Dear Heptabase User,

We've recently improved the performance of our mobile app's whiteboards. If you previously experienced slow speeds or frequent refreshes, please update to the latest version and see if the performance has improved.

If you continue to encounter issues, please contact us. We will keep improving it!

Use Case: Use Heptabase to Draw a Travel Map

This week, we want to share a use case provided by one of our users, Ian. In his article, "Three Steps to Plan Your Trip and Travel Itinerary with Heptabase" (written in Mandarin), Ian presents a straightforward example of travel planning in the following three steps:

First, he wrote down all the places he wanted to visit and turned them into multiple "attraction cards.”

Next, he used Google Maps to sketch a basic route of the places he wanted to visit. Then, he went back to Heptabase and organized the cards of attractions based on their real locations on the map. He started drawing direction lines and arrows between the cards and noted the distances in the description field.

Finally, he filled out each attraction card with details and grouped them into different journal cards for the trip. He also turned these cards into a todo list, so he could track which places he'd visited and which he hadn't.

By following these steps, you can easily create detailed and friendly travel maps and share them with others. Go ahead and give it a try!

Dear Heptabase User,

This week, a new full-stack engineer, Alex, has joined us as the 7th member of the Heptabase team. If you see Alex in the Discord channel or in our in-app support chatroom, feel free to say hi to him! 👋

Heptabase First Impression

This week, instead of a use case, we're sharing an introduction video from a new user, Game & Tech Focus, who has just started using Heptabase.

The video provides a comprehensive overview of Heptabase's basic elements and workflows. We really appreciate how it thoroughly discusses topics such as data longevity and customer support, in addition to the product itself. These insights are typically absent from quick general reviews, but we know they're important considerations for many people when deciding whether to use Heptabase long-term.

If you're new to Heptabase, we highly recommend watching this video. There is also a blog post version of this video. You might discover some hidden features or interesting ideas!

Your feedback is important to us. If you are new to Heptabase and have been using it for less than 1 month, we would love to hear your feedback through a 15-minute chat.

Feel free to schedule a user interview with us using this link. The link is available on a rolling basis, and every week we will open new slots.

During the interview, we can speak both English or Mandarin, depending on your preference.

P.S. If you've been using Heptabase for more than 1 month, please do not schedule it for now. We will create another link for that in the future.

Use case: Play interactive games with Heptabase’s focus mode

This week's use case comes from one of our Discord community members, Ian Hsiao.

Ian said, "I just discovered that we can play interactive games (choices matter games/storyboard games) with Heptabase focus mode."

We agree with this finding! When you enable Focus Mode by toggling the button at the bottom-right of the whiteboard, only the selected card remains visible while all other objects dim. You can also use the keyboard to navigate through the cards, creating an interactive experience.

Some users have also noted that this feature works well for presentations, as it helps keep the audience's attention on your cursor and minimizes distractions.

If you haven't tried focus mode yet, definitely give it a shot!

Dear Heptabase User,

Recently, the YouTube channel Paperless Movement conducted another interview with our co-founder, Alan. We discussed how Heptabase has evolved over the past few quarters and what we plan to do in the coming months. If you haven't kept up with our changes for a while, this interview will be a great recap!

Use case: Learn the "Picture & Sound workflow" using Heptabase

This week's use case comes from one of our Discord community members, CrasE.

CrasE shared a flowchart showcasing a “Picture & Sound workflow” for video production.

The flowchart uses various colors to group different stages and processes of production, like orange for the music process and yellow for the sound process. It also uses solid lines to indicate normal workflows, and dashed lines to indicate special cases. The visual presentation makes it easy to understand and follow, no matter what the topic is.

Crase said, "I really enjoy creating such tables based on the material I study in the field of post-production." We also enjoy seeing these beautiful and well-organized shares!

Dear Heptabase User,

In the past few weeks, we've rolled out our new backend, which has led to faster initialization speed and more stable sync performance. We appreciate all the bug reports and feedback you've sent us!

If you still encounter any sync-related issues, please feel free to contact us for support!

Use case: Distill a 1000+ page technical programming book into big picture thinking

This week's use case comes from one of our Discord community members, BigSnipes.

BigSnipes shared the whiteboard “Python in a Nutshell” in the Discord channel. Even though the whiteboard is big, you can still understand its structure because the section names become larger when you zoom out.

At Heptabase, we encourage you to use sections to group content within a whiteboard. You can name and color sections thoughtfully to make them easy to find and use as the whiteboard expands. You can also add subsections into sections for more advanced use. If you haven't tried using sections much, we recommend you give it a try!

Dear Heptabase User,

We've recently added a new way to update the mobile app. Starting from v1.16.7, when a new update is available for the mobile app, you'll receive a prompt upon opening the app, allowing you to update it immediately. This allows us to ship features and fix bugs faster than before.

