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Getting started Getting started with NextGraph App ../../layouts/MainLayout.astro

Get started and try our official App by installing it, or using the web app at nextgraph.eu.

The App is available for

  • Android
  • iOS(soon)
  • Linux, specially Ubuntu
  • macOS
  • Windows

For unsupported devices, we offer a web version at nextgraph.eu, and will also provide a local install based on ngd soon.

Create a Wallet

The first step that is waiting for you when you start using our apps, is to create a Wallet for yourself.

The purpose and procedure is described within the app. Please follow the steps one by one. This process is a bit long at the first launch, but it is necessary. The wallet enables your digital sovereignty and independence.

We at NextGraph will never see your wallet nor its content. When you create your wallet, there is no access to the internet that is needed. Your wallet stays local, on your device. Only your encrypted documents are sent to the Broker.

For this reason, you will have to export and import your wallet from the first device where you created it, towards the other devices that you want to use.

We have made the transfer of the wallet easy, and you have several options. The easiest one is to use a QR-Code that will be displayed on one of your device, and that you can scan from the other device.

If this is not available to you (if none of your devices has a camera) then you can use the TextCode option, or transfer your Wallet File with a USB key. Those other options are also described inside the app. You can also find more information about that in the Wallet section here below.

Choose a Broker

All the apps (native or web) need to have a Broker configured in order to operate well. This is due to the 2-tier decentralized peer-to-peer network of NextGraph.

When you create your wallet, you will be asked to select a Broker. This is a server that is running 24/7 and that will help you synchronize your data with all your devices and with other users.

For now, we only offer you one Broker (nextgraph.eu) located in Germany. In the future, there will be other options too with Brokers available in other countries, and also with the option to self-host your own broker.

You will be able to change your broker later on. Your data will move to the new broker and all your documents will be accessible from the new broker. With NextGraph, all your data is totally portable and there is no fear to have with being locked-in with one provider or another. All your contacts will be transparently informed that you have moved your account to another Broker and everything will work seamlessly.

Use the App

Once your wallet is created and you are entering the App main screen for the first time, you will have to learn how to use it. Here is a brief introduction to the App.

You have created a Wallet, and inside this wallet, there is one default Identity that represents you. This identity is called personal because it represents you as an individual. You can later create more Identities if you want to separate your work life and your personal life, by example, or for other purposes of keeping your identities separated.

Within each Identity, your data is organized into 3 different Stores.

Stores

  • the public store : is equivalent to your website, blog, or public profile on social networks. You can put in this store all the documents, pictures, videos, posts, data, etc... that you want everybody to have access to, without the need for special permissions.

  • the protected store : is a space where you can share data, documents, and media with other users, but they will need a special link and permission in order to access them and collaborate with you on those documents (or just read them). You can also create Groups here when you want to chat or collaborate with several users. This store also acts as your protected profile for social networks. Only your followers will be able to see this profile, as it is not public.

  • the private store : this is a place where you put only private and personal information that only you have access to. This store will be accessible to all your devices, so it is useful in order to synchronize private data between them. You can put sensitive data too, as everything is encrypted. Nobody else will ever see this data. It is not possible to share the documents of your private store.

You can also later, move documents from one store to another, if you are the owner of such document.

When you arrive in the App, the first screen that you see, and this is your Homepage, is in fact, your private store, where you can organize your personal data.

Then you can access your protected store with the icon that represents 2 users.

And your public profile/store can be found with the icon that represents one user.

Documents

The app is based on the concept of Documents. Everything is a Document in NextGraph. Even your 3 stores' homepage are Documents themselves.

If you want to post some article, text, image or video on social media, those are considered a Document, that you send to your Stream.

If instead, you want to add some content to your public or protected profile, you just create a document there and it will add itself to the grid of content visible on the profile (like on instagram).

You want to write an email? you create a document, and then send it via email from within the app (this feature will come soon).

You want to collaborate with someone on a document? create it in your protected store, and select a contact to share it with.

You want to add a new contact ? this is also a tiny document, that represents the contact information of the person.

Each document has a type (which is called a "primary class" internally) and you have to select a type before you create a new Document.

The full list of available types is detailed in the features section below. It is also visible within the app, when you want to create a new Document (with the "plus" button).

Documents can be moved from one place to another within the store. You can reorganize your store as you like, with the help of containers and soon with folders too.

You can read more about Documents and Stores in the corresponding section below.

Document Menu

We bring your attention shortly on the Document's Menu that is accessible from the button with 3 vertical dots, at the top-right corner of the screen.

Each Document has a double nature :

  • it has a Document-like nature where you can store and edit some rich-text, or just some data, according to the class of the Document that you have chosen. This is so far very consistent with what we expect from a document in general. All the apps that you use with NextGraph, will store their data inside these Documents. The Document-like nature is represented with a "cloud" icon.

