Focus Mode

Focus Mode opens any tile or item as a full-screen panel, giving you a distraction-free view of its content.

To open it, hover over a tile and click the expand icon (⤢) that appears in the top-right corner. You can also double-click directly on a tile to open it in Focus Mode.

​

Focus Mode isn't limited to tiles on the canvas. Anywhere in xTiles where items are displayed inside a collection — Table, Board or Gallery pages — you can expand any item to open it in Focus Mode.

Click the open icon next to any row, card, or gallery item and it will open as a full-panel view with its complete properties and nested content.

You can open nested content in Focus Mode too. When you're viewing a tile and it contains tasks or nested notes, clicking the expand icon next to any of them will open that specific item in Focus Mode — letting you add more context inside.

This works for nested notes, tasks inside a tile, and individual blocks. Use the back arrow at the top of to navigate back up.

Focus Mode has two display options you can switch between depending on how much space you need.

Central peek (Narrow) — the panel opens as a centered overlay, leaving the background visible on both sides. Good for quick edits when you want to keep the context of the page behind it. This is the default view when you open Focus Mode.

Wide peek — the panel expands to fill more of the screen, giving you more room to read and edit. Better for tiles with a lot of content or when you need to focus without distractions.

Switch between the two using the view toggle at the top of the Focus Mode panel.

At the right bottomtom of Focus Mode, xTiles shows all the places in your workspace that link back to this tile or item — these are called backlinks. They let you see the broader context of a piece of content: which pages and tiles reference it, where it was mentioned, and how it connects to the rest of your workspace.

For a full explanation of how backlinks work, see the Backlinks article.

Toggle the backlinks panel

If you'd prefer a cleaner view, you can hide the backlinks panel. Click the backlinks icon in the top-right corner of the Focus Mode panel to toggle it off. The icon only appears when the tile has at least one backlink mentioning it. Click it again to bring the panel back.