--> (1) First of all - visualisation of e-books.

Currently, only PDF files are being visualised in the notes section. All other files are represented by a file name and an icon. In order to become a research and reading platform, more file types must be visualized.

And this is not difficult, as the visualisation code is available in open-source communities for free.

The following document types should be readable within Thebrain application:

type status Importance
PDF is visible, High supports reading
EPUB To add High supports reading

🛠 How Hard Would It Be for TheBrain to Add Support? (Chatgpt-answer)

• EPUB – Moderate Effort

  Use epub.js (JavaScript library) to render inside TheBrain’s web-like view.

  Would likely require embedding a web component and adding some formatting controls.

  Reasonably doable, especially on desktop (Electron-based frontend).

With these two types, 99% of documents will be visualised and immediately readable in Thebrain.

--> (2) As a reader and researcher, I miss a very important functionality in Thebrain. We miss the combination of an open document (.PDF or .EPUB) and an open notes canvas beside each other. This would allow a real note-taking process within Thebrain. Currently, when reading e-books, we need to have to use external readers and note-taking apps and import the results into Thebrain. But Thebrain could offer the situation as presented in Figure 2. It would be easy to copy specific sentences out of the book into a note. (Figure 1)

--> (3) Adding some extra functionality like:
- returning to the position in the 'book and notes combination' in order to re-instate the last working context and be able to work further where we left off.
- possibility to annotate within the e-books. Also, the possibility to visualise all annotations in a list and, by selection, go to their position in the document.

One thought further is that it would be great to have defined layouts in the brain:
Example:

• Default mode:
  Where you have the plex and notes canvas, allowing the basic behaviour using Thebrain. (Figure 1)
  This mode already exists.

• Reading mode:
  where you have both the document you want to read and a notes canvas together. When saving, both the context where you left is saved, and the note is saved as a child thought under the thought of the e-book. (Figure 2)

• Presentation mode:
  where you can present a stream of thoughts with their corresponding notes combined with plex-views that has been created ahead.

This include the definition of a presentation stream:
Define stream: <Stream-name>
1. Thought 1 - visualise plex and note
2. Thought 2 - visualise plex and note
3. Plex-view - view plex content only
4. View figure - view a specific figure within a note - (graphics)

To start: goto presentation mode and start the stream <stream-name>, this stream could be played automatically or manually.