Tana has many different types of nodes, and icons to reflect what these types are. Below is a list of all the different types you may encounter.
Plain nodes show up as dark grey, solid dots.
Plain nodes with content show up with a lighter halo around them.
Related doc: Nodes and References
References show up with dashed outlines.
You can also have an inline reference or a link to a node, signified by the grey background.
Related doc: Nodes and References
Search nodes show up with a magnifying glass in the node.
Related doc: Search nodes
Since Tana is a knowledge graph, and every note is a node, Tana is treating some top level nodes as an "Entity". This is the equivalent to a "page" or "document" in other tool. This is a mechanism to avoid surfacing individual nodes that are part of a bigger "document" in searches where it wouldn't make sense to show them out of context.
A node is considered an entity if:
Entities can be used to build search nodes, and are used for the Recents view in the sidebar. You can also use it to build your own live searches.
If you have a node that is not treated as an entity, but you would like it to be, you can use the command Set entity override to
Nodes with contextual content show up as diamond shaped.
Related doc: Nodes and References
Supertag definitions show up as a hashtag inside a circle.
Related doc: Supertags
Many field definitions show up as a square icon with the various symbols signifying different field types. Others have just the symbol of their types with no framing square.
Related doc: Fields
Fields show up similarly as field definitions, but with an empty node as placeholder for entering a value.
Related doc: Fields
A command node shows up as a typical command line symbol >_ , and inside a dashed circle as a reference.
Related doc: Command nodes, AI command nodes
A URL node shows up with an external link icon.
A code node shows up as two angled brackets.
A workspace node shows up with a rainbow halo.
Related doc: Workspaces
A node with an audio file looks like a regular node with a play button next to it. Expand it, and you will see more controls for playback.
Related doc: Voice memo
A node with a video file looks like a regular node with content that auto-expands to show the video with playback controls.
A node with an image looks like a regular node with content that auto-expands to show the image.
A node with a link to Youtube, Vimeo or Loom looks like a URL node. It will auto-embed to show the video with playback controls. You can undo the embed by hitting the X in the top-right corner.
Nodes with links to Figma, Spotify or X.com will also auto-create an embedded version. looks like a URL node.Spotify links will auto-embed to show the playlist or album with playback controls. X.com links will let you click the reply button to open a reply modal in the browser on x.co.
A node with a 🚫 bullet. Hover over the node to get more information.
Deprecated: Unknown (or no access) node. Showed a dashed box node with a no access sign. Means that the source that used to be referenced is unable to load / no longer accessible.
A dashed circle with no bullet, and the words "(alias)" at the end. This is a reference with no available content except the name, due to access restrictions.
In Settings > Private keyboard shortcuts, custom shortcuts show up with the command (for Mac) / place of interest / Bowen knot symbol.
When you delete something, they go to Trash.
You can access Trash via the command Open trash
To empty trash, use the command Empty trash for workspace [current workspace]
It may take a couple of times of running empty trash to get all nodes out.
A field definition is a special node that stores the settings of a field. It looks like this:
To grab the field definition from a field, put your cursor in the field name, then press copy (Cmd/Ctrl+C) and put your cursor on an empty node and paste (Cmd/Ctrl+V). That gives you a reference to the field definition. Then you can run the command Bring referenced nodes here to swap the reference with the actual node.
For more information on field definitions, go here.
While there isn't a search operator to target URL nodes, they all use a system-defined node to store the URL. You can grab the field definition for it in one of the URLs. and it will retrieve all nodes that use this field, which will be mostly URL nodes.
Note that the pasting of the URL search node into the search is to limit the search to only children within that node.