show menu bar on as needed basis

have an option to auto-hide menu bar and show only as needed (mouse hover or keyboard shortcut on any of the main menus).

most importantly, there ought to be an option to place the auto-hiding menu bar (or just even a single button in lieu of the menus) and the search bar at the bottom, and you can even get further creative to even opt to hide the title bar but still be able to move the application window.

the bottom placement of the search box is simply in line with the idea of viewing chronologically sorted notes from top to bottom. this will make the most recent note or search result appear just right above the bottom-placed search bar (while scrolling the older notes up instead of down).

and if you could provide in-line switches anywhere in the search phrase for on-the-fly quick views, tag management, or even a pop-up subsearch, etc., that would certainly be great.

the most "uh-huh" or "what-the" moment, though, is when you'll finally announce that the editor has a switch to suddenly become a modern

Vi editor!

developers also use cintanotes. and an unobtrusive vi editor that floats on top of that would create waves.