Kanban Boards
Some work isn't a map, it's a pipeline: things to do, things in flight,
things done. A kanban board lives right on a canvas — real cards in columns you
drag between — so your task board sits in the same space as the notes and diagrams it's
about. It's a self-contained widget: the board owns its lanes and cards, they're saved
with the canvas, and they don't touch the rest of your wiki. Simple on purpose.
Your first board in a minute
- On any canvas, right-click the background ▸ New kanban board…, give it a
name, and it drops in with three starter lanes: To Do, In Progress, and
Done.
- Click ＋ Add a card at the foot of a lane. A little editor opens — type a
title and press Save. The card appears in the lane.
- Drag a card to another lane. It lifts, the other cards make room, and it
drops where you let go — smooth at any zoom. That's the whole gesture.
Already have a plain frame you'd rather run as a board? Right-click it ▸ Turn into
a kanban board.
Lanes
- Add a lane — click ＋ Add a lane past the last column; it's named
New lane and ready to rename.
- Rename a lane — double-click its title and type.
- Reorder lanes — drag a lane by its header; the others slide aside.
- The ⋮ menu (top-right of each lane header) holds the rest: a color for
the lane, Mark as done column, and Delete this lane. The count box beside
it shows how many cards the lane holds.
- Done columns. Mark a lane as done (the starter Done lane already is,
shown by a green ✓) and every card that lands in it reads as completed — its
title struck through and dimmed. Drag a card back out and it un-completes. No per-card
checkbox to hunt for; the column is the state.
- Long lanes scroll. When a lane holds more cards than fit, it scrolls —
the cards keep their full size rather than squashing. A mouse wheel over a lane scrolls
that lane and stops at its top and bottom, so the board underneath never slides out from
under you.
Cards
Click any card to open its editor (＋ Add a card opens the same editor
for a new one). A card can carry as much or as little as you like:
- Title — the one thing every card has.
- Due date — shows on the card face as a 🗓 chip that reads in plain words:
Today, Tomorrow, in 6d, 3d overdue — amber as it nears,
red once it's past.
- Priority — High, Medium, or Low, shown as a colored H / M / L pill in
the card's bottom-right corner.
- Life area — Finance, Health, Home, Lifestyle, Personal, or Work, shown as a
colored-dot chip. A quick way to see which part of life a task belongs to.
- Notes — free text; a small 🗒 marker on the face tells you a card has them.
- Subtasks — a checklist inside the card. Tick them off in the editor; the face
shows a ☑ 2/5 progress chip that turns green when everything's done. Press
Return in a subtask to add the next one.
- Color & cover — give the card one of the eight palette colors for a soft
wash and a colored left edge, or switch on Show color as a cover band for a bold
band across the top. Colors survive light and dark grounds.
The face lays this out for reading: title on top, then the due chip, then a divider,
then the life area on the left with the priority pill pinned bottom-right. To delete
a card, hover it and click the ✕, or open it and press Delete.
Color and the dark ground
Color lands at three levels: cards (in the card editor), lanes (the ⋮
menu), and the whole board (right-click the board frame ▸ color). Because a
kanban board is often the thing you want to stare at, it pairs well with the canvas's
dark ground — flip the ☾/☀ toggle in the zoom pill and the cream
lanes and cards glow against the dark desk, while the color you picked for the board's
edge stays exactly as true as it looks on paper.
Good to know
- It's part of the canvas. The board, its lanes, and its cards are saved inside
the canvas page — no separate list, no pages created, nothing added to your wiki's
graph.
⌘Z undoes board changes like anything else on the canvas.
- Cards here are the board's own. A kanban card is a task on this board, not a
wiki page — so it doesn't link or show in search the way page cards do. Keep the board
for doing; keep pages for knowing.
- Move the whole thing by dragging the board's header, resize it from its edge,
and it rides along with everything else on the canvas.