Views and Windows

The same brain can be shown in different ways. These topics cover the navigation modes, the split between the Plex and the content area, the content windows and tool panels you can float beside the brain, windows for Markdown files from your computer, notifications, and the phone layout.

• Navigation Modes — A brain can be viewed as the Plex, as Cards, or as a Tree — switch modes with the Plex, Tree and Cards buttons in the brain toolbar (on a phone, the Nav Mode button on the action bar) to see the same thoughts in the way that suits the task.
• Cards View — Cards View lists your thoughts as date-grouped cards — a timeline you can scan by when thoughts were modified, created, or visited.
• Tree View — Tree View shows the brain as an expandable outline that starts from Home, Pins, and Types and Tags sections, with Parents and Jumps rows under each thought, drag-to-reorder, and quick ways to locate the active thought and expand or collapse branches.
• Split and Window Layout — Divide a brain window between the Plex (navigation) and the notes (content) — drag the bar between them to make the notes area bigger or smaller, maximize one side to hide the other, swap their sides, or keep the window on top of other apps.
• Floating the Content Area — In the desktop app, the content area (notes, attachments and properties) can float into a window of its own — for example on a second display — while the Plex fills the brain window.
• Content Windows — In the desktop app, open a thought's or link's notes, attachments and properties in a window of its own that stays on that item while you keep navigating in the Plex.
• Markdown File Windows — In the desktop app, open, edit and save Markdown (.md) files from anywhere on your computer in a window of their own, using the notes editor, without adding them to a brain.
• Floating Tools Panels — The tools in the brain page's sidebar — AI Chat, To Do List, Report, Timeline and Interactive Tutorials — can float, in a window of their own in the desktop app or over the page on the web; Reset Window Positions puts them all back.
• Notifications — Where TheBrain's notices appear — cards at the top right on desktop and tablets, a compact strip under the toolbar on phones — and how to review, mark, and clear them in the Notifications dialog.
• Using TheBrain on a Phone — On a phone the Plex fills the screen, a thought's notes slide up over it, and an action bar along the bottom holds the main buttons; the menu, the Types and Tags lists, Settings and your account are behind the two buttons at the ends of the top toolbar.