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Hello there! Welcome to the help page!

This is where you can get the help you need, so you can rest easy.

If you're a developer, check out thewiki

For now the main keyboard shortcuts, which currently only work in the core app (not in tabs you open in your web browser) are as follows:

• CMD/CTRL+G - jump to the graph constellation browser
• CMD/CTRL+H - jump to the home page
• CMD/CTRL+; - summon synthona (this works outside the app as long as it's running. key is also configurable in settings)
• CMD/CTRL+L - jump to the search bar
• CMD/CTRL+F - activate in-page search
• CMD/CTRL+J - jump to favorites page
• CMD/CTRL+O - jump to settings
• CMD/CTRL+OPTION/ALT+1 - save the current node to the quick menu
• CMD/CTRL+1 - jump to #1 on the quick menu if you have saved something there
• Quick-Menu - the quick menu will also work with the number keys 1-9

synthona is a way of being & thinking. synthona allows you to create, explore, and share networks made out of content! You can use synthona for whatever you want, some ideas include "building a mind palace, storing URL bookmarks, exploring your filesystem, thinking, note-taking, as a memory-expansion for your brain, for world-building, planning, and so forth...there are few limits!" Synthona tries its best not to make any changes to your computer outside of itself, so feel free to click around & experiment!

synthona is premised on the idea that all content is anode which can be associated, connected, related, to any other piece of content. A connection between any two pieces of content is called anassociation. If you understand these two ideas, you understand synthona! That's all there is to it, the rest is just building on these two assumptions.

You can start by uploading or creating some content, you do this by clicking the white circular button at the top of the page. This will transform it into a plus sign and put the IO bar intocreate-mode.

From there, to the left of the input field there is a dropdown menu which contains some content types. You can select one of those which will prepare the IO bar to create that content. For most content types you can type a name for the node you're about to create into the input field and it will automatically be added to the generated node. The exception is urls which don't allow a name on creation since you have to paste the url into that space instead. To finish creating a node, hit enter in the input bar or click the button to the right side of the text input. That's it! Now it's in the system.

The Graph Browser, sometimes known as the Constellation browser, is one way to browse through your nodes and associations! You can get there clicking the "graph" icon on any node, on the IO bar, or by clicking the "graph" option from the main menu. If you click it from a specific node, you'll see the associations for that node and their relationships to each other displayed. Accessing it from the IO bar or options menu will instead show a list of the most recently accessed nodes! Once you are in the constellation browser you can zoom in and out by scrolling up and down, jump to a node by double clicking it, or jump through the graph browser by right clicking on a node.

check out this post on the new synthona substack for more information:[[renderlinking]]

If you hover over most icons for a couple of seconds a tooltip should show up which explains what the button does, but I've written out a guide here as well so you can be confident of what your clicks will accomplish.

This is the associations icon. It mostly appears on node cards in the node explorer. Clicking it will typically bring up a menu which lists the associations for a given node and allows you to add new ones.

The light bulb is the universal symbol for having a good idea, which is why it was chosen as the "good idea" button. Whenever you click the light bulb icon the node in question will be marked as viewed, bumped, jumped to the top of the page. You can click this button as much as you want and nothing bad will happen!

This icon will take you to the graph constellation browser! I'll explain more about that a little later.

This button will allow you to pin a node to your starboard! The Starboard is a sort of top-level root page, but you can think of it as one of those tackboards you would use pushpins on in real life to hang sticky notes on! Store stuff on the starboard for a short time or a long time, it's up to you!

This button will open the active node in your default web browser! This is useful for various reasons, like if you want to run the application in your browser as a tab, if you wanted to save images or files into your downloads folder, or as a way to manage additional synthona tabs.

Clicking this is contextual, but has to do with picking or replacing an image on a node. In URL nodes, you can replace the node's preview image with the URL of any image from the internet or from elsewhere in synthona (right click and "copy image address" to get replacement images). In File nodes, for the time being at least, this icon will allow you to pick a file from your filesystem to use as the preview image. LONG STORY SHORT...The Picture Icon has to do with customization of pictures & images! Experiment with it to customize appearances!

