Apple Intelligence vs Little Formatting Dot

Support
1

The Apple Intelligence feature and the small (orange) formatting dot to the left of a block when writing a note appear to be at odds.

I recently typed a line and wanted to change its formatting by pressing the dot on the left side. However, when I highlight a line and hover over it, the Apple Intelligence little swirly logo appears as an overlay, covering the dot. Consequently, this essential method of accessing numerous Agenda features is being obscured by the Apple Intelligence pop-up logo.

I would appreciate any suggestions for a workaround, fix, or necessary actions to restore the original functionality without the need to disable Apple Intelligence.

2

Yes, they do occupy the same place, but the Apple Intelligence control usually arrives later, so you can access the dot.

The formatting dot has always been there, since the launch in 2018. It’s not new.

It’s unfortunate that Apple’s control covers ours, but I haven’t had too much trouble in practice.

There is also a menu: View > Show Formatting Palette.

3

You can also scroll a bit and separate the two! Not ideal but…I’m on a Mac, not sure about iOS.

4

Any plans to adjust how this works in a future Agenda release? I primarily use Agenda on Mac and every single time I try to click the dot to format things, the Apple writing tools pop-over blocks the input. It’s maddening!

5

I agree with this being an issue on the Mac. While there is a way to make apple intelligence go away with movement of the mouse, I lose time doing this over and over.

6

Agreed. AFAIK Apple provide no control over this, but I will check if maybe they added something at WWDC25.

7

I can’t use the formatting dot because of the AI thing. I’ve tried hitting ESC but it makes the selection inactive. Can anyone give a workaround?

8

The easiest way around it is to skip the dot. Use View > Show Formatting Palette, or the shortcut ⌥⌘I. That opens the same palette, and your selection stays active.

I agree the AI thing is annoying, and Apple give us no control over where it appears. I have found generally that if that appears, if you move the cursor away it sometimes disappears and you can then hit the dot.

You can also tear the palette off. Open it, then drag it by its top edge, and it becomes a small floating window that stays open as you move between notes. Then you don’t need the dot at all.

Sorry I don’t have a better solution. I guess we need to think about the dot now that Apple have taken that space.

Drew

10

An idea…
The formatting palette opens automatically when you press the Option key and then select the text.
For those who rarely use the mouse, maybe the Shift+Option keys?

I haven’t tested exactly whether this works well in practice.

11

I doubt that particular approach would work. The issue is that you use option and cmd for all keyboard combinations, so every time you did one, the palette would show up.

Better just to learn the traditional keyboard shortcut for the menu.