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Most apps with more than one document open put a strip of tabs across the top of the window. Glassine keeps the window as quiet as it was and keeps the pages instead: a document you open stays open, as a page, until you close it, and the pages sit in a stack with the one you are writing on top.

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Moving between pages

Hold ⌥ (or ⌃) and press Tab. The page steps back and the open pages fan out across it as cards — each the page itself in little, its title and its first lines in the theme’s colours — in the order they were last used, the way ⌘Tab shows apps, the highlighted one flat and full-size at the middle and the others turned a little toward it and stepped back, the way Stage Manager keeps the other windows at the side. The page before this one is already under the highlight; each card wears its number.
  • Tab steps along the row and the row slides to keep the highlight at the middle; ⇧Tab steps back. ← → (and ↑ ↓) do the same, and a sideways scroll on the trackpad.
  • The pointer takes the highlight with it: rest it on a card and that is the one that opens. The row stays put under the pointer.
  • 1–9 jump straight to that card.
  • Let go of ⌥ and the highlighted page opens, sliding in as the other slides aside. So a tap of ⌥Tab flips to the page you were on before, and another tap flips back. ↩, space, or a click on a card — either button, since ⌃-click is a right click — open it at once.
  • ⌫ closes the page under the highlight. Esc leaves everything as it was.
With one page open there is nothing to step through, and the pips in the footer give a small shake to say so.

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The pips

At the bottom of the page, beside the document’s name, is a row of small pips: one a page, the one on screen lit, in the order they were last used. Rest the pointer on one and a small picture of that page — its title and first lines — lifts above it, and follows the pointer along the row, so a page can be told before it is chosen; a click goes there, ⌥-click closes it, and a right-click offers Close Page, Close Other Pages and Close All Pages. More than nine pages show as nine and a count. The command bar (⌘K) lists every open page by name as well — Page: … — for a jump without the carousel, along with Previous page, Close page, Close other pages and Close all pages.

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Closing pages

⌘W (File → Close Page) closes the page on screen and brings up the one under it. Closing the last page leaves All Documents. A document moved to the Trash or shelved leaves the stack by itself; a renamed one follows its name. Pages accumulate — every document opened stays open — so there are ways to clear them without closing one at a time. ⌥⌘W (File → Close Other Pages) keeps the page on screen and closes the rest; ⌥⇧⌘W (File → Close All Pages) empties the stack and leaves All Documents. With the pages fanned out, ⌫ closes the card under the highlight, and so does the × in its corner; the cards close up and the fan stays, so several can go in a row. The pips have the same three in their right-click menu, and ⌥-click on a pip closes that page. The stack is kept between launches: quit with five pages open and they are open the next morning, the same one on top.

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One page at a time

Some people would rather have one document open, and nothing waiting behind it. Settings → Library → Keep pages open, off, does that: a document opened takes the place of the last, ⌥Tab does nothing, and ⌘W closes the document.