Hover Sneak Peek Feature
- In v.14 of theBrain app, we used to be able to hover over a thought (that was not the focused thought) without opening the thought we could get a sneak peak of the thought. Is that still available in v.15
That exact behavior—where hovering over any unactivated thought automatically updates the content/notes panel to give you a "sneak peek" without shifting your focus—is not available by default in TheBrain v.15.
It has been a significant point of discussion in the v.15 beta forums, as many users relied on that frictionless skimming workflow.
TheBrain
Why the Change?
The removal or modification of the automatic hover-preview was largely a performance trade-off. In larger databases, constantly pulling up and rendering notes, attachments, and the newly overhauled backlink/unlinked-mention indexes on every single mouse hover caused noticeable interface lag and stuttering in the plex.
Your Best Alternatives in v.15
While you cannot currently slide the cursor around for an instant, passive preview like in v.14, you can achieve a similar effect using these adjustments:
- Single-Click to Preview (with a setting change): If you prefer to look at a thought's notes without changing your active center thought, you can alter how navigation works.
- Go to Preferences > Look and Feel and look at the behavior settings for single vs. double clicking. Setting the app to require a double-click to center a thought allows a single click to bring up the notes panel on the side without altering your location in the plex.
- The New Card View: If your goal is triaging or quickly scanning a cluster of thoughts and their contexts visually, try the brand new Card View introduced in v.15. It arranges thoughts in a clean, modern grid that makes scanning large groups of data much easier on the eyes than the traditional plex layout.
- App Store - Apple
- Keyboard Focus Navigation: You can use the arrow keys to move the selection focus outline around the plex to view details without explicitly activating a thought as the center node.