Widgets, controls, Shortcuts and Siri

Some things are quicker without opening Varlig at all: a glance at what’s left of the budget, a thought captured before it’s gone, a sum worked out from the Lock Screen. This page covers Varlig’s widgets, its controls for Control Center and the Action button, and what it can do in Shortcuts and with Siri.

Widgets

Touch and hold your Home Screen, tap Edit, then Add Widget, and choose Varlig. For the Lock Screen, touch and hold it, tap Customize, then Lock Screen, and tap the space for widgets under the time, or the date above it. StandBy, on an iPhone charging on its side, shows the small widgets too.

Tap a note in a widget to open it. A calculation widget opens the note at its line. Today’s Note opens today’s note or, before you’ve written one today, starts it, as the Today’s Note shortcut does. Quick Capture opens the Quick Capture sheet with the keyboard up.

When today’s note is password-protected, Today’s Note shows only Protected note, never its title or text, and while Varlig is locked it shows only Varlig is locked. Quick Capture shows nothing from your notes.

Choose an answer

A new Calculation widget says Choose a calculation. Touch and hold it, tap Edit Widget, and pick a Note, then an Answer. The answers on offer are the note’s named values, each block’s Last line, where a total usually is, and its other lines, each with its answer now. A named value is found again by its name if you add lines above it, so the widget keeps showing the right thing as the note grows.

Varlig works the answers out with your note’s settings and exchange rates, and updates the widget when the note changes, on any of your devices. An answer that depends on the time says when it was worked out: Worked out at 14:05, or the day once it’s older. One that converts money says so too once the rates it used are 12 hours old.

An answer that used the weather carries the Apple Weather mark, and the note the widget opens has the link to its other data sources; see Weather.

A widget never shows a password-protected note, even one that’s open, and shows nothing while Varlig is locked. If its note is moved to the Trash, deleted or protected, it says Not available and keeps your choice. In a tinted or clear Home Screen, and on the Lock Screen, widgets take the system’s colours; in StandBy they take your Varlig theme’s dark colours, and elsewhere they wear your theme.

Controls

On iOS 18 and later, Varlig has three controls for Control Center, the Lock Screen and the Action button:

To add one, open Control Center, touch and hold an empty space, tap Add a Control, and search for Varlig. On the Lock Screen, touch and hold, tap Customize, then Lock Screen, and tap one of the controls at the bottom to replace it.

Quick Capture and the Inbox

Quick Capture is the fastest way to write something down. It opens a single field at half height; type, tap Add, and the sheet closes, leaving you where you were.

Where the text goes depends on one note:

• If you have a note titled Inbox, the capture goes at the end of it. A one-line capture carries on a list the Inbox ends with — a bullet, an unticked task or the next number — and anything else becomes a new paragraph.
• Without one, each capture becomes a note of its own.

The sheet tells you which, in its own words: Adds to the end of “Inbox”. To collect captures in one place, make a note whose first line is # Inbox.

A password-protected note, or one in the Trash, is never taken for the Inbox, and an Inbox that’s read-only is never written to. The capture then becomes a new note instead, and for a read-only Inbox Varlig says why.

Run from Shortcuts with some text, Quick Capture adds it without opening Varlig at all. If Varlig can’t take it at that moment, it keeps the text safely and files it the next time Varlig opens, with a notice under the note list: Quick Capture added to “Inbox”. Nothing you capture is lost.

Set up the Action button

On an iPhone with an Action button:

1. Open Settings › Action Button and swipe to Shortcut.
2. Tap Choose a Shortcut, then under Apps, choose Varlig and Quick Capture.

A press now opens Quick Capture with the keyboard up. Choose New Note instead for a note with a title, or Scratchpad for sums. On iOS 18 you can also swipe to Controls and choose Varlig’s Capture, New Note or Scratchpad control.

To dictate a capture without opening Varlig, make a shortcut in the Shortcuts app with Dictate Text followed by Varlig’s Quick Capture, and put that shortcut on the Action button.

Shortcuts and Siri

Varlig’s actions appear in the Shortcuts app, and ten of them work with Siri straight away. The first time you ask Siri for one, it asks you to turn on Varlig’s shortcuts.

Siri knows the titles of your 20 most recent notes, so you can name one of them in the phrase. For any other note, say “Open a note in Varlig”, “Read a note in Varlig” or “Append to a note in Varlig”, and Siri asks which.

Create Note, Append to Note, Search Notes, Find Notes, Get Note Text, Calculate, and Quick Capture with text work without opening Varlig. The others bring Varlig forward.

As on the Mac, a password-protected note is never offered, found or read by a shortcut, even while it’s open. On a locked iPhone or iPad, Siri asks you to unlock it before it reads, adds to or opens a note, and doesn’t recognise note titles until you do. While app lock is on, only Calculate works, and Quick Capture keeps its text for when you unlock.

Links that open Varlig

varlig:// links open Varlig from anywhere a link works — Safari, a reminder, another app. Copy Link in a note’s … menu copies one that opens the note. The same links work on your Mac, where URL automation can do more.