Nope. Why should there always be a “first Object”, that’s on top of the tree?
Think on a Space with even less then five Objects. A space with only three Objects.
Link them together like a triangle (the smallest ring structure btw.):
A links to B
B links to C
C links to A
Don’t tell me, there is a clear “top of the tree”.
If you still think so, then add a fourth Object and link them together like a square.
Still not clear? Then draw also the diagonals into the square and link the Objects in this way: each corner links to the other three Objects.
Again: such a structure is not a tree.
A tree has in principle always only one parent Object. Never two or more.
I understand that you have the wish for diferent kinds of visual representation then the “messy” looking graph.
But if you explicit ask for a “tree” representation, then you’re wrong – it’s simply not possible to press Anytype’s much more rich and complicated structure into a tree layout.
That’s not a valid example. The sidebar shows never something like a full tree, because it can’t do that.
It shows only a tiny fragment. A Collection has some Objects in it. Each of these Objects are represented in the widget as if they would have exact one parent (the Collection).
But each Object in a shown Collection could at the same time also be in some other Collections and additionally be linked with each other.
The widget in the side menu does not and can not represent such things.
The widget shows only what belongs into exact one Collection, it spare out the fact that the Object in that Collection could at the same time also have other parent Collections (and/or parent Objects). Therefore: this representation spares out all these complicated criss-cross connections and multi-parent dependencies.
As already written in my last post:
Anytype’s structure is in principle an “organic” layout, as seen in your linked thread.
– Try it for yourself to draw the “organic” structure from the image in your linked thred as a “tree” (there each Object has only exact ONE parent, never more then one!).
It’s simply impossible.
.
You could as for another representation, where the graph spares out the Links between Objects and shows only The links from Collections to their child Objects.
In the result, it would look less messy, because there are no longer all these ring-like parts in the Graph.
But even then: An Object can still have more then one parent aka Collection. Therefore it’s still not a simple tree and still looks more messy then a tree.
To give you an example for that:
Draw three Collections on a paper and three Objects.
Then let each Object be in each of these three Collections.
No matter what you try, it will never be (nor look like) a tree.
Really do it: try to draw my examples on a paper!
It should become absolutely clear then, that the result has nothing to do with a tree structure!
And then imagine even more complex structures then the given examples, with more then only 3-5 Objects and with links from and to everything.
– You can’t ignore this, it is definitely not a tree and will never (can’t never) look like a tree – it is a much richer and much more complicated “organic” structure.
