Back and Forward Navigation
Overview
As you move around a brain — activating one thought, then another — TheBrain remembers your path, so you can step back to a thought you were just looking at and forward again, much like a web browser.
In the Installed Apps
The desktop and mobile apps show Back and Forward arrows in the main toolbar; on a phone they sit at the left end of the top toolbar, right next to the menu button. Back returns you to the previously active thought; Forward re-advances after you've gone back. The arrows are enabled only when there's somewhere to go, and they have no default keyboard shortcut. In the desktop app, your mouse's back and forward buttons do the same, and on a Mac so do a trackpad swipe and Back and Forward in the menu bar's Go menu.
Your history is kept per tab — each open tab has its own back/forward trail, so going back follows the path you took within that tab.
Swiping on Mobile
On the mobile apps you can also swipe from the edge of the screen: swipe in from the left edge to go back, and in from the right edge to go forward. Each swipe moves one step, the same as tapping the arrow.
The Android Back Gesture
On Android, the system back gesture (or back button) does what the app's Back arrow does: it returns you to the previous thought rather than leaving the app. When the next step back would take you out of the brain you're in — to the brains list or into another brain — or when there's no earlier thought left to return to, TheBrain first shows Go back again to leave this brain; go back once more within a couple of seconds to continue. On the brains list, with nowhere further to go, it shows Go back again to exit, and a second back leaves the app. Because Android reserves the left edge for its own back gesture, the app's forward swipe is recognized along the middle of the right edge; a left-edge swipe goes back all the same.
On the Web
The web app doesn't show its own Back/Forward arrows, and it doesn't need to: activating a thought updates the page's web address, so your browser's own Back and Forward buttons move you between the thoughts you've visited. Use them just as you would on any website.
- Back and Forward retrace the thoughts you've activated; to jump straight to a fixed anchor instead, set and use your Home Thought — see Home Thought.
- To return to a thought you visited a while ago without stepping back one thought at a time, click it in the past thoughts list, the row of recently visited or created thoughts along the bottom of the Plex — see Past Thoughts List.
- This is about where you've navigated, not what you've changed — to reverse an edit, see Undo and Redo.