Using Branchspace

Branchspace is your own writing workspace. Everything in it is private until you decide otherwise — there is no step where something becomes public by accident.

It is laid out the way a code editor is, because the shape works: a tree of what you have on the left, the note you are writing in the middle, and what surrounds that note on the right. If you have used VS Code, you already know where to look.

Ctrl N makes a note. Give it a title and start writing; it saves itself as you go, and the status bar at the bottom says whether it has.

Notes live in spaces. A new account has one called My Space — rename it, or make others. A space can hold folders inside it. A link reaches the notes in the same place as its own note: the top of a space, or one folder inside it. That place is also what Current space draws in the graph, so notes that link to each other belong together.

Above the writing, every note carries a short record:

Discipline is the first tag, and it is the one that earns its place: the graph colours a note by it, and the legend lists it. Tags are for you.

Type [[ in a note and a list of your other notes appears; choose one and the link is made. It looks like this in the writing:

The argument turns on [[The Tragedy of the Commons]], which
says the same thing about fields.

Two things follow from a link. The note you linked to now knows you pointed at it — the Workspace pane on the right shows both directions, what this note points to and what points back. And the link becomes a line in the graph, which is the map of everything you have written and what you thought connected to what.

A link resolves inside its own space. [[A Note]] finds a note of that name in the same space, not in a different one. A link that matches nothing is still a link — it just has nowhere to go yet, which is a reasonable way to write a note you have not written.

The list under [[ offers only notes a link can reach: the ones in the same place as the note you are writing. To link to a note elsewhere, move one of the two (right-click ▸ Relocate…). A brand-new note that is not filed anywhere yet is offered every note instead, and choosing one files the new note beside it, so the link works.

The editing island under the writing is grouped in tabs: File, Edit, Style, Insert, Connect and Review, plus Essay on an essay and Template on a template. Everything in it also has a keyboard key, and Ctrl / shows the whole sheet.

Type / in the writing to insert a block without leaving the keyboard — a callout, a table, an equation, a reference, a divider. Right-click gives you the note's own menu, acting on whatever you have selected.

The keys worth knowing on the first day

Ctrl N

A new note

Ctrl O

Go to a note by name

Ctrl P

The command palette — everything, by name

Alt D

Today's day page

Ctrl S

Save now, rather than waiting

Ctrl F

Find in this note

Ctrl H

Find and replace

Ctrl K

Link to a web address

Ctrl Shift V

Paste as plain text

Esc

Close what is open; leave focus mode

If you would rather see nothing but the note, the focus button at the top right of the editor hides everything else until you press Esc.

Source mode

The <> button at the top right of the editor opens the note's own HTML beside it. Edits on either side become the note. If you change the note while hand-written source is open, the source waits for you to press Editor changed — reload source rather than overwriting your formatting.

Source opens on the right. The ⇄ button in its header moves it to the left, and back; Ctrl P ▸ “Put source on the left” does the same. Branchspace remembers the side on each device. On a narrow window the two stack instead, source underneath.

On a wide screen, Branchspace offers once to open the source beside the note. With a second screen, the ⧉ button in the source's header (or Ctrl P ▸ “Open the source in its own window”) moves it into a window of its own. In Chrome and Edge that window goes straight to your other screen, after asking your permission once; elsewhere, drag it across. The two stay in step as you type, and Branchspace does the saving. If Branchspace is closed or opens another note, the source window says so and waits.

A template is a note you start from. The Templates button opens a gallery of them at full size — your own, and the Branch Press library — and Use this template always makes a copy, so writing in the new note never changes the template.

To make one: write a note the way you want it, right-click it and save it as a template, or start a blank one from the gallery. A template open for editing says so above the writing, and its record gains two rows:

Library name

What it is listed under in the gallery.

Makes

The kind of note it produces — a plain note, an essay, a day page, and so on.

Fill-ins

A template can leave blanks that fill themselves when a note is made from it. They are in the Template tab of the editing island, and each button says what it will become today:

{{DATE}}

The date the note is made, sortable — 2026-09-23

{{DATE_LONG}}

The same date written out — 23 September 2026

{{WEEKDAY}}

The day it is made — Wednesday

{{WEEK}}

The week of the year

{{DAY_OF_YEAR}}

How far into the year it is

{{YEAR}}

The year it is made

{{DATE_TIME}}

The moment it is made

{{ZETTEL_ID}}

A unique number from that moment

{{CALENDAR}}

An empty block to write the month into

A fill-in is written when the note is made, not when you put it in. That is the whole idea: the template keeps the blank, and every note made from it gets its own date. Preview as a new note, in the same tab, shows you exactly what someone will get.

Alt D opens today's page — the weekday, the week, the day of the year, and prompts for the day: what you noticed, what you read or heard, whom you spoke with, what to carry into tomorrow. The prompts are drawn by the page and never saved, so what you write is all the note contains.

When there is no time for any of that, /account/capture is a single box. It opens focused on an empty field, saves with Ctrl Enter as a private note filed nowhere, and loses nothing: a half-written thought survives a closed tab, and one written with no signal is kept on the device and sent when you are back.

A note's menu has a single Private/Public switch — there is no separate publish step to forget. Made public, a note gets its own page, shows on your profile, and draws a small graph of its own from the other public notes it links to. A private neighbour is simply absent: not a dot, not a count.

An essay is a note of a different kind, with a masthead, a contents block, references that number themselves, and a cover. It reads on the site exactly as an article does.

Your writing is yours to take out at any time: a note's menu will give you Markdown or a Word file, or print it. Nothing you write is locked in here.

• Publishing, and being read — what a reader finds, your profile, following, and branching.
• The graph — the dots, lines and colours, and how to narrow one down.
• Templates — the gallery, the library, and making your own.
• Reading, and marking what you read — reading mode, highlights, and translation.
• Your account and settings — your profile, themes, the AI assistant, and security.
• Boards and the album — the quieter parts of a profile.
• The graph, from the rail. Everything you have written, coloured by discipline, with a depth you choose.
• Your profile, at /u. What a reader sees: your public notes, your essays, and your graph.
• Notifications. Writers you follow, branches of your essays, and who followed you.
• Settings. Themes, the size of everything, what you are told about, and your own AI key if you want one.