen editor uses Done to apply a draft.
Do not rely on local session recovery as a backup. Closing a workbook is durable. SciREPL asks for confirmation when the last workbook is closed unless you disabled that warning in settings.
Portrait and landscape
Portrait provides the most vertical room for notebook output. Landscape can be useful on tablets or with a compact keyboard. The app can hide space-consuming controls while editing; Appearance contains landscape controls where supported.
Android Back
Back normally dismisses the topmost open dialog or panel before leaving the app. During full-screen editing in Pro it closes the reply, prompt row, and editor in layers. If a native Android picker is open, Android controls that picker’s Back behaviour.
On-screen keyboards
A compact coding keyboard can expose Tab, brackets, arrows, and modifiers while leaving more room for code. HeliBoard and Unexpected Keyboard are maintained open-source options; Simple Keyboard is minimal. Hacker’s Keyboard remains useful but its F-Droid build is legacy.
Keyboard trust matters: a keyboard can read everything you type, including passwords and API keys. Install only a keyboard you trust and review its permissions.
Accessibility and sizing
Appearance can change button size, interface language, theme, and safe-area spacing. At large Android font sizes, allow optional shortcuts to hide rather than forcing every item onto one row. Pro 1.3.0 also scales its compact header controls with Android text zoom; the matching Free improvement is newer than Free 1.3.2.