Web UI guide

The graph explorer is IndieK’s graphical interface. It shows an archive’s knowledge graph, lets you read every node and edge, filter by tags and write new content, all signed with your author key.

You normally get it inside the desktop app. Developers can also run it in a browser, served by the local API (Run it yourself).

The home screen

Type the absolute path of a folder, then:

Button	Does
Open workspace	Opens an existing archive. The path may be the archive itself or a folder containing exactly one archive; if there are several, the UI lists them to pick from
New archive	Creates an empty archive in a new or empty folder

A workspace is simply a folder the app remembers. The list below the field shows them; open one with a click, or remove it from the list. Removing a workspace never touches its files.

The Home button in the header brings you back here and clears the current view (selection, filters, colours).

The workspace view

Area	Shows
Header	The workspace name, the buttons Create node, Create edge and Create tag, and your author-key chip
Graph (left, top)	The nodes and edges, with a minimap
Tags (left, bottom)	Node tags and edge tags, with search, filters and colours
Item detail (right)	The selected node or edge: content, metadata, tags and actions

Each pane can be collapsed to a thin strip and reopened from it, to give the graph more room.

Exploring the graph

Mouse

Action	Effect
Click a node or an edge	Selects it and shows it in the item detail pane
Click empty space	Clears the selection
Drag empty space	Moves the view; the scroll wheel zooms
Drag a node	Moves it
Double-click empty space	Opens the node editor to create a node at that spot
Drag the + handle of the selected node	Draws an arrow; click another node to create an edge to it, click elsewhere or press Esc to cancel

Keyboard

Click the graph once to give it the keyboard focus, then:

Keys	Effect
Arrow	Follow an outgoing edge in that direction on screen
Space + Arrow	Follow an incoming edge in that direction
Shift + Arrow	Select the edge in that direction
N / Shift + N	Cycle through the other candidates of the last move
Esc	Drop the cycle, or cancel drawing an edge

Tab is deliberately not captured, so the keyboard can always leave the graph.

Graph settings

The ⚙ button above the graph opens Graph settings:

Layout: Continuous force (default), Directed chain (follows the edge direction) or Preset. ↻ Re-layout arranges everything again.
Style: node size and shape, edge labels, and other display options.
Tag style: the style applied to items carrying a given tag.

The layout runs only when a workspace opens, when you change it, or on ↻ Re-layout. Creating items or filtering never moves the nodes already on screen: new nodes appear in free space (or where you double-clicked).

Reading items

The item detail pane shows the selected item:

Nodes: the title and content. Markdown is rendered (CommonMark plus GitHub tables, lists and strikethrough); PNG and JPEG images display inline and open in a zoomable viewer; PDF and TIFF files are offered as downloads (an in-app PDF viewer is planned). uri nodes show their link; local_file nodes show the recorded path, size and hash.
Edges: their source and target, and their content, if they have any.
For both: the alias (e1, e2, …), the author’s key (abbreviated; hover for the full key), the creation and last-update dates, and the tags.

To see an item’s full history of versions, use ik read on the command line.

The UI never runs scripts or HTML contained in archived content.

Writing

Every write is a signed event appended to the archive, exactly as ik would write it. Nothing is ever overwritten: revisions keep the history (see Revisions). Writing needs an author key; without one, the UI opens the Author key dialog.

Nodes

Create node (or double-click the graph) opens the node editor:

Kind	Content	Stored as
Text	Markdown or plain text, with a preview tab	a `managed` node: the text is copied into the archive
URL	a link	a `uri` node: recorded, never fetched
Local file	the path of a file on your computer	a `local_file` node: path, size and SHA-256 recorded; the file stays where it is

An optional title applies to every kind. Images and PDFs can be archived with ik create_node --content <file> for now; creating them from the UI is planned.

Revising a node

Supersede in the item detail pane opens the editor with the current content; your edit becomes a new version of the same node (same identifier, same alias). Only the node’s author can supersede it. Text nodes can be superseded from the UI; images and PDFs not yet.

Edges

Create edge in the header, New edge from here in the item detail pane, or the + handle on the graph.
Pick the source and the target (by alias or title) and, optionally, the edge’s text: “proves”, “contradicts”, “is an example of”. An edge may have no content at all.
Supersede on a selected edge changes its content, or removes it. The endpoints of an edge never change.

Tags pane: filter and colour

Search tags by name.
Node tags and edge tags are listed in two columns.
Filter: toggle tags to show only the items carrying them; clear the filters to see everything again.
Colour: pick a colour per tag to colour the items carrying it.

Filters, colours, graph settings and node positions are not saved yet: they reset when you reload or reopen the workspace.

Author key

The chip in the header shows your public key and its source (keychain or env). Click it to open the Author key dialog:

Create a key (stored in the OS keychain), then download its encrypted backup;
Import a key from a backup file or from its hexadecimal secret;
Back up the current key into a password-encrypted .ikkey file.

The secret key never reaches the page: the local API stores it, signs with it, and encrypts backups before sending them. Details and safe deletion: Keep your key safe.

Current limitations

Filters, colours, graph settings and positions are not persisted.
PDF and TIFF nodes are downloads, not previews.
Image and PDF nodes cannot yet be created or superseded from the UI (use ik).
Folders are opened by typing their path; a folder picker is planned.

Run it yourself

The graph explorer is a Next.js application exported as static files: it has no server of its own and talks only to the local API, on the same origin. Two ways to run it outside the desktop app:

Built: download custom-graph-explorer-<version>-out.tar.gz from the web UI releases, unpack it, and start the API with INDIEK_API_STATIC_DIR pointing at the folder (Serve the web UI).
From source, with hot reload: see the web UI repository’s README (Node.js, npm run dev, a dev proxy to the API). The README also describes the code layout, state management, testing and how to add an API call.