Managing Your Graphs
A knowledge graph is one body of notes: its journal entries, pages, images and files, and
its settings. You can have several, local and synced side by side, and the Knowledge graphs
page (the Graphs link in the header, or /graphs) is where they are created, opened and
forgotten.
The Knowledge graphs page
The buttons across the top, in order:
| Button | What it does |
|---|---|
| Open folder (Local Graph) | Picks a folder on this computer and opens it as a local graph. Shown only in a browser that can open a folder (Local Graphs) |
| Try the demo | Opens the demo graph. Shown while this browser has no demo yet |
| New synced graph | Creates an end-to-end encrypted graph on the connected Sync Server (Synced Graphs) |
| Import | Brings a folder of notes in as a new graph (Importing From Logseq Obsidian Or EtherPK) |
| Sync settings | Connects this device to a Sync Server and manages your encryption keys |
Below the buttons, when a Sync Server is connected, a card shows the signed-in account, its plan and, for a Sync+ account, how many owned graphs and how much owned storage it uses. Pending invites to shared graphs appear here too, each with an Accept button.
Graphs on this device
This list holds every graph this browser can open: local folders, synced graphs that have been set up here, and the demo. Each row shows the name, a Local, Synced or Demo pill, and a hint: the folder's name for a local graph (browsers reveal the folder's own name, never its full path), "Local browser cache" for a synced one.
- Select the name to open the graph. A local graph may first ask for permission to its folder.
- The pencil renames the graph. A synced graph's name is shared with every member; a local graph's is a display name only, and the folder on disk keeps its name.
- The cog opens the graph's settings without opening the graph: the General tab, and for a local graph the Maintenance tab (Graph Settings).
- The cross forgets the graph on this device. A local graph's folder and files are untouched (delete the folder yourself if you want them gone). A synced graph's notes stay on the Sync Server, and its copy in this browser's cache is removed; add it back at any time.
The demo has a Reset button in place of the cross.
Synced graphs
When a Sync Server is connected, a second panel lists every graph your account belongs to on the server, with your role (Owner or Player), the graph's id, its storage in notes and assets, and for a graph you own, its members. A graph not yet set up in this browser says Not on this device, with an Add to this device button. The panel is also where an owner invites people, transfers ownership or deletes a graph, and where a player leaves one (Sharing A Graph).
The last graph you had open
Opening EtherPK at its root takes you straight back into the graph you used last. With no graphs yet it shows the landing page, and with several and no clear last one it shows the Knowledge graphs page. The Graphs menu in the header lists the graphs on this device from anywhere, so you can switch without going back to the page.
The demo graph
The demo you can open from the website, or with Try the demo, is a graph like any other except that it lives in the browser's private storage rather than a folder or a server, and nothing you write in it is backed up anywhere. It is pre-filled with sample pages so there is something to explore. Closing the tab keeps it; clearing the browser's site data, or a phone browser tidying up, loses it, and the next visit starts the demo afresh.
A bar above the demo says as much and offers Reset demo, which puts every page back as it shipped after asking, and Start your own graph. If the demo is open in another tab, a reset waits until that tab has closed it.
Anything you want to keep belongs in a local graph or a synced one. The demo works in every browser, phones included, which makes it the way to try EtherPK where a local folder is not an option.
Local, synced or both
The two kinds of graph differ in where the notes live, and that decides everything else:
| Local graph | Synced graph | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the notes are | A folder on this computer, as markdown files | Encrypted on a Sync Server, cached in each browser that opens it |
| Browsers | Chromium-based desktop browsers only | Any browser, phones included |
| Other devices | Your own concern: git, Syncthing, a shared drive | Every device you sign in on, live |
| Working with others | No | Yes, with real-time co-editing |
| Needs an account | No | Yes: an EtherPK Account, or an account on a self-hosted server |
| Costs | Nothing | Sync+ on the managed service; nothing on your own server |
A graph's kind is fixed when it is created. To move notes from one kind to the other, import the folder as a new graph: a local graph's folder directly, or a synced graph's Local Mirror (Keeping A Local Copy Of A Synced Graph). Choosing Where Your Notes Live goes through the choice in more depth, and Where Your Data Lives says what is stored where.
Give a graph a colour
To tell graphs apart at a glance, give each a Toolbar colour in Settings > General: one of eight ready-made pastels (the same ones EtherPK uses for other people's cursors in a shared graph) or any colour from the picker. On a desktop it colours the bar of buttons above the panes; on a phone, the strip of tabs across the top. The Graphs menu in the header shows the same colour on the row for the graph you are in. The colour is a graph setting, so every member of a synced graph shares it, and it is the same in light and dark themes. Use theme colour puts the bar back to the theme's own surface.
Graph names
A graph's name is yours to choose and can be changed at any time; it is the id shown on the synced graphs panel that identifies a graph. Renaming a synced graph changes the one shared name for every member. Two graphs may have the same name.