Reference Operating System
v3.7.1 — Hotfix for startup crash, dead buttons, map port alignment on high-DPI displays, and media control sizing. Board View, Connection System, and Inspector are stable and shipping. Map View is functional and receiving polish updates.
Collect, organize, connect, and understand your references — all offline. Kanvaz is a free, open-source desktop app for VFX artists, 3D artists, and creative professionals who work with visual references.
Grab the latest installer from the Releases page.
Note: Kanvaz isn't code-signed (signing certificates cost money and this app is free). When you run the installer, Windows will likely show a blue "Windows protected your PC" screen. This is normal for unsigned indie apps — click "More info" → "Run anyway".
Prebuilt downloads are Windows only. macOS and Linux users can build from source — see Build installers below.
See CHANGELOG.md for version history.
Board View — an infinite pan/zoom canvas where you drop images, GIFs, videos, audio, and notes. Arrange freely, annotate on top, organize across multiple boards in one file.
Connection System — link any reference to another with typed, directional relationships (Related To, Inspired By, Derived From, Alternative To, Supports, Used In, References). Each connection carries optional notes and priority.
Map View (under active development) — a node-editor-style graph that visualizes all your references and connections. Drag from output ports to input ports to create connections. Bezier tube cables with glow and colored dot terminators. Independent pan/zoom from the board canvas.
Connection Inspector — select any reference and press C to see all its incoming and outgoing connections. Create, edit, and delete relationships from a side panel.
100% Offline — no accounts, no telemetry, no internet required. Your .kanvaz files never leave your machine. The one exception: an optional "Check for updates" button in the About screen makes a single request to GitHub — only if you click it, never automatically.
- Infinite pan/zoom canvas (8%–500%)
- Image, GIF, video, and audio cards with full playback controls
- Note cards with inline text editing
- Pen, arrow, and rectangle annotation tools in 6 colors
- Multiple boards in one file, each with its own cards and view state
- Reference Connection System with 7 relationship types
- Map View with node-editor-style bezier tube connections
- Connection Inspector panel (view, create, edit, delete connections)
- Undo/redo up to 50 steps (includes connection changes)
- Autosave crash recovery (writes to recovery file every 30s)
- Top Mode (Tab, or Ctrl+Shift+F) — hide all UI for distraction-free presenting; hover the top edge to briefly bring back the title/toolbar without exiting, Esc or Tab to fully exit
- Auto-hide toolbar (Settings → Behavior, off by default) — same hover-to-reveal chrome as Top Mode, but as a standing preference instead of a shortcut-gated mode; also relaxes the minimum window size for a PureRef-style compact footprint
- Grid snap (Settings → Behavior, off by default) — snaps card width/height/position to the grid on both move and resize, choice of Minor (24px) or Major (120px) increment
- Developer settings (Settings → Developer) — FPS/render-time overlay, card/connection ID overlay, manual diagnostics trigger, bulk test-card generator, one-click debug-info export for bug reports
- Top Mode auto-enables Always on Top (Settings → Behavior, off by default) — restores your prior Always-on-Top state when you exit Top Mode
- Tab+MMB whole-window drag — hold Tab and drag with the middle mouse button to move the window from anywhere on screen
- Optional update check (About screen) — the one network call in the entire app, fires only when you click it, never automatically
- Reset Kanvaz (Settings → Reset) — clears settings, recent-files list, and autosave/recovery cache, then restarts. Never touches saved
.kanvazboards, which always live outside the app's own data folder regardless of where you save them - Tag editing — add/remove tags directly on any card, shown as chips on hover/selection
- Search/filter (
/or Ctrl+F) — live filter by name, type, or tag; matches stay full-opacity, everything else dims so you keep spatial context - Always on top (T) — persists across restarts
- Board/Map segmented toggle in toolbar
- Light / dark theme (press L or change in Settings)
- Type-aware context menus (note cards hide irrelevant media options)
- Node.js 18+ (nodejs.org)
- npm 9+
npm install
npm startWindows (installer + portable):
npm run build:winOutput: dist/Kanvaz Setup 3.7.1.exe and dist/Kanvaz 3.7.1.exe
macOS:
npm run build:macLinux:
npm run build:linux| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| Scroll | Zoom in / out |
| Ctrl+Scroll | Fine zoom |
| Middle mouse / Space+drag | Pan |
| 0 | Reset zoom |
| F | Fit all cards |
| T | Always on top |
| L | Toggle light / dark theme |
| Ctrl+S | Save board |
| Ctrl+Shift+S | Save board as new file |
| Ctrl+O | Open board |
| Ctrl+F or / | Search/filter cards |
| Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y | Undo / Redo |
| Ctrl+A | Select all cards |
| Delete | Delete selected card |
| Ctrl+D | Duplicate card |
| P | Pin / unpin card |
| A | Annotate selected card |
| C | Connections inspector |
| M | Toggle Board / Map view |
| H | Hide annotations |
| Arrow keys | Nudge card 1px |
| Shift+Arrow | Nudge card 10px |
| Tab | Top Mode — hide all UI (also Ctrl+Shift+F) |
| S | Settings (toggle open/close) |
| I | About (toggle open/close) |
| ? | Shortcuts overlay (toggle open/close) |
| Esc | Deselect / close panels / cancel wire / exit Top Mode |
Boards are saved as .kanvaz files — plain JSON with version "3.7.1". Media is embedded as base64 data URLs. Connections are stored as a top-level connections array alongside boards. Files from v2.x load cleanly with zero connections.
- Custom key-value properties are in the data model but have no editing UI yet (tags got theirs in v3.7.0; properties panel planned for v4).
.kanvazfiles embed media as base64, so files with large video/audio can get large.- MKV and AVI video files may not play (Chromium codec limitation) — MP4 (H.264) and WebM recommended.
- Autosave writes to a recovery file only — "Unsaved changes" in the status bar clears only on explicit Save (Ctrl+S). The recovery file is now cleared on every clean close (v3.6.5) so the "Recover unsaved board?" prompt only appears after an actual crash, not on every launch.
v3.8.0 — Next milestone. Focus areas: advanced error diagnostics with version-aware settings migration, crash-safe save (write-to-temp then rename), .pur file import for PureRef users migrating to Kanvaz, custom properties panel (key-value metadata editing per card), and a color picker card type.
v4.0 — Long-term. Auto-updater (Squirrel or electron-updater), auto-layout algorithms for Map View, and the remaining reference types (URL, PDF, Color, File, Outcome) that are registered in the type system but don't have creation UI yet.
- Technical Overview — architecture, module map, build conventions
- Privacy — what Kanvaz does (and doesn't) do with your data
- Third-Party Notices — licensing for Electron and other bundled components
- Changelog — version history
MIT — free forever. Made by Atharva Patil — Northbyte Studios, Navi Mumbai, India.