While viewing a playpen, The Hex button can be dragged whenever it has buttons to the side (when it doesn’t, you can tap a concept, or 0). Dropping it on one of the targets in the horizontal bar that appears will switch to one of the three contexts:

Draw Context

The default context when entering a playpen for the first time, and the context used to create new concepts and the links between them.

While in placement mode, to the side of the Hex button are buttons for freehand, topic, or statement placement.

Tapping on the canvas puts you in connect mode, for connecting concepts or panning the view. Unlike the Series context, where you explore ideas in sequences, here it is more free-form.

Action Context

The action context is only available when viewing your own playpens, and flanking its hex are buttons for undo and redo.

But the real power of this context is in its context pane, which shows a navigable timeline of all recent actions performed in the playpen.

Any actions that would add to this timeline are disabled in this context, so when you’re happy with the current position in the timeline, return to the draw or series contexts to start creating things again.

Series Context

The context for viewing and (in your own playpens) creating or editing series of ideas.

Here, the Hex is flanked by two buttons on each side. One side for moving forward and the other for moving backward in the current series. To the previous/next, or to the beginning/end.

Manually tapping any concept (or anywhere on the canvas) will return to the draw context, and dragging the canvas will pan the view.

See the series section of these docs for more on using this context.

Switching contexts by keyboard

Tap Ctrl , (comma) and Ctrl . (period) to move between contexts.