1 Opening the application

1. Find the file VocalNoteOne.html on your computer.
2. Right-click it.
3. Click “Open with”, then choose Google Chrome.
4. The application opens straight away in your browser.

Compatible browsers

2 Dictating a note

1. Click the blue 🎙️ Record my notes button.
2. A small window opens at the top of the screen. Click Allow while visiting the site.
3. The button turns red and reads ⏹️ Stop recording: you can speak!
4. Speak normally — your text is written automatically into the large text area.
5. A slight delay between speaking and the text appearing is normal: that's the speech recognition processing time.
6. If you spot a mistake, click directly in the text and fix it with the keyboard. Your corrections are kept, even if you carry on dictating afterwards.
7. When you're done, click the red ⏹️ Stop recording button.
8. Your note is saved automatically.

3 Resuming after a silence — please read

This is the most important point in this guide.

What happens. If you go about 20 seconds without speaking, Google Chrome interrupts dictation and asks again for permission to use the microphone. The small window reappears.

Two places tell you what's going on, and they don't say the same thing.

At the top — where you stand

At the bottom, just above the buttons — what to do

This line stays empty as long as everything is fine. When you need to do something, it appears here, on a yellow background:

That's the prolonged-silence message. Click the button named in the message inside Chrome's small window: the line disappears by itself as soon as you say a word, and dictation picks up again.

Why this happens. When you open a file directly from your hard drive, the browser has no stable identity to attach your permission to. It is therefore obliged to ask again. This is a Chrome security rule, not a flaw in the application, and no application setting can work around it.

The first two choices in the window amount to the same thing. Allow while visiting the site and Allow this time behave identically here: the window will come back after every prolonged silence either way. There's no point working out which to pick — take the first. Never click “Never allow”, which would block the microphone for good.

If the internet connection drops

The same bottom line warns you, in grey this time:

• If you click 🎙️ Record my notes with no connection, dictation doesn't start and this message appears. You won't be talking to nothing.
• If the connection drops while you're dictating, the message appears but dictation is not stopped and your text stays on screen.
• As soon as the connection returns, transcription resumes on its own. No permission window reopens and there’s nothing for you to click.

4 Reading and managing your notes

1. Click the blue 📄 View my notes button.
2. A window opens with all your saved notes, the most recent at the top.
3. Each note shows its text, its date and time, and three buttons: Copy, Edit, Delete.
4. Close this window with the “Close” button or the Esc key.

5 Copying a note

1. Click “View my notes”.
2. Click the Copy button on the note you want.
3. The text is copied. Paste it (Ctrl + V) into an email, a document, a messaging app…

6 Exporting all your notes

1. Click “View my notes”.
2. At the bottom of the window, click “Export all my notes (.txt)”.
3. A text file containing all your notes, with their dates, is downloaded to your computer.
4. It's also the ideal way to make a backup.

7 Editing a note you've already saved

1. Click “View my notes”.
2. Click directly on the note's text to correct it. The Edit button does the same thing.
3. The text becomes editable. Make your corrections.
4. Click Save to confirm, or Cancel to back out.

Shortcuts while editing

• Ctrl + Enter: save without leaving the keyboard.
• Esc: cancel the edit. The notes window stays open.

If you've started editing a note and try to close the window, you'll be asked to confirm: your corrections cannot vanish unless you meant them to.

8 Deleting a note

1. Click “View my notes”.
2. Click the red Delete button on the note concerned.
3. You'll be asked to confirm before anything is deleted.

9 Dark mode

1. Find the round button at the top right of the screen.
2. Click it to switch to dark mode.
3. Click again to go back to light mode.
4. Your preference is remembered: the application will open straight into the right theme, with no flicker.

10 Keyboard navigation

The application can be used entirely from the keyboard.

• Tab: move from one button to the next. The active button is surrounded by a clearly visible blue outline.
• Enter or Space — activate the selected button.
• Ctrl + Enter — save a note you're editing.
• Esc — cancel an edit in progress, or close the notes window.

State changes — dictation starting, waiting for permission, note saved, number of notes — are announced to screen readers.

11 Practical tips

• You can save as many notes as you like; they stack up one after another.
• The counter at the top tells you how many notes you have.
• If the text is too small or too large, use Ctrl + mouse wheel to zoom.
• Your notes are saved automatically on your computer, even if you close and reopen the file.
• Your text in progress is saved as a draft while you dictate or type: if the file is closed accidentally, you get it back when you reopen.
• If you use several language versions, each one keeps its own notes, separate from the others.
• Do you use an AI assistant (an LLM, such as ChatGPT or Claude)? On a phone, voice dictation is built into the keyboard; on a computer, that feature is generally missing. VocalNoteOne fills that gap: dictate your question or instruction, copy the text, paste it into the conversation. It's considerably faster than typing, and it's one of the uses that prompted this application in the first place.

12 Troubleshooting

Your problem is not in this table? Write to contact.vocalnoteone@gmail.com describing what is happening and which browser you are using. Messages are read.

13 Supporting the project

VocalNoteOne is free and will remain so. There is no paid version, no reserved feature, no advertising: what you have in front of you is the complete application.

If it is useful to you and you would like to help its development, you can make a donation in cryptocurrency. This is entirely optional, and it unlocks nothing further.

The addresses are at the bottom of the screen, below the two buttons, on either side of the logo. Four networks are accepted: Bitcoin, Solana, Ethereum and Arbitrum. The address shown is shortened so that it fits in the window; click on it and the full address is copied, and you only need to paste it into your wallet.