Manual Coding

Manual coding is you applying a code yourself — no AI suggestion involved. Select a passage, pick a code, done. It sits in the exact same popover as AI review, uses the exact same highlights, and the codes it produces are indistinguishable from AI codes everywhere else in the app: retrieval, agreement, exports. The only thing tracked differently is who applied it.

When to code manually

• Exploratory coding — building your codebook straight from the data before you have definitions written for AI to work from.
• Filling AI gaps — a passage the AI didn't flag but you know belongs to a code.
• Independent verification — coding the same passages a second time, without looking at AI suggestions, for inter-coder agreement.
• Judgment calls — nuanced passages where you'd rather decide from scratch than review a suggestion.

Selecting text and applying a code

Everything below happens in Focus Mode, on the real Jordan transcript from AI Coding — a fresh, uncoded sentence, selected by dragging across it.

Applying two or three codes to the same passage

Real passages are rarely about exactly one thing. The same selection can carry as many codes as actually apply — the popover stays open after the first one, with an Add another code… field ready for the next.

The same mechanism covers partial overlap, too — code one sentence with Code A, then select a slightly different, overlapping span and apply Code B. Paideias doesn't require selections to line up; each application is tracked against its own character range.

Creating a new code without leaving the passage

If the code you need doesn't exist yet, you don't have to leave Focus Mode and go build it in the codebook first. The same popover has a + New code option at the bottom of the list.

Adjusting where a coding starts or ends

Coded a passage but the boundary isn't quite right — cut off mid-sentence, or missing the clause right after it? Every highlight has two resize handles, one at each end, that let you drag the boundary without deleting and re-coding from scratch.

Changing the code on an already-coded passage

Wrong code applied — by you or by AI? You don't need to delete and redo it. Click the existing highlight (a plain click, not a drag) to reopen its popover, then use Change code.

Deleting a highlight

To remove a code from a passage entirely — not replace it, just remove it — open its popover and use the trash icon next to Change code.

Keyboard shortcuts

Once a popover is open, reaching for the mouse for every decision slows you down. These only apply while a suggestion popover is focused — never while you're typing in a search or name field, so they can't interfere with normal typing.

Combining manual and AI coding

Most real projects use both, in this order:

1. Run AI coding first — see AI Coding — to get a fast first pass.
2. Review and approve or reject those suggestions.
3. Switch to manual selection for anything the AI missed, or for passages you'd rather decide yourself.
4. If a manual pass surfaces a new concept, create the code inline (above) instead of breaking flow to visit the codebook.

Manual and AI codes are stored identically once applied — nothing downstream (retrieval, agreement, export) distinguishes how a code was applied.