Lines & links
Every line on the board answers one question: how are these two things related? The answer is written along the line, and its colour tells you who said so:
| Colour | Who said so | Can you change it? |
|---|---|---|
| Grey | The platform found it in your data: lineage, references, duplicates | No: it is a fact about the data |
| Amber (or red) | Someone drew it on this board | Yes: edit, promote or delete it |
| Green, red or grey with a glyph | A hypothesis’s stance on a piece of evidence | Yes: change or remove the stance |
Dashed ghost lines in other colours belong to Show connections; they are covered in Connections & neighbours.
Relations the platform found
When sources are scanned, Classifyre works out how assets relate: a file was produced from a database table, a document refers to a spreadsheet, two files hold the same content. On the board these are thin grey lines with their type written along them:
- transformLineageGrey, with an arrow the way the data flowed. Its type is written along it.
- referencesReference or useOne asset mentions, links to, attaches or uses another.
- identical_contentDuplicateGrey dashed, no arrow: the same content found twice.
- containsContainsFrom an asset to each of its findings.
The words along the line are the relation’s own name, for example:
| You may read | Kind | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
TRANSFORM, COPY | Lineage | The data flowed from one asset into the other; the arrow shows the direction |
REFERENCES, ATTACHED_TO, links_to | Link | One asset mentions, attaches or links to the other |
identical_content, likely_duplicate | Duplicate | The same content, found in two places |
related | Similar | The contents overlap a lot: near neighbours |
contains | From an asset to each of its findings |
Several relations between the same two assets are folded into one line marked ×n.
Point at a relation to read it in plain words, such as Lineage · data flows payroll.xlsx → export.csv or Duplicate · 97% similar, with a lock: the platform’s relations cannot be deleted from a board, because they are facts about your data rather than opinions about the case. Right-click one for Why is this here? and Open both (both assets, each in a new tab).
Why is this here?, or a double-click on the line, opens the relation in the Details panel: what kind of relation it is and what it means, how it was found and how sure the platform is. A likely duplicate shows its match score and the values the two share, with Open in duplicate review; a lineage step shows the columns that flow along it, with Open lineage. While the panel is open, clicking another line shows that one instead.
Which kinds of relation the board draws is up to you: View → Connections turns Lineage, Links, Duplicates and Similar on and off. The same switches decide which relations lead to suggested neighbours.
Links you draw
A link is your own statement that two things belong together: two invoices that contradict each other, a document that came before a payment, an email address that is the same person as a vendor record. Links are amber, with their kind written along them:
- related toA link you drewAmber, with its kind along it. The more confident, the thicker.
- related to · suspectedSuspectedAmber dashed: a hunch, not yet confirmed.
- contradictsContradictsRed dashed: two things that cannot both be true.
- precedesOne-way kindsPrecedes, derived from and communicates with read one way, so they carry an arrow.
- precedesGlobal relationshipA globe: the link is shared with every case and the lineage view.
- transformLockedRelations the platform found carry a lock on hover: they cannot be deleted from a board.
Drawing a link
Point at the first thing
Four small ports appear around it, one on each side, a little away from the node. Every asset, finding, hypothesis and note has them.
Drag from any port to the other thing
The port under the pointer where the link would land lights up. Drop anywhere on the other node, not only on a port. Lines always attach to the nearest side, so it does not matter which port you started from.
Say what the link means
A small menu opens where you dropped. Pick a kind: Related to, Same
entity, Communicates with, Derived from, Contradicts,
Precedes, or type your own with Custom…. The kinds you used recently
come first. Choose Confirmed or Suspected, add a label if you like, and press
Link. Enter takes the first kind; Esc cancels, and nothing is saved.
For many links in a row, switch on the Link tool (L). Every node then
becomes one big handle: drag from anywhere on it. You can link a single
finding, not only its asset: drag from the finding’s own ports.
Editing, promoting and deleting
Right-click a link:
| Action | What it does |
|---|---|
| Edit link | Change its kind or label, switch between Confirmed and Suspected, set its confidence (the line gets thicker the more confident it is) |
| Promote to global relationship | Copies the link into the shared graph of your data, where every case and the lineage view can see it. It gets a globe |
| Delete link | Removes it from this board. Undo brings it back |
| Delete everywhere… | For a global relationship: removes it for every case and the lineage view, after asking you to confirm |
Point at a link to see who drew it. Double-click it, or choose
Details, to edit it in the Details panel instead: kind, label, certainty,
confidence and a note on why the two belong together, each saved as you
change it. You can also select a link, or a stance, and press Delete;
Undo brings it back.
A hypothesis’s stance
A stance says how a piece of evidence bears on a hypothesis: it supports it, contradicts it, or is relevant without taking a side (neutral). The glyph sits at the hypothesis end, so you can read the direction without a legend:
- SupportsGreen, with a tick at the hypothesis end.
- ContradictsRed dashed, with a cross at the hypothesis end.
- NeutralGrey, with a ring: it bears on the hypothesis without taking a side.
Setting a stance:
- Drag from a hypothesis card to an asset or a finding (or the other way round). Instead of the kinds menu, three buttons ask How does this bear on the hypothesis? Click one and you are done.
- Right-click evidence → Add to hypothesis → pick the hypothesis and the stance. This works on several selected items at once.
- In the hypothesis’s thread, link evidence from the Evidence tab. See Hypotheses & threads.
Right-click a stance line to change the stance or remove it. Point at it to read the stance in words, with its confidence and note when it has them.
When lines crowd
- Two lines between the same pair of things bow apart instead of drawing over each other.
- Zoomed out, the words along the lines are hidden so the picture stays readable; point at a line to read it anyway.
- Selecting something fades every line that does not touch it. Focusing a hypothesis (click its card) leaves only its stances.