Specifications

Edit your common files and manage your project documents — inside Rostyman.

The Specifications section of the sidebar keeps the text files that live around your API work next to your collections: notes and specs (.md, .txt), config and data (.json, .yaml, .csv, .xml, .env, .toml, .ini), SQL, scripts and source snippets. Everything is a real file on disk — Rostyman never hides your documents in a database.

Positioning

Specifications is not a replacement for your code editor or IDE. It is for the everyday files around a project — edit the common ones, keep your project documents organised — so you stop context-switching for the simple case. See Limits for what it deliberately doesn't do.

Where files live

All files sit in one folder:

OS	Folder
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Rostyman\Specifications\
macOS	~/Documents/Rostyman/Specifications/
Linux	~/Documents/Rostyman/Specifications/

The sidebar tree is a live mirror of that folder: a top-level folder is a project, subfolders are groups, and anything you add, rename or delete outside Rostyman (git checkout, another editor, Finder/Explorer) shows up within a second. The reverse is true too — what you do in the tree happens on disk. Deleting sends items to the OS recycle bin, never a permanent delete.

Managing documents

Open the panel from the sidebar (Specifications, after Databases). The + button next to the search box offers:

Action	What it does
New project	Creates a top-level folder (inline rename)
New file	Creates a file (default untitled.md) and opens it
Import files… / Import folder…	Copies files or a whole folder tree into the current location
Open file…	Opens any file on disk in place (see External files)

In the tree you can:

• Drag & drop files/folders to move them, or drop files from Explorer/Finder to import them.
• Rename (F2 / context menu) — renaming the extension switches the editor language.
• Duplicate, Reveal in folder, Open in external editor, Save a copy as….
• Multi-select with Ctrl/Shift-click for bulk delete or send.
• Send to device… — hands the file(s) or folder to Quick Share so you can send them to another machine on your network.
• Search the tree by name.

Names are validated as you type: characters illegal on Windows (< > : " / \ | ? *), reserved names (CON, PRN, …), leading/trailing dots or spaces, and names starting with a dot are rejected. Collisions get an automatic (2), (3) suffix.

Editing files

Files open in a tab with syntax highlighting chosen from the extension. A small language selector in the toolbar lets you override it for the current tab only.

• Save with Ctrl+S (⌘S) or the Save button. Specification files are never written behind your back — the app's auto-save timer does not touch them, so the dirty dot stays until you save (or undo back to the saved state).

• Undo / redo — Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y.

• Pretty / Compact — the toolbar offers Pretty (also Shift+Alt+F) and Compact where the format supports it:

  Format	Pretty	Compact
  JSON	2-space indent (invalid JSON is reported, never mangled)	single line
  XML / SVG	indented	whitespace between tags removed
  YAML	block style	flow style — both refuse if the file has # comments, which would be lost
  SQL	keywords on their own lines	whitespace collapsed (string literals untouched)
  CSS	built-in formatter	comments and whitespace stripped
  HTML	built-in formatter	whitespace between tags removed; pre/textarea/script/style kept verbatim
  JS / TS / SCSS / LESS	built-in formatter	—

  Formatting is a single undo step.

• Markdown gets Edit / Split / Preview modes with a themed, sanitised preview (relative images resolve against the file's folder; links open in your browser), sticky headings that pin the enclosing H1 › H2 › H3 while you scroll, fold by section, and Ctrl+Shift+O to jump to a heading.

• Word wrap is on for prose (Markdown/text) and off for code; toggle it from the ⋯ menu.

When the file changes on disk

If another program edits an open file:

• with no unsaved changes, the tab reloads silently;
• with unsaved changes, an amber bar offers Reload (discard yours) or Overwrite (keep yours).

If the file is deleted or moved away, the tab shows This file no longer exists with Save as new file or Close.

External files

Files outside the Specifications folder can be edited in place through two doors only:

• Open file… from the + menu, or Ctrl+O while the Specifications panel is visible (or a Specifications tab is active — elsewhere Ctrl+O is still Import collection).
• Double-clicking a file in Explorer / Finder / your Linux file manager when Rostyman is set as the app for that type (see below).

Double-clicking works even when Rostyman isn't running — the app starts and opens the file straight away. If it is already open, the file opens in the existing window.

External tabs are pinned, watched for disk changes, and offer Copy into Specifications from the ⋯ menu. Rostyman cannot open arbitrary paths on its own — only files you (or the OS) hand it.

Opening files with Rostyman (optional)

Rostyman can be the app your OS opens for chosen file types on Windows, macOS and Linux — only if you opt in. Nothing is claimed at install time.

1. Go to Settings → Specifications (the first time you open Specifications, a one-time prompt offers the same list — Not now is always available).

2. Tick the extensions you want (or Select all) and click Apply.

3. The badge next to each type is what your OS reports back, not what Rostyman wrote:

   Badge	Meaning
   Default	double-clicking opens Rostyman
   Registered	Rostyman is offered in "Open with", but another app is still the default
   Needs OS confirmation	your OS protects the current choice — confirm it yourself (Windows: Open OS default-apps settings → pick Rostyman; macOS: Finder → Get Info → Open With → Rostyman → Change All…)

Untick + Apply, or uninstalling Rostyman, restores your previous defaults — Rostyman only ever removes associations that point at itself.

Limits

Deliberate limits, so the module stays simple:

• Text files up to 5 MB. Larger or binary files show Open it in another app with Reveal / Open externally. This is a product ceiling, not an editor limit — Specifications is for specs and config, not log dumps.
• No versioning/diff (planned), no office/PDF viewers, no per-workspace scoping, no custom root folder.
• Not a general-purpose editor: no multi-file regex replace, column mode, encodings/line-ending control, macros or plugins.

Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+S / ⌘S	Save
Ctrl+O	Open file from disk (while Specifications is visible)
Shift+Alt+F	Pretty-format
Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y	Undo / Redo
Ctrl+Shift+O	Go to heading (Markdown)
F2	Rename in the tree
Delete	Delete selected (to recycle bin)