Connections & Edges
Draw relationships between thoughts to build a web of knowledge.
Drawing connections
Connections are lines between thoughts that represent relationships. Select a thought and a + handle pops out of each side: the left one is the parent side, the right one the child side. Pull the right handle and drop it anywhere on another thought to make that thought a child of the one you started from; pull the left handle to make it a parent. The whole card is the drop target, so you never have to aim at a dot, and the thought under the pointer lights up while a release would connect to it. Drop the handle on empty canvas instead and a new thought is created right there, already connected in that direction, with its title ready to type. Clicking a handle (no drag) does the same as the old + button — adds a new child or parent next to the thought. The handles appear at every zoom level, right down to the far-out tiers where a thought is only a dot — drag over one of those and it lights up and shows its name, so you always know what you're about to connect to. They work the same on touch: tap a thought to select it, then pull. Select two or more thoughts and the same pair of handles appears on the selection box: pulling one onto a thought connects every selected thought to it at once, and pulling it to empty canvas (or just clicking it) creates a single new thought connected to all of them, with its title ready to type exactly like a single thought's handle — the connections are drawn once you name it. A small reminder sits beside the right handle until you have created a thought both ways: it reads 'Click or drag' ('Tap or drag' on touch) at first, then names just the one you haven't tried yet, and stops appearing once you've used both.
Connect To…
Right-click (or long-press) a thought — or a whole selection — and choose 'Connect To…' to connect it to another thought without dragging a single line. Pick any existing thought from the searchable dropdown, or choose '+ Create' to make a new one on the spot, then say what your selection is to it: 'As parent' makes the selected thoughts the parents of that thought, 'As child' makes them its children. The wording follows the command — “connect these to X as parent” means these are the parent — and each option spells out both sides so there's nothing to guess. If the thought you picked isn't on this canvas yet, a reference placement of it appears just below your selection (when the selection is the parent) or just above it (when the selection is the child) — a connection needs both ends on the same canvas. Thoughts that are already connected that way are skipped, so running it twice never stacks duplicate edges, and a single undo removes every connection the command made (if it also had to place or create the target, one more undo removes that).
Disconnect…
Right-click (or long-press) a thought and choose 'Disconnect…' to remove a connection without aiming at the line itself. With a single connection it's removed right away, and a toast names what was disconnected. With several, a searchable list of everything the thought is connected to opens — type to filter, or pick from the list. Each row says whether that thought is a parent or a child and shows the connection's label, so two connections between the same pair are tellable apart. Undo restores the connection. Selecting a connection and pressing Delete does the same thing, and refuses the same edges. Town view's layout lines and AI suggestion links aren't listed: they have no connection to remove, and a suggestion's link belongs to the suggestion — accept or dismiss the chip instead.
Connection types and labels
Each connection can have a label and a type. Right-click (or long-press) an edge to edit its label, change its type, reverse its direction, or delete it. Connection types help you categorize relationships — for example, 'related to', 'depends on', or 'subtype of'.
Navigating connections
When a thought is selected, use the arrow keys to navigate to connected nodes. Arrow Up goes to the parent or source. Arrow Down goes to children or targets. Left and Right move between siblings or lateral connections.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Arrow Up | Navigate to parent/source |
| Arrow Down | Navigate to child/target |
| Arrow Left | Navigate to left neighbor |
| Arrow Right | Navigate to right neighbor |
AI-suggested connections
Neural Garden's AI can analyze your thoughts and suggest connections you might not have noticed. Use the AI sparkle button or the garden intelligence panel to discover hidden relationships between ideas.
Inserting nodes on edges
Right-click an existing edge and choose 'Insert node' to create a new thought in the middle of a connection. This automatically splits the original edge into two, with the new thought in between — useful for breaking down complex relationships.