Exchange
A board is not locked inside nexcanvas.
nexlore keeps your notes, nexcanvas draws. Between the two, and with Obsidian as well, boards travel as JSON Canvas, an open format for canvases. For everyone else there is a picture or a PDF.
What JSON Canvas is
JSON Canvas is an open format for canvases, described on jsoncanvas.org. Such a file ends in .canvas and holds cards with text, files and links, groups and the connections between them. Obsidian writes its canvases this way, and so does nexlore.
nexcanvas saves a board in exactly this form. What the others don't know, such as shapes, drawings, rotation, background and title, it puts into a block of its own that the others leave alone. When the file comes back, everything is there again.
Handing a board out
The board's menu has “Save as JSON Canvas”. Anyone who may read the board can use it.
| In nexcanvas | In the file |
|---|---|
| Notes, texts and shapes | Text cards |
| Photos and files | File cards |
| Links | Link cards |
| Frames | Groups |
| Lines between two things | Connections |
| Drawings and lines with a free end | nexcanvas's own block |
Without photos and files you get a single .canvas file. With them you get a ZIP in which the files sit in the attachments/ folder.
Bringing a canvas in
Into an open board
“Bring in a JSON Canvas” in the board's menu places the contents of a .canvas or ZIP file around the middle of the view. A text card becomes a note in the nearest of the seven note colours, a group becomes a frame, and a file card fetches the photo or file of the same name from the archive. If a file is missing, a note takes its place so you can see what was missing.
As a new board
When you create a board there is “From a file …”. nexcanvas takes the title from the field if you entered one, otherwise from the file or its name. That is also how a board moves from one nexcanvas to another.
Cora saysnexcanvas treats an archive from outside like any other upload: every file in it is checked, and the names from the archive never end up as a path on the disk.
With nexlore
nexlore is the note app from the same family. Its canvases are JSON Canvas too. You put a board from nexcanvas into your vault as a file, and nexlore shows notes, photos and frames. What only nexcanvas can draw stays preserved in the block.
The other way round, you bring a canvas from nexlore into a board and keep drawing on it, with shapes, pen and everything else. Both apps look alike and work in a similar way, so if you know one, you find your way around the other.
As a picture or PDF
“Export” in the board's menu, or “Export selection” in the bar above a selection.
- What: the whole board, just the selection, or all scenes as a PDF with one page per frame, in the order of the scenes list.
- How sharp: nexcanvas draws at double size, with the longest side at most 8,000 pixels.
- How it looks: as light or dark as you see nexcanvas right now. With PNG you choose whether the board's background comes along.
Cora saysThe PDF is made of picture pages. That is enough for sending and printing, but you can't copy text out of it.
