Keyboard Commands

Table of Contents

In TheBrain 15, management of thoughts, notes, and files is consolidated into a unified, cross-platform interface. Here is a breakdown of how Keyboard Commands, Attachments, and Viewing Attachments as a List function in the app:

1. Keyboard Commands

TheBrain 15 features an extensive system of customizable keyboard shortcuts designed to keep your hands on the keyboard. You can view or customize virtually every command by navigating to Settings > User > Keyboard Shortcuts.

The essential default shortcuts include:

Plex & Navigation

• F2: Rename the currently active Thought.
• F6: Create a Child thought.
• F7: Create a Parent thought.
• F8: Create a Jump thought.
• N / O / E: Switch between layout views (Normal View, Outline View, Expanded View). Now, I believe it's changed top
• M: Enter Presentation Mode.

It is incredibly helpful to have these documented accurately.

In TheBrain 15, the team drastically overhauled the notes editor and input fields to support a modern WYSIWYG/Markdown hybrid layer. Because of this, standard text-editing behaviors now take precedence when your cursor is active.

On many modern operating systems (especially Windows), F2 inside a rich text area has been universally adopted to summon the system Emoji Picker / Popup Selector—and TheBrain 15 reflects this change when you are focused on content or the note space.

How to Rename a Thought Now

Because F2 is heavily tied to inserting emojis and rich text in the new UI, navigating the Plex via keyboard has shifted:

• Enter / Return: If you highlight a thought card or node in the Plex without active text focus, pressing Enter is now the primary way to quickly jump into "Rename" or "Edit" mode for that thought title.
  
  
• The Esc Key Safeguard: If you ever find yourself trapped in the note section or an emoji popup, hitting Esc resets your focus back to the Plex level so your navigation shortcuts work again.
  
  

You can instantly remap this back to the legacy behavior if it ruins your muscle memory. Just head to Settings > User > Keyboard Shortcuts, search for "Rename Thought," and bind it back to F2 (which will override the default emoji popup behavior).

see Attachments & Properties

2. Attachment(s)

TheBrain 15 utilizes a Light Sync engine, meaning that while text and structures sync instantly, large file attachments reside primarily in the cloud and are fully indexed, searchable, and downloaded locally on-demand.

Adding Attachments

• Drag-and-Drop: Dragging files or URLs directly onto a Thought in the Plex copies it into your Brain.
• Modifier Keys:
  • Drop = Creates a link to the file.
  • Ctrl + Drop = Copies the file into the Brain.
  • Shift + Ctrl + Drop = Moves the file directly into the Brain.
• Pasting: Pressing Ctrl+V / Cmd+V while a file or URL is in your clipboard will instantly attach it to the active Thought.

3. View Attachments as List

When a Thought accumulates multiple URLs, PDFs, or documents, tracking them visually changes slightly in the modernized UI:

• Clicking the Thought Icon: When a Thought has multiple attachments, clicking its main icon opens up the consolidated list of attachments.

• The Content/Properties Pane: Selecting S or opening the properties area displays your files in a scannable list format right next to your notes.

s

• Multi-Selection: Inside this attachment list, you can use Ctrl+Click / Cmd+Click to select multiple files at once. From there, you can right-click to open a context menu to copy, cut, or delete them in bulk, or drag them out of the app as a group.

• What happened to saving our custom keyboard shortcuts? And sharing and importing our custom shortcuts?
  
  
• Can I use "Rename Attachment" for URL (external web-link) that make no sense (because it is code from search results, rather than a title)?
  
  
• What is the Venus demo page?
  
  
• Show back-links (When there is a duplicate which has some back-links, use this feature before deleting so that the "keeper" thought inherits the back-links.
  
  
• Always show edit controls? What is this? What are the benefits and Cons?
  
  
• What are generate Flashcards?
  
  
• What is Learning Path Creator?
  
  
• What does Organize Note AI Script do?
  
  
• What happened to "Show Markdown"?
  
  

Copy as Markdown?

• I used to be able before v.15 create a thought from a text in the contents windows and if it was a new thought, I could use the Alt+back arrow to change the focus to the newly created thought. If it was an already existing thought which i just created a link to in my content/notes pane, I used to be able to Shift+Click on the link and it would be added to the selection pane list. Then I could add all the selection list to the parent thought for all the selection.