Link visualization

[elmsfeuer]

Use case or problem

On a big monitor, with many panes open, it would be really nice to see the graph superimposed on the documents.

I’d like to have faint lines from any link in preview to any document or point in document they refer to, and optional reverse links, as a sort of overlay over all the panes. Naturally those lines would also connect to the graph if it is open.

Like a detective crazy wall.

It’d be nice to highlight things when you hover over their endpoints like the graph does.
And have different colors for the active pane. The links should be faint-ish so that the text underneath can still be read, and probably they should not react to mouse movement.

Links of things that have no screen representation could go to the nearest window edge and – off screen. (thanks i-d-as).

I think secretly we would all love this even though it is hard to admit.

Here’s some concept art:

[I-d-as]

Love it.

And maybe around the border of the monitor there would be the nodes of all links out of view, not necessarily arranged based on actual location in the global graph layout. There could be options for how this worked. Like perhaps the nodes that have the most links would get the most real estate along these edges. Maybe this could be set on a per pane basis so that not all panes would necessarily have links to the monitors borders but rather to the panes borders or perhaps have this toggled off.

And to clarify, I guess I don’t actually mean monitor borders but rather the region immediately outside panes but within outer interface.

Thanks.