Thoughts & Nodes

Editing content

Click a thought to select it, then press Enter or double-click to edit. When zoomed in (full detail), this opens the rich text editor with formatting toolbar. When zoomed out (compact, dot-label, or dot view), you get a lightweight inline title editor right on the node — no zoom change needed. Entering edit mode on an existing thought drops the cursor at the end of the description so you can keep adding to your notes. Brand-new (still-unnamed) thoughts focus the title field instead — there's nothing to add to yet. The inline editor shows a dropdown of matching thoughts as you type, making it easy to find and link to existing ideas. The rich editor supports headings, bold, italic, lists, code blocks, and links. Bulleted and numbered lists can be nested — any item with children gets a chevron in front of the bullet you can click to collapse or expand that branch, even when you're just viewing the thought. The same fold-below behavior extends to headings (H1/H2/H3 hide everything below until the next equal-or-higher heading) and to paragraphs or quotes that sit directly above a list (the chevron tucks the list out of the way without making the line itself a list item). Option/Alt-click the chevron on a list item to recursively collapse or expand every nested item underneath in one go (same gesture as macOS Finder's disclosure triangles). The collapse state is saved with the description, so it stays the way you left it across reloads and matches between view and edit modes. Use the toolbar or markdown-style shortcuts. Press Cmd/Ctrl+Enter (or Escape) to save and exit edit mode.

Wikilinks and backlinks

Type [[ in the editor to create a wikilink to another thought. The brackets auto-pair as you type, and a popup shows matching thoughts — select one to create a clickable link. If the linked thought has a type, the type's icon appears in its own color right in front of the link text, so you can scan a description and see at a glance what each reference points at — even when the linked thought lives on a different canvas. If the title doesn't match anything (and isn't an existing alias), choose 'Create' to spawn a new thought; the new thought is automatically nested inside the one you're editing so it lives where the link was made. To turn existing text into a link, select it and press [ — the selection is wrapped, and a second [ opens the popup with that text as the initial query. Wikilinks automatically create backlinks, which appear under each target thought along with the surrounding line as context, so you can see how each reference is phrased. When the wikilink sits inside a list item with sub-bullets — or above a list — those nested items show up in the backlink too, collapsed by default to save space, with the same chevron toggles you use in the editor for selective expansion. Renaming a thought updates every wikilink and backlink that points to it — the new title shows up in the link label, the backlink chip, and the highlighted word inside each backlink's snippet, all without a reload. Hover any wikilink to see a tooltip with the linked thought's title and a short preview of its body. Links work across sub-gardens; if a linked thought appears in multiple places, clicking the link lets you pick which placement to navigate to. In shared gardens, wikilinks pointing to thoughts you don't have access to render as faded with a 'not-allowed' cursor — you can see the reference exists, but the click is disabled. Wikilinks are body-only — typing [[ inside a title field is treated as literal text.

Aliases

A thought can have multiple alias names alongside its canonical title — think of them as alternative spellings or nicknames. Add aliases under the title in edit mode (each press of Enter commits one). Typing an alias into [[ search or the new-thought title surfaces the canonical thought with a small alias marker, so you can pick either the canonical name or the alias version. Picking the alias version stamps the wikilink with the alias label, so the prose keeps reading naturally (e.g. 'I keep a [[diary]]') while the link still navigates to the canonical thought ('Daily Log'). Removing an alias automatically rewrites every wikilink that used it back to the canonical title across all your thoughts. Merging two thoughts also promotes the merged-away thought's title into an alias on the survivor — every existing reference keeps reading as the original name and now points at the merged thought.

Multiple placements

A single thought can appear on multiple canvases simultaneously. Creating a reference placement puts the same thought in a new location — editing it in one place updates it everywhere. Deleting a placement removes that instance without affecting other placements. The thought itself only disappears when its last placement is removed.

Nesting thoughts

Thoughts can contain other thoughts, creating a hierarchy. Drag a thought onto another to nest it, or use the context menu. Nested thoughts appear as a list inside their parent. You can expand the parent to see and interact with children directly on the canvas. Drilling into a parent thought opens its own sub-garden canvas.

1. 1Right-click a thought and choose 'Nest under...' to pick a parent.
2. 2Or drag and drop one thought onto another.
3. 3Click the + button inside a parent to add a new child inline.
4. 4Use the AI sparkle button to generate suggested children.

Node types and appearance

Thoughts render differently based on their content. Image nodes show a full-width preview. Link nodes show a favicon and domain. Plain thoughts show title and a text preview. At different zoom levels, nodes switch between four levels of detail: full card (with editor, backlinks, and properties), compact (title and snippet), dot-with-label (single-line title), and dot (colored shape only). Type colors and shapes are preserved at all zoom levels for easy identification.

Properties panel

Select a thought and the properties panel opens on the right (desktop) or as a bottom sheet (mobile). Here you can edit the title, body, assign types, set typed properties, view backlinks, and manage nesting. Changes to type or properties update all placements of the same thought immediately. The panel stays open while you interact with the canvas — close it explicitly when done.