  • A Document also has a Graph nature, which is something new that NextGraph added (hence the name "NextGraph"). This "graph nature" of the document lets you link this document to other documents. It also lets you enter some specific data or meta-data about this document, that will be part of the Graph of all your documents. This graph is something important, that you are not used to. Social networks are all based on Graphs. The Web itself is a huge Graph. When you follow or get followed, when you like or comment on a Post, when you write a DM to someone, all this information is stored as a Graph, that connects different documents together. Later, you will probably need to query this graph. This is done transparently when you want to see all your followers, and when you want to consult the stream of all the posts that they have published recently, or when you want to search for something. It is also used for recommendations. But in any case, what is important to understand is that internally, each Document can be linked to any other Document (like the classical Web that links webpages) and that the applications you will use on NextGraph, will also store more Graph information. Because NextGraph is local-first and decentralized, this graph information is available to you at all time. And if you want to see it, you can go to any Document and in the Document Menu, you can select "Graph" and you will see options to view and edit the Graph. This is a bit technical for now (you will see things like Turtle, SPARQL etc) but in the future, we will provide here some nice tools where you will be able to explore your own graph easily. The Graph-like nature is represented with a "sun" icon.

Viewer and Editor

Also from this Document Menu, you always have the option to switch from the 2 different modes:

  • Viewer mode
  • Editor mode (if you have permission to edit the document, of course)

A document always opens in Viewer mode (read-only) and if you want to modify it, you have to go to the Document menu to select an Editor.

For now, only one editor is provided for each Document type, but in the future, you will be able to install more Editors, and also more Viewers.

If you open the same document in 2 different tabs or browser windows, or with different apps (on mobile, desktop, etc), and when you edit the Document in one of the windows, it automatically updates itself in the viewer or editor that is opened in the other window(s). Try it! it works great.

But please pay attention to the fact that by default, the live editing mode is not activated, and instead, you have to click on the blue mark button that appears at the top-right corner of the screen, in order to save your changes.

If you want to switch to live editing you can do so with the toggle button accessible from the Document Menu.

If you are editing a text document, please pay attention to the fact that live editing is going to send each character one by one, and this has a huge data size overhead/amplification, as each character will be encrypted and sent in our network, separately.

Viewers and Editors are what we call "Apps". And they can be installed from the built-in App Store (not ready yet, but will be available soon)

NextGraph comes with a set of Official Apps (listed in Features) that are always available, and developers can also create new apps, that need to be installed with the App Store.

Attachments and Files

From the Document Menu, you will see many other options, most of them are not implemented yet, and will not do anything when clicked. They are there to tease you about the upcoming features ;)

Three menu options are implemented for now : History, "Attachments and Files" and "Tools > Signature".

The second one is, as its name indicates, about adding some images or any other attachment file to the Document. Images will be useful when you want to insert some picture in a Rich-Text document (not available yet but you can already add pictures in the Attachments and Files).

History

History is another Pane that is already implemented. It shows all the history of modifications on the Document. You will be able (in the future) to select a specific revision and "revert" to it. Or to see more details about each modification (that are called "Commits").

Because NextGraph is local-first and based on CRDTs, if you modify the Document concurrently from 2 different devices while being offline on one or both of the devices, then a temporary "fork" will happen on the Document History. This is visible with a new colored branch that will pop out of the blue branch.

Once the two devices will be back online, you will see that they will automatically synchronize themselves and the "fork" will be automatically "merged". The colored branch will come back to the blue main branch.

You can try this between 2 tabs in your browser, or a browser tab and a native app, or 2 different native apps (desktop and android by example).

User Panel

The User Panel is another menu that is accessible from the logo of NextGraph at the top-left corner of the screen.

It offers some options to manage your connection to the Broker, your wallet, your account, and in the future, some settings.

You can also "logout" from this menu, which will close your wallet.

There is also an option to disconnect from the broker (with the blue toggle button called "Personal") in order to simulate a loss of internet connectivity.

If your internet connection is down, you can also see the status here ( there will be a red Offline sign ).

The App always tries to connect to the Broker every 5 seconds, unless you have toggled down the "Personal" connection.

Magic carpet

You might ask yourself what the magic carpet is.

It is not functional yet, but it will be something like a "clipboard" where you can store temporary data.

But unlike the clipboard we are used to (with CMD+C and CMD+V), the Magic Carpet can keep a list of many items, not just the latest one. This is useful when you want to move things around. Also the Magic Carpet is always reachable from anywhere in the app, and lets you drag and drop things, and see the list visually.

Stay tuned for more features, by checking out the roadmap.

And if you want to continue reading more about NextGraph, here is the next chapter, about what Local-First really is about.