Board View

Verified against Kanvaz v9.7.0.

Board View is the main canvas — a free-form 2D space where reference cards live, get arranged, and get connected. It’s the default view when you open a board; switch back to it any time from the toolbar or the M shortcut (which toggles Map View).

Card types

Every piece of reference material on a board is a card. Kanvaz recognizes:

Type	What it holds
Image	Any raster image — PNG, JPG, WEBP, TIFF, and more
GIF	Animated GIFs, played inline
Video	Common video formats, with an inline scrubbable player
Audio	Audio files with a waveform preview
3D Model	glTF/GLB, OBJ, FBX, and more — see Media Previews
Note	A freeform sticky-note style text card
Text	A single styled text label
Color	A named/hex color swatch — click it to open Kanvaz’s own color picker
URL	A link-out reference card
File	A reference to a file Kanvaz can’t preview inline (still tracked, still linkable)

Getting cards onto the board

See Import & Export for every path in detail — drag-and-drop, paste, the Import menu, and PureRef migration all land here as cards.

Selecting and arranging

• Click a card to select it; Ctrl+click or drag a box (Ctrl+drag) to select several
• Drag to move; arrow keys nudge 1px, Shift+arrow nudges 10px
• Ctrl+D duplicates the selection; Delete removes it
• Ctrl+G groups 2+ selected cards, Ctrl+Shift+G ungroups
• Right-click a selection for Align and Distribute — the same operations exposed to the MCP Bridge as alignCards/distributeCards/tidyUp

Per-card panels

With a card selected:

• E — Properties (transform, opacity, tags, custom key/value properties)
• C — Connections (wire it to another card — this is what Map View visualizes)
• A — Annotate (draw directly on an image/video/GIF/3D card)
• P — Pin / unpin
• H — hide/show its annotations

Isolate View

Shift+I hides every card except the current selection — useful for focusing on one cluster of a busy board without deleting or moving anything. Press it again (or Escape) to bring everything back.

The lock button right next to Minimize in the titlebar (or Ctrl+Shift+L) turns on MoodLock from anywhere, and while Isolate View is on a second small lock also appears in the top-right corner. MoodLock: every toolbar, the titlebar, the side panel and the status bar disappear, Kanvaz stays on top of your other windows, and the board becomes read-only, so what is left is just the reference sitting next to the app you are working in. Camera keys (F, 0, +, -) and the mouse wheel still work, and Left / Right flip through the board’s cards one at a time in reading order (the corner shows “3 / 12”). Kanvaz also remembers where you parked the locked window and puts it back there next time (only if that spot is still on a connected monitor), then restores your normal window when you unlock. In the locked state the corner control also has a drag grip so you can still move the window. Click the lock, press Ctrl+Shift+L, or press Escape to bring everything back exactly as it was. With nothing isolated, Ctrl+Shift+L on a selection isolates it first, and on an empty selection it locks the whole board.

Zoom and navigation

Action	Shortcut
Zoom in/out	Scroll, or +/-
Fine zoom	Ctrl+Scroll
Pan	Middle-mouse drag, Space+drag, or Alt+drag (works over cards too)
Reset zoom	0
Fit all cards	F
Zoom to selection	Shift+F
Save/recall a view	Ctrl+1..9 to save, 1..9 to jump back

The full reference, including every card and file shortcut, is in Keyboard Shortcuts.

Related

• Map View — see the same cards as a connection graph
• Side Panel — Properties, Layers, Tasks, Settings
• Templates — start from a curated card layout instead of blank