Think visually with canvas and mind maps

Some thinking doesn't fit in lines of text. When you're planning an event, untangling a process or seeing how a dozen ideas relate, you want room to put things down, move them around and draw arrows between them.

A canvas in Terra is that room: an endless board where sticky notes, shapes, arrows, images and your real notes sit wherever you put them. Mind maps grow on it from the keyboard, one idea at a time. When something on the board deserves to be a note, it becomes one in a click.

This guide follows Maya as she plans the launch week for her field guide.

How it fits together

A canvas is a database shown with the Canvas layout, so it holds two kinds of things:

The canvases you create with New canvas are listed in the sidebar under Canvases. Any other database, folder or tag can be laid out as a canvas too; see Features you might have missed.

Step 1Create a canvas

1. Click New… in the toolbar and choose New canvas. You can also right-click an empty part of the sidebar, or of the window, and choose New canvas.

2. An empty canvas called Untitled canvas opens, and Terra shows New canvas.

3. Rename it: right-click Untitled canvas under Canvases in the sidebar, choose Rename, type Launch week and click Rename.

   

The tools run down the left of the canvas. Point at any of them for its name:

Below them sit Undo, Redo, Arrange, Hide in Canvas, Background, Import Canvas and Export Canvas.

Getting around: drag empty space to move around. Scroll or pinch to zoom, from 25% to 250%. Zoom in, Zoom out and Fit to screen are at the bottom left, and clicking the minimap jumps to that spot.

Step 2Sketch with text, sticky notes and shapes

Get ideas down first; arrange them later. Everything new appears in the middle of the view.

1. Click Shapes. The Add shape panel opens with 19 shapes, from Rounded and Sticky note to Diamond, Cylinder and Cloud. Point at one for its name.

   

2. Click Sticky note and type: Who checks the print proofs? Press ⌘Return, or click away, to finish.

3. For a plain label, click Text instead. To change any text later, double-click it, or select it and click Edit text in the bar at the bottom.

4. To style something, select it and open Shapes: switch Color between Fill, Border and Text and pick a colour, then set Font (Sans or Mono), Size and bold, italic or alignment. New items take the last style you used.

A tool stays chosen after you use it. Press Esc or click Select to go back to selecting.

Step 3Connect ideas with arrows

1. Click Connector.

2. Drag from one item to another, or click one and then the other. The arrow attaches to the sides that face each other; start or finish on one of an item's side handles to pick the side yourself.

3. To style an arrow, select it and click Style in the bottom bar, or double-click it. The Connector panel opens.

   

With an arrow selected, drag the small hollow handles along it to add bends; double-click a bend to remove it. With nothing selected, the panel sets the style of the next arrow you draw.

Step 4Grow a mind map

A mind map starts from one idea and branches out, and you can build one without touching the mouse.

1. Click Mind map. A rounded root appears in the middle, ready to type. Type Launch week.
2. Press Tab for a child and type Press. Tab again for a child of that: Review copies.
3. Press Return for a sibling: Podcast interview. Press Esc to finish typing; the item stays selected.
4. Click the root and press Tab to start the next branch. Branches spread to both sides and the map lays itself out as it grows.

With the mouse: point at any item and small + dots appear on its sides: Add child, Add sibling above, Add sibling below, Insert between. Click one to choose what to add: Text, Note, Sticky, Rounded, Pill, Ellipse, Diamond or Cloud. A Note becomes a real note in your Library as soon as you type its text.

Drag an item onto another to make it a child there, or between siblings to reorder. Dragging the root moves the whole map. To turn any existing item into the root of a new map, select it and click Start mind map.

Change the shape of the map: select the root and click Layout in the bottom bar.

Step 5Bring in notes, and turn ideas into notes

A canvas is most useful when your real notes sit beside the sketches.

• Put a note on the canvas: drag it from the note list beside the sidebar, or from a search result, and drop it on the canvas. It appears as a card.
• Open a card: click it to select it, then click again to open the note.
• Copy text from a note: drag blocks by their grip from a note onto the canvas to make text cards. Hold ⌥ as you drop to move them out of the note instead.

When a sticky note turns into a real piece of work, promote it:

1. Select the sticky note (text, diagrams and groups work too).

2. Click Promote to Note in the bottom bar.

   

The new note takes its title from the first line and its body from all the text. It's saved in your Inbox, and its card takes the sticky's place. To take a card off the canvas without touching the note, select it and click Hide in Canvas.

