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User Interface Logic

Top: Apps​

User Interface Logic

  • You can think of Heptabase as an operating system, and the upper part of its left sidebar displays all the default installed Apps. Each App has a specific purpose, and all Apps share the same card database.
  • Below are the core features of each default App in Heptabase:
    • Map: You can create whiteboards on the map, create sub-whiteboards under the top-level whiteboards, and use these whiteboards to learn and research complex topics by visualizing the knowledge structure of these topics.
    • Card Library: You can see all your cards here. When you open a card, you can see on which whiteboards it appears, as well as all the tags and properties it has, in the card info section.
    • Tag: You can see all the tags you have here and organize these tags into different groups.
    • Journal: You can see all your diary cards here, quickly record thoughts and to-do items in the daily diary.
    • Task: You can see all the incomplete to-dos in all the cards here. If you don't have any incomplete to-dos, this app will not appear.
    • Highlight: You can see all the highlights you've created on PDF cards or imported from Readwise here. If you don't have any highlights, this app will not appear.

Bottom: Tabs​

  • The lower half of the Heptabase left sidebar is the "Tab System". When you expand a card from the card library, the card will open as a card tab. Similarly, when you open a whiteboard or a tag, they will each open as new tabs. User Interface Logic
  • The design of the Heptabase tab system is very similar to traditional browsers, including the following types of tabs:
    • Normal Tab: When you open a card, a whiteboard, or a tag, it will open into a normal tab, and you can close it at any time by clicking on the cross button.
    • Pinned Tab: You can pin frequently opened tabs, keeping them always open at the top of the left sidebar. User Interface Logic
    • Tab Folder: When you have many pinned tabs at the top of the left sidebar, you might consider adding a tab folder to organize these pinned tabs. User Interface Logic
    • Tab Group: You may consider creating tab groups to separate different use case. For example, you can create a tab group for "Work" and "Life", and when you need to access notes related to life, you go to the "Life" tab group and view all the normal tabs, pinned tabs, and tab folders in this group. User Interface Logic

When you open a Heptabase tab, you can open the right sidebar from the top right corner of this tab, which will have all the tools that this tab can use. Here is an introduction to each tool:

  • References: When you open a tab, you can open multiple cards or webpages on the right side to cross-reference with the main content of the tab. For example, when you're writing an article, you can open the knowledge cards that the article will refer to on the right side. User Interface Logic

  • Insight: When you open a note card, if it contains a large amount of text (e.g., long articles, book excerpts, transcripts), you can use the AI Insight feature to quickly grasp all the key insights from the content. This feature breaks the original text into chunks of approximately 300 words and summarizes each chunk with one key insight. Each insight can be traced back to its original content blocks, and you can also drag these insights onto a whiteboard for further sense-making. This feature is currently in an early alpha phase, with limited usage quotas each month. User Interface Logic

  • Table of Content: When you open a card or whiteboard tab, you can see the outline of this tab. For cards, this displays the hierarchical relationship of different titles; for whiteboards, this displays the hierarchical relationship of different sections. User Interface Logic

  • Info: When you open a card tab, you can see the word count of the card, its creation time, backlinks from all paragraphs that mention this card, all whiteboards where this card appears, and all tags and properties that this card has. User Interface Logic

  • Highlight: When you open a PDF card, you can see all the highlights and annotations of this card. User Interface Logic

  • Task: When you open a Journal card, you can see all the todos that are due on this day and have not been completed yet. User Interface Logic

Global Tool​

Use Cmd + O to search all cards, whiteboards, and tags in Heptabase.

User Interface Logic

Command Palette​

Use Cmd + K to find all quick actions and their keyboard shortcuts in Heptabase.

User Interface Logic