In Notational Velocity, the same area is used both for creating notes and searching. I.e., in the process of entering the title for a new note, related notes appear below, letting users file information there if they choose. Likewise, if a search reveals nothing, one need simply press return to create a note with the appropriate title.

Its unique advantages are as follows:

• Modeless Operation
  Searching for notes is not a separate action; rather, it is the primary interface.
  
• Incremental Search
  Searching encompasses all notes' content and occurs instantly with each key pressed.
  
• Transparent Encryption
  All information is compressed and encrypted (enabled optionally) before it is recorded to disk.
  
• Mouseless Interaction
  Notational Velocity's window was designed for keyboard input above all else, and thus has no buttons.
  
• Data Instead of Documents
  There is no manual "saving" in Notational Velocity; all modifications take effect immediately.
• Complete External Access
  Synchronize natively with Simplenote, or via files in Dropbox with PlainText, Elements, iA Writer, and other iOS apps.

• "Edit With..." menu for editing in WriteRoom, TextMate, etc., for all DB storage options
• Indentation is preserved for lists created in TextEdit and Pages (Thanks to tewe)
• No longer crashes when reading note-files containing illegal Unicode characters
• No longer crashes when syncing to Simplenote on OS X 10.7 Lion Preview
• Japanese font-substituted characters now display properly as tags
• Searching by title could fail on some system localizations
• Simplified single-line list display in horizontal layout
• Control-J/K and Control-P/N shortcuts for switching between notes (Thanks to Christopher Sexton)
• NV should use less memory when dealing with many tagged notes
• Restores automatic updating via Sparkle
• "NV: New Note With Selection" Services menu item is properly localized
• Italian localization courtesy of Paolo Tramannoni
• Chinese Simplified localization courtesy of Tunghsiao Liu