Step 6Arrange, change the paper, export

Tidy up. Shift-drag across empty space to select several items, or press ⌘A. Then open Arrange to align, distribute or stack them, match their widths or heights, Tidy up into a grid, or Bring to front and Send to back. Items snap to each other and to the grid as you drag; hold ⌥ to place them freely, or turn snapping off in Settings › Canvas (Snap to grid, Snap to objects).

Change the paper. Click Background for Dots, Lines or Plain, or a paper: Squared, Ruled, Legal pad, Blueprint or Cardstock.

Export and import. Export Canvas saves the whole canvas, pictures included, as one .terra.canvas file. Import Canvas opens one as a new canvas; it never merges into the canvas you have open. Notes that aren't in your Library arrive as text items marked Missing reference.

Where it's kept. A canvas lives in your Library's hidden .terra folder: its database in .terra/databases, and its layout, drawings and undo history in .terra/database-views, with uploaded pictures beside them. Backups and sync that copy your Library folder copy canvases too, but Versions doesn't track the .terra folder. Export a .terra.canvas file when you want a snapshot.

Step 7See a note's connections in the graph

A canvas shows the connections you draw. The graph shows the ones already in your notes: every link, embed and citation.

1. Click Graph in the sidebar. Each note is a dot, and each link, embed or citation is a line.
2. Point at a dot to see the note's title, tags and how many links it has. Click it to focus on it and its neighbours; click it again to open it.
3. For one note's surroundings, right-click it in the note list beside the sidebar and choose Graph of this note. You see the note and everything one link away.
4. To keep a focus, click Save neighborhood at the bottom of the graph. Clear neighborhood shows everything again.

Any database view can use the Graph layout too. A view you switch to Graph starts with no lines: open View preferences › Relationships and tick Wikilinks, Embeds or Citations, or Shared values of a property such as tags. The Graph tab tunes how dots spread and lets you colour them with rules.

Features you might have missed

Any database as a canvas

Open a database, folder or tag, click View preferences, choose the Canvas layout and click Save view. Every note becomes a card in a grid you can rearrange and draw around. The Canvas tab sets the grid: Arrange all in Rows or Columns, Spacing, Wrap, Snap to grid and Show group regions. Reset canvas layout puts every card back in the grid.

Real links between cards

Flow connection draws a line between two note cards and writes it into the notes as a relationship. The first time, Terra creates a relationship property called Flow. Unlike an arrow, it's saved in the notes themselves, as a property you can see and filter on.

Search reads your canvases

Search finds the text on sticky notes, shapes, labels and diagrams, marked Canvas · in the results. Opening one shows the canvas centred on it. See Find anything in your Library.

Undo that outlasts a restart

A canvas remembers its last 50 changes in its own file, so Undo still works after you quit and reopen Terra.

Bend a mind map's branches

⌘-drag a branch line to bend it. The Branch menu in the bottom bar mirrors the curve or sets it back with Reset to automatic.

What a canvas can't do yet

• No picture or PDF export. Export Canvas writes a .terra.canvas file only.
• No other formats. Obsidian .canvas, Excalidraw and draw.io files can't be imported.
• Copy and paste stays inside Terra. Canvas items paste into other canvases during the same session, but not into other apps, and text from other apps doesn't paste onto a canvas.
• No right-click menu on canvas items. Use the bottom bar and the tools.
• Some items can't be edited after you place them: guides, comment pins, and the labels of groups and swimlanes. Moving a group's frame doesn't move what's inside it.

Troubleshooting

Dragging moves the whole canvas instead of selecting

Dragging empty space always pans. To select several items, hold ⇧ as you drag, with Select chosen.

Scrolling zooms instead of moving around

On a canvas, scrolling and pinching zoom. To move around, drag empty space.

The Ink eraser doesn't erase

On a canvas, Eraser only stops drawing. Click Select, click the stroke and press Delete.

I pressed Delete on a card and nothing happened

Cards stand for real notes, and a canvas never deletes notes. Select the card and click Hide in Canvas; to delete the note itself, open it and delete it there.

My promoted note isn't in the folder I expected

Notes promoted on a canvas made with New canvas go to your Inbox. Move them from there like any note.

New canvas or Graph is missing

They can be switched off for a Library. Check Settings › Features and turn Canvas or Graph back on.

"Canvas opened read-only"

Terra couldn't read the canvas file: it may be damaged, or saved by a newer version of Terra. Update Terra; nothing is changed while the banner shows.

What's next

• Find anything in your Library: find the notes to bring onto your canvas.
• Links and backlinks: the links the graph draws.
• Databases: what a canvas is underneath, and what else it can be.
• Views and layouts: every way to lay out a database.