Organizing the canvas
Select, arrange, group, color and copy nodes so a sprawling canvas turns into a map you can come back to.
Exploration gets messy by design. You open a source, ask a side question, fork an answer, and an hour later there are nodes everywhere. Tidying that sprawl into readable clusters is what turns a session into a map you can return to.
Layout is for you, not the AI. Context follows connections, not position, so aligning or tidying never changes what a chat sees.
Selecting nodes
- Click a node to select it.
Shift-click to add a node to the selection or take one out. - Drag across an empty part of the canvas to draw a selection box. Every node it touches is selected. Hold
Shiftwhile dragging to add to the current selection. - Press
⌘A(Ctrl+Aon Windows and Linux) to select everything. - Press
Esc, or click an empty part of the canvas, to clear the selection.
To move a node, drag it by its header, where a grip appears when you hover. Dragging any selected node moves the whole selection. When you're zoomed far out, drag a node's title pill instead (see Navigating the canvas).
The selection toolbar
Select two or more nodes and a toolbar appears above them:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Align top | Lines up the top edges with the highest node. |
| Distribute horizontally | Spaces the left edges evenly between the leftmost and rightmost node. Needs three or more. |
| Distribute vertically | Spaces the top edges evenly from top to bottom. Needs three or more. |
| Group selection | Wraps the selection in a group. |
The toolbar acts on loose nodes only. Groups, and nodes already inside one, are left out.
Tidy Up
Tidy Up rearranges the whole canvas into left-to-right columns that follow your connections. Nodes that nothing feeds into start the first column, and each connected node lands one column further right than the nodes feeding it. Sources end up left of the chats that use them, and branches fan out to the right. Unconnected nodes stack at the bottom of the first column, and each column keeps its current top-to-bottom order. A group moves as one block, with its contents untouched.
To run it:
- Press
0(while you're not typing). - Click Tidy Up (the broom) in the toolbar at the bottom of the canvas. This also zooms to fit the result.
- Right-click the canvas and choose Tidy Up under View.
Prefer your old layout? One undo puts it back. A selected group has its own Tidy up button that arranges only the nodes inside it.
Minimize and maximize
Right-click the canvas and choose Minimize All Nodes to collapse every chat node into a card showing its last question and answer, so you see the shape of the canvas instead of walls of text. Maximize All Nodes expands them again.
To collapse one chat, hover its header and click Collapse. Click it again, or See More on the card, to expand it. See Chat node for the other header controls.
Colors
Chat nodes and Text nodes can be tinted, for example green for conclusions and orange for open questions. Hover the header, click Change Color, and pick a swatch under Pick a color. The first, neutral swatch removes the color.
Duplicate, copy and paste
Duplicate: hover a Chat, Text, Image or Scratch pad node's header and click Duplicate (Duplicate Node on chats). A copy with the same content appears to the right. Connections aren't copied.
Copy and paste: select nodes and press ⌘C, then point where you want them and press ⌘V (Ctrl+V on Windows and Linux). Connections between the copied nodes come along, and you can paste into another canvas. If text is selected, ⌘C copies the text instead.
Note: Copying nodes with the keyboard works on Mac only. On Windows and Linux, use Duplicate.
Groups
A group is a labeled container for a cluster. Select two or more nodes, click Group selection, and type a name over "Untitled". The group resizes to fit its contents, and dragging it moves everything inside. Select a group for Ungroup and Tidy up. See Group for more, including groups as context.
Undo and redo
| Action | Mac | Windows | Linux |
|---|---|---|---|
| Undo | ⌘Z | Ctrl+Z | Ctrl+Z |
| Redo | ⌘⇧Z | Ctrl+Y | Ctrl+Shift+Z |
Undo covers adding and deleting nodes and connections, moving (dragging, aligning, distributing, Tidy Up), grouping and ungrouping, reconnecting, Scratch pad strokes, and changes Orchestrator mode makes. Colors, collapsing and resizing aren't undoable. With your cursor in a note or chat input, ⌘Z undoes typing instead.
The canvas keeps the last 100 steps. History resets when you switch canvases or restart the app.
Deleting and restoring
Select nodes and press Delete or Backspace, or click the trash button in a node's header. Their connections go too. A "Node Deleted" toast appears with a Restore button that brings back the nodes and their connections. After the toast is gone, undo does the same.