Unitraverse Desktop Productivity App
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The main page

Inside the browser are two main areas of the application, a menu of actions on the left-hand side, and a working area on the right which holds the contents (your browser links and documents) for the current vault location.

This example shows a populated lattice structure that might be used to organize the desktop belonging to an investment research assistant. This is just one of many use cases, of course.

The four important item types are context nodes, urls, text documents and files. Here they are again (labeled 1 through 4):

Context nodes

A context node is quite like a directory. It can contain other context nodes, in the same way a file system directory can contain other directories. These nodes can contain the resources that directories can contain, but they also add the additional url pointer item just mentioned.

As with a file system exporer, these context items can be selected and users can move around from node to node inside the organizational tree-like structure that houses important resources that are kept handy for their use.

So why would it not be important to have folder icons in front of the context nodes? Because, by design, these context nodes play a role beyond just directories that house content; they are going to be used as part of the content itself. The kinds of structures are numerous and reformatting their appearance has been kept easy. A rendering of them to look like a directory would be just one possible formatting option.

With the default formatting option, the light-grey downward-pointing arrow [ ] indicates that a context node has its own contents that we are not currently able to see. Without the arrow, it is simply a leaf node and has no children.

The vault

The entire set of context nodes is called a vault. This set of nodes has it's own file and is loaded when the browser points, via 'localhost', to an .html file hosting the vault.

When the 'save' action is clicked, the vault is saved to disk permanently, written in the JSON format. This action does not cause content files to be saved. Saving the content documents, even if they are opened from within the UD app, is something that happens independently from saving the vault that references those documents.

When the 'close' action is clicked, this can cause documents to be saved when users confirm the action. No changes to the vault occur by opening and closing items.

Whether a document is opened or closed is remembered by the UD app, this state is not forgotten if ever the browser decides to crash. On the other hand, the existence of those documents might not be recorded in the vault if it is not saved and the tab in which UD app runs is closed. It is recommended that changes to the vault that you wish to keep should be saved without much delay.

Navigating the vault

To highlite an item or a node click on it. The UP and DOWN ARROW keys move the selection around. The following shows a dark blue dotted line indicating selection of an item:

Once a context node is selected, you can use the ENTER button to make that the 'scope item'. The scope item displays its title and its visible descendants, including all descendant resources. It also determines the presentation formatting that is applied to all descendants that become visible.

There are two ways to get back to the parent node: the first way is to click on the parent in the path string above the main content window. Then press ENTER.

The second way to get back to the parent location is to use the back button which unwinds the location history.

Searching the vault

Another quick way to find your way around inside a vault is to do a search, which then allows you to follow a link within the search results.

To do a search of the entire vault, click on the 'Search' menuitem or just hit the 'h' shortcut key. Then type in the keyord or phrase you want to search on in the search popup window. Finally, click the 'Search' button. The search results will show up just below the main content panel and the results are clickable so that you can go directly to the vault location by clicking on a located item.

Bookmark your favorite vault locations

There is a place for bookmarks at the top of the screen. Clicking one of the bookmark icons brings you immediately to a vault location that you have 'pinned'.

To create a bookmark, first navigate to the vault location that you wish to point to. Note that there doesn't need to be anything selected. Then click the 'pin' menuitem or hit the 'p' shortcut key. The following popup box will appear, giving you a chance to choose an icon that best indicates the location:

To remove a bookmark, right-click on the icon of the favorites link that you wish to remove, and then click 'remove'

Opening and closing resources

To open an item just select it and click on the 'open' menuitem, or simply hit the 'o' shortcut key.

You will then see either a new browser tab with your item opening up, or a new document window or possibly an application window. Applications are chosen based on the file extension and how the system associates apps with file extensions. The file extensions that are valid for opening are limited to those that are supported by the AppleScript "open" command for the Mac® computer, and the "start" command for Windows®.

A solid green circle [ ] indicates that a particular file or browser url is currently open.

Working with pre-established groups

Significant productivity gains will happen when you start to work with groups of items, be it urls, files, or both simultaneously. Operations on groups include 'open', 'close' and 'tag'.

To open or close a group of items you first start group mode by pressing the 'g' key. This must be done when no text fields are recieving keyboard input. Once you have gone into group mode, a couple things change. First, you will notice that the group membership info is visible for all of the resources (inside the orange curly braces). Secondly you will see that the 'open' and 'close' commands now have options for directing the command action to groups...

Creating and working with customized groups

You first create a customized group by using the 'tag' action. Three possible ways to select items for a tagging action are 1) tag a selected item, 2) tag open items that are children of the same parent item, and you can 3) tag any and all open items. These are reflected in the following menu:

Once you have clicked a tagging option you should see a pop-up box with an empty edit field. Type the group name you would like to use into the field and click 'OK'. The example below shows an updated membership status when the 'tag -> selected item' action was used and the group moniker "urgent" was provided and OK'ed in the pop-up box:

Finally we're ready to open a customized group that we have created. This is just a matter of going to the 'open' menuitem and finding the custom group that now appears in the submenu.

email: support@unitraverse.com

Our company was founded in July 2017 by Bradley Pliam.

The headquarters is currently in Austin, Texas.

Ideas that have been in gestation since the early 2000s have now finally been given 'wings'.

The mission of the company is to deliver happiness in the form of value and great user experience via high quality software, being honest about what is being delivered, and up-front about any current limitations. The world of software has some great things, along with some insidiously bad aspects. We intend to be a positive influence.

Meet our current staff...

Brad Pliam - Dev lead

Unitraverse