# Undraverse: Groups & Presets

Undraverse is your whole workspace as a living map. Every note, plan, and canvas is a node, and every [wikilink](/docs/workspace/wikilinks-and-backlinks/) is an edge. It's the web of connections behind your backlinks, drawn so you can see the shape of your work and find your way around it.

As a workspace grows, that map gets busy. **Groups** colour the patterns you care about, and **presets** save a whole graph setup so you can return to a view in one click.

## Why explore the graph

- spot clusters and gaps you'd never notice in a file tree
- see what connects to a project, and what's drifting unconnected
- follow relationships instead of remembering folder paths

## What to try

1. Open **Undraverse** and stay on the **Graph** tab.
2. **Start a preset.** Groups live inside a preset, so save one first with **+ Add Preset**. It snapshots the current view.
3. **Make a group from a search.** Type a query in the search bar (say `tag:work`), click **Create from current search**, name it, and pick a color. Every node the query matches takes that color.
4. **Add a few groups, then reorder them.** When a node matches more than one, the group higher in the list wins, so move them up or down to set the precedence.
5. **Switch presets** to flip the whole graph to a different lens in one click.

## Reference

Groups help you **color and highlight** patterns in your graph. Presets help you **save and switch** your graph setup instantly.

## Where to find this {#where-to-find-this}

Open **Undraverse** and look in the side panel for **Presets** and **Groups**.

## Groups vs Presets {#groups-vs-presets}

- A **Group** is a reusable **color rule**.
- A **Preset** is a saved **graph setup**, including which groups are enabled and their order.

## What's a Group? {#groups}

A **Group** is a reusable color rule:

- It has a **query** (chips like `tag:work`, `type:note`, `-tag:deprecated`)
- And a **color**
- Any node matching the query gets its **node color changed**

Groups are **rules, not saved lists**: they update automatically as your data changes.

Groups are **global**: you define them once and reuse them across presets.

A group's query uses the exact same chip grammar as graph search, including the rule that **OR only works inside a single chip**. See [Search: Quick rules](/docs/undraverse/search/#operators) and [OR lives inside one chip](/docs/undraverse/search/#or-scope) for the full explanation, so a group query like `tag:work | type:note` does not surprise you (it ANDs, it does not OR).

### Making and managing a group {#manage-groups}

- **Create it from a search.** Type a query in the graph's search bar, then **Create from current search**. Name it, and it joins the active preset with a color you can change.
- **Recolor or rename** any time by clicking its swatch or its name.
- **Turn it on or off** with its checkbox. Off keeps the rule but stops it coloring, so you can flip a lens without losing it.
- **Remove vs delete.** **Remove** takes the group out of *this* preset only, leaving it available to others. **Delete** removes it everywhere.
- **Check your query.** While you edit a group you see a live **"Matches N nodes"** count, so you can tell at a glance whether the rule catches what you meant.

:::note Groups vs "Colorize by type"
**Colorize by type** is a separate switch that paints every node its built-in type color (note, plan, canvas, and so on). **Groups** are your own rules, and they take priority: where a group matches, its color wins; everywhere else the type color (or plain white) shows through. Use type colors for a quick default, groups for the patterns *you* care about.
:::

## What's a Preset? {#presets}

A **Preset** is a saved setup for the graph:

- **Graph settings** (the settings shown in the side panel), including:
  - Query and filtering: `searchText`, advanced filters, pinned and highlighted tags
  - Graph topology: `edgeMode`, `depth`, `focusMode`, tags enabled and topology
  - Display: view mode (links, +embeds, folders, tags), colorize by type, show arrows, node style (solid or outline + icon), label mode, node sizing, recency shading
  - Performance caps: max nodes, edge and label LOD thresholds and limits
  - Layout and sim: layout locked plus layout tuning values, sim run mode
- **Enabled groups** for this preset
- **Group order** for this preset (used for color precedence)

### Using presets {#using-presets}

- **Create one** with **+ Add Preset**: it snapshots the current graph settings together with your enabled groups and their order.
- **Apply one** by clicking it; the whole graph jumps to that setup. Click it again to **turn it off**.
- **Rename or delete** from the same row.
- **Groups need a preset.** Until one is active, the Groups panel reads *"Select (or save) a preset to enable groups."* That is by design: groups color the graph *through* a preset.
- Enabling, disabling, and reordering groups sticks to the active preset. To change the *view* settings a preset stores, adjust them and save a new preset.

### What those preset settings mean {#preset-glossary}

The field names above are the saved settings the side panel controls. In plain terms:

- **`edgeMode`**: which kinds of connections get drawn as edges. It steps from links only, to links plus embeds, to also including folder edges, to tag edges. Fewer edge kinds means a cleaner, faster map.
- **`depth`**: how many hops out from the focus to include (1, 2, or 3). Lower depth keeps you in the immediate neighbourhood, higher depth pulls in more distant nodes.
- **`focusMode`**: show the whole map, or zoom in to just the neighbourhood around the active item. Use it to cut a busy graph down to what is near what you are looking at.
- **Recency shading**: shade nodes by how recently they were touched, so fresh work stands out and stale work fades. (Paired with the recency time range: none, week, month, or year.)
- **LOD** (level of detail): hide edges and labels when you are zoomed out, then bring them back as you zoom in. It is a performance control, not a filter, so it never changes which items *match*, only how much the map draws at once.

These are display and performance controls, separate from the group queries above, which decide *colour*.

## Color precedence (first match wins) {#precedence}

When a node matches multiple enabled groups, the **first group in the list wins** (topmost / highest priority).

Example:

- A node matches **Work** (pink) and **Important** (red)
- If **Important** is above **Work**, the node uses the **Important (red)** color

You control that order: each group has up and down arrows, and the group nearest the top has the highest priority. Order is saved **per preset**, so the same group can rank differently in different presets.

## Tips {#tips}

Group queries follow the same chip rules as graph search (AND across chips, OR only inside a single chip with `|`, NOT with `-` or `NOT `). The full explanation, including the common `tag:work | type:note` mistake, lives on the [Search](/docs/undraverse/search/#operators) page, so this page does not repeat it.

## Troubleshooting {#troubleshooting}

- **Why is my group empty?** The rule doesn't match anything in the current graph setup (filters, scope, and caps can exclude items).
- **Why did the color change?** Another group higher in the list matched first (reorder groups to change priority).
- **Why did my `|` query behave like AND?** OR only joins values inside one chip. A query that crosses facets (like `tag:work | type:note`) is read as separate AND chips. See [OR lives inside one chip](/docs/undraverse/search/#or-scope).