This icon appears on nodes which are files...Clicking it will show the file in the folder! This is really handy because it means synthona can be used to create shortcuts to specific files in your filesystem.

This is the garbage can, it lets you put delete nodes from the system!

Exports allow you to share nodes and their associations between computers as.synth files, which can be re-imported by anyone into any synthona instance on any computer. These files are represented within synthona by this icon. If you click this icon on a node in your system, it will generate an export based on the node you clicked it from. Exports contain the node in question, all the nodes associated with it, and their associations with each other. More specificity in exports is a planned feature for the future as well.

If you have created or imported a synthona export into your synthona instance, you will see this icon on the export page. Clicking it will "unpack" the export, importing all the nodes and associations it contains into your profile. Once you click this, it will be replaced by an "undo" icon which will allow you to "repack" the export. The undo option will delete all the nodes which unpacking created, which makes unpacking a reversible operation. Be warned however! If you have made changes to any of the nodes you imported they will still be removed (at least that's how it works right now).

Sythona Exports are great for all kinds of things...sharing your thoughts with others, sharing files for a project, sharing photo albums, and more! If you're a developer, you may also be interested to know that these exports are largely just JSON which means you could potentially integrate them with other software.

If you double click the title it should turn into an editable text field.

Starting with version 1.2.3, it is possible to link files in your filesystem to synthona by creating file nodes. File nodes existed before, but they didn't do much. Starting with version 1.2.3, it is possible to open certain file types (photoshop projects, .txt files, word documents, images, .mp3s, .pdfs, 3D models, and so forth) in their default program directly from synthona! The way this works is pretty straightforward...Once you create a file node you can either right click the node card to launch the file, or click through to the landing page to launch.

When you delete a file node, it will not delete the file itself, only the node in synthona. You should know however, that if you imported a node into synthona from a .synth export and delete the node, it WILL delete the file...Why this difference? The idea is basically that synthona cleans up after itself. If it creates a file, it will delete it, but if YOU created the file, synthona will not delete it.

In other words, synthona will not mess with your stuff! If you want to keep imported files long-term it is recommended that you copy them out of the import-location into a better place!

Only in the app database which is stored on your computer. If you want to save a copy of your data elsewhere, you can generate manual backups as often as you want through the export functionality. If you go to the options menu there is a button labeled "export all user data". This will put all your nodes and associations into a .synth file which will be added to your homepage. You can then click through to download that file. That .synth file containing all your data can be imported back in later, onto a version on another computer, or stored as a backup. Also, although it's not really designed for this, you could break the .synth file open to get at the files themselves. If you need to get at the specific files in there, you can change the file extension from .synth to .zip which should allow your computer to de-compress the archive although some of the files might have...computery...names.

Your data is stored in your user data folder. This will be different depending on your operating system, but you can see the specific folder by click 'advanced' in the top menu bar and 'show config'. The folder containing the config file also contains some core app files along with the core 'data' folder and sqlite database. You shouldn't have to ever mess with any of this unless you are a developer or you really know what you are doing, as it is possible to break the app if you start to mess with stuff in there!

Starting with version 1.2.3, certain node types now have special actions which are automatically launched when you "right-click" a node. URLS will open in your browser when you right click them, files will open in their default program, text nodes will take you to their page in the association browser rather than to the editor...Give it a try and see how it goes!

if you want to take things into your own hands you're free to fork the project, but I am also more than willing to hear out your ideas and try to implement changes myself if I can or accept pull requests if they fit the project roadmap! There is a vision for where the project is headed, but suggestions are still welcome. The goal here is to make something which benefits as many people as possible. If you're interested in taking a look at the code feel free to check out the project ongithub !

Easy! Just go tosynthona.itch.io download the latest version, and install it! All your data will carry over, all you have to do is close the app, and run the installer for the new version. Because the data is stored outside the app, you can overwrite the old version with the new version without fear. If you're the type to worry, it couldn't hurt to make a little backup before updating just in case, but we do test everything before releasing as well! It's worth updating eventually, because updates often add new features which expand functionality.

There is apatreon or you can donate atsynthona.itch.io where you downloaded the app.

Please send an email tosynthona@gmail.com or reach out some other way and we can chat!