Using the app

The window

Opening Vinc gives you a frame that stays while the screen inside it changes. Below is a capture of the public demo app. Press a label or hover the list to point at that part. To use the app, press Open in the demo.

Try the app yourself. The data is a public example graph.
  1. Sidebar button Folds and unfolds the sidebar. The left menu never folds, because the button to unfold it lives there.
  2. Left menu View at the top takes you back to the View screen, and Agent gathers the agent roles. Below are the kinds, such as concepts, decisions, records, episodes, entities and bridges, each with its node count.
  3. Settings Opens the settings sheet. GRAPH.md and create, import and share live here too.
  4. Sidebar Shows your topics as a tree; open a topic to see its nodes and documents. The button at the end of a row leaves only that topic in the View. The + at the top writes a document, makes a node or imports files.
  5. Search bar Find looks up nodes by name and keyword, and Ask answers by quoting your own notes. Ctrl K opens it from anywhere.
  6. View settings The button that names the current viewpoint (for example 3D). Press it and the viewpoints 3D, 2D, Timeline and Weave open along with the options and the legend.
  7. View Your graph, spread out to look at. Press a node to open it, or right-click for open and share.
  8. Metrics row For the graph as drawn: node count, the share that is linked, how many are not linked, and the most recent date.

Two layers on the left

The left side is two layers: the left menu outside and the sidebar inside. Neither floats over the View. They take room, so folding the sidebar gives that width back to the View, and the folded state is kept for next time.

Pick a kind in the left menu and the sidebar and the View both keep only nodes of that kind. The demo below has Decisions picked.

  1. View Goes back to the starting state with no kind picked. The whole graph shows.
  2. Agent Gathers the agent roles by team in the sidebar and narrows the View to the roles. Covered on Using AI.
  3. Concepts · Decisions The two kinds with a sphere mark. A concept is one idea that holds true now; a decision is what was chosen and why.
  4. Records · Episodes · Entity The three kinds with a tetrahedron mark. A record is something found or measured, an episode something that happened on a date, and an entity anything else, such as a person or a product.
  5. Bridge A node that ties several topics together.
  6. Nodes of the picked kind The button you picked turns bold. The sidebar lists only nodes of this kind under each topic, and the View keeps the same kind.

The number under a button is how many nodes of that kind there are. Agent, Entity and Bridge have no number. Entity and Bridge are not filed under topics, so picking one shows a note saying so in the sidebar while the View still shows them. The kind you pick stays picked the next time you open the app. What each kind is is on What Vinc is.

The sidebar lays your topics out as a tree. The slash in a topic name makes a level, so vinc/design appears as design under vinc.

  1. Topic row Press it to unfold or fold. The number is how many nodes unfold beneath it. Topics you leave unfolded stay that way next time.
  2. View button Appears when you hover over a topic row. Press it to leave only this topic in the View. Hold ⌘/Ctrl while pressing it to add it to the topics you are already looking at.
  3. Topics in view Once the View is narrowed to topics, this shows how many you are looking at. Press Show all to undo it.
  4. Node row Press it to go to that node in the View. Documents that mention the node sit one level in as document rows, and pressing one opens the text as well.
  5. + Writes a document or makes a node. Covered on Putting knowledge in.

Right-click a topic row for New document here, New node here and Rename. In the rename box, Remove from this topic empties the topic. Only the topic name on your own nodes changes. Documents with no topic collect in a group at the bottom; that group has no name, so it has no right-click menu.

Search bar and view settings

The search bar and the view settings sit on top of the View only; the two left layers run up to the ceiling beside them. The search bar is always there. The view settings appear only while the View is up.

How Find and Ask differ is on Search, and what each viewpoint changes is on Looking around the View.

Desktop and web

The desktop app draws its own title bar across the top of the window: the mark and Vinc on the left, minimize, maximize and close on the right. The web has no such row; the site navigation takes that place. The demo above is the web layout.

The desktop app checks for a new version when it opens and, if there is one, shows a notice at the bottom. It installs only when you press Install & restart.

Theme

Pick the theme in Settings > General · appearance: Light, Dark or System. With System, the app follows the operating system the moment it changes.