Creating & wiring nodes
Everything in DNA happens in the node graph. Here's how to add nodes, connect them, and rearrange your work.
Adding a node
Press Tab anywhere on the graph to open the search palette, type a few letters of what you want (like circle or scatter), and press Enter to drop it at your cursor. You can also right-click an empty part of the canvas and choose Add Node....
Every node belongs to a family (shapes, geometry, rendering, and so on) and carries its own colour, so the graph stays readable as it grows.
Start typing the moment the palette opens — search matches names, tags, and node families. Right-click any node button in the palette to rename it, recolour it, or hide it from your results.
Wiring nodes together
Nodes connect through the small sockets on their edges: outputs on one side, inputs on the other. To make a connection, drag from a socket on one node to a socket on another. Release over a compatible socket and the wire snaps into place.
You don't have to worry about matching data exactly — when two nodes speak slightly different languages (say, a shape feeding a renderer), DNA inserts the automatic conversion for you. See Automatic conversion for what happens behind the scenes.
To disconnect, drag the wire off its socket and drop it on empty canvas, or right-click the wire and choose Delete Wire. To clear every wire on a node at once, right-click the node and pick Disconnect All.
Two-way wires
Most wires flow one direction: output to input. DNA also supports bidirectional wires, where a change on either end pushes back to the other (handy for live controls that should stay in sync). Right-click a wire and choose Convert to Bidirectional to flip it; choose Convert to Unidirectional to flip it back.
Some wires are computed for you (for example by a connection query on a layer pin). Those can't be hand-deleted — edit the query that owns them instead, and DNA will tell you which node to look at.
Duplicate, copy, cut & paste
Select one or more nodes, then:
Duplicate —
Cmd+D. Makes an instant copy next to the originals.Copy —
Cmd+C, Cut —Cmd+X, Paste —Cmd+V. Paste also works from the empty-canvas right-click menu, and drops at your cursor.Delete —
Backspace. Removes the selected nodes.
Select All is Cmd+A, and Frame All re-centres the view on your whole graph. If you have two or more nodes selected, Collapse to Subgraph (Cmd+G) bundles them into one reusable node — see Subgraphs.
The node title bar
The bar across the top of each node is its handle. Double-click the name to rename it inline — type a new label and press Enter, or Escape to cancel. Renaming is just a friendly label; the node's underlying type doesn't change.
The title bar is also where you'll see the cook badge (whether a node recomputes on demand or every frame — see Cook policy) and the controls for turning a node off:
Bypass (
B) switches the node off. Effects pass their input straight through; generators stop producing. This is the single on/off control for a node.Solo (
S) isolates the selected node so you can see just its result.
Right-click any node for the full menu — rename, duplicate, copy/paste, bypass, solo, recolour, pin to a panel, and Convert to Expression to turn a node into editable code you own (see Convert to Expression).