Use case: Managing card databases with tags and properties

This week's use case comes from one of our Discord community members, John.

John was using a whiteboard for content writing and creation preparation. It was literally his first hour using Heptrabase, and he loved it. He used cards, mind maps, images, and different types of connection lines, including solid and dashed lines, to lay out his thoughts and then convert them into writing.

According to John, “I hope I've seen this app when I was in college, starting out with my content creation journey. I like how this fits my personality. You can freely read my whiteboard screenshot to know more about how Heptabase is so helpful for me.”

It’s great to see how Heptabase is useful to John, and we recommend checking out the screenshot he shared!

Dear Heptabase User,

To ensure better support for our users around the world, we've relocated half of the team to London in recent weeks. We are now officially a globally distributed team, and our engineers are active 24/7!

Regarding the Heptabase app, we’ve been focusing on upgrading our backend in the past two week to improve its performance and stability.

If you've experienced slow syncing in the past (especially for the mobile app), please upgrade to the latest version for both desktop (v1.31.9) mobile app (v1.16.7). The initialization of sync should be much faster now, and you should be able to take note immediately after opening Heptabase without the need to wait for data syncing.

Aside from the backend upgrade, you can now enlarge images by pinching them on the mobile apps. We'll continue making these small but important updates in the next few weeks!

Use case: Managing card databases with tags and properties

Alan just posted the third video in the Heptabase Fundamentals series. In this video, he discusses how to manage card databases with tags and properties. If you've been wondering when to use a tag instead of a whiteboard, and how to use Table and Kanban View with tags and properties, we strongly recommend checking this out!

Dear Heptabase User,

We hope you are doing well!

Recently, we have been upgrading the backend system and actively conducting internal tests.

Additionally, we are about to publish Heptabase Fundamentals 103. If you haven't watched the previous episodes, take this opportunity to review them!

• Heptabase Fundamentals 101: Sense-making with whiteboards
• Heptabase Fundamentals 102: Organizing topics with nested whiteboards and tab groups

Use case: Share your whiteboard with us!

Since last September, we've shared 13 different ways to use Heptabase in our newsletters, to help you discover the capabilities of Heptabase. It brings us joy when users tell us they have learned something new from these use cases.

We believe this approach is worth expanding. If you are proud of your whiteboard and willing to share it with other users, please email us at team@heptabase.com to share your whiteboard (link or screenshot) with us, and include the following items in your email:

• How do you want your name to appear?
• What's your job and profession?
• Is there any additional information you'd like to add? For example, why you want to share this, what tips you applied on the whiteboard, etc.

We thank you for sharing your work with us!

Dear Heptabase User,

In the past two weeks, we have spent most of our time fixing bugs and enhancing system stability. The good news is, we are about to finish the most challenging backend tasks of the past year, providing better infrastructure for syncing and collaboration-related features in the future.

Use case: Read and break down "The Art of War" by Sunzi

This week’s use case comes from one of our Discord community members, insight97.

In the Heptabase Discord, insight97 provided his steps for breaking down "The Art of War" by Sunzi:

1. Use the right side of mindmaps to break down the content of each chapter.
2. Use the left side of mindmaps to take notes on each chapter.
3. Use multi-layered sections to organize chapters and highlights.
4. Summarize and synthesize personal thoughts and insights into a separate mindmap.

Insight97 stated that the process helped him visualize the entire book as a connected graph, rather than a linear article. He could see how different words, paragraphs, or chapters related to each other, thus understanding things and gaining insights more quickly than before.

We really like this use case. It shows a creative way to use a mind map: grow and take notes on the right side, and summarize on the left side. We hope you also find this use case helpful!

Dear Heptabase User,

We hope you are doing well!

Recently, we have spent a lot of time working on optimizing performance and fixing bugs. We've improved the sync speed of the mobile app and the performance of the whiteboard. In the upcoming weeks, we will also address bugs related to PDFs.

If there are any other bugs you'd like us to prioritize, please let us know through our support system!

Use case: Conduct and present professional reports using Heptabase

This use case comes from one of our Discord community members, DannyET.

In the Discord channel, Danny said: “One of my areas of work is providing expert medical opinions to lawyers in different areas of the country. I often need to work through over a thousand pages of medical documentation and questions within the brief. Heptabase is excellent for categorizing the material, drawing out essential aspects of care, uploading reference documents and drawing conclusions.”

In addition, after completing the whiteboard, Heptabase's visual representation allows for easy presentation of the results to others.

As Danny stated, "When I have Zoom calls with legal teams to discuss individual cases, they are universally impressed by my screen share, including my Heptabase whiteboard, the relevant connections, and fast access to brief materials, references, and images to explain concepts and help them formulate their understanding and plans."

We hope you find this sharing experience enjoyable, as it allows others to understand your context easily and facilitates further discussions based on that context.