Skip to content

View Modes

A "view mode" is the way Octa displays the file's content. The Table view is the default for almost every format, but some files are better viewed in their native shape: Markdown as rendered HTML, Jupyter notebooks with cell outputs, EPUB as flowing text, GeoJSON on a map.

Switch view modes via the View menu in the toolbar. Only modes applicable to the current file are enabled.

View menu

All view modes at a glance

View mode Available for Read-only?
Table Every format No (editing fully supported)
Raw Text Anything Octa can read as UTF-8 text No
Markdown .md, .markdown, .mdown, .mkd No (edit + preview)
Notebook .ipynb Yes
JSON Tree .json, .jsonl Edit keys + values in place
YAML Tree .yaml, .yml Same as JSON Tree
EPUB Reader .epub Yes
Map .geojson Yes (geometry rendering only)
Compare Any file (compared against another) Yes (it's a diff viewer)

Cycling view modes

F4 (CycleViewMode) advances through the modes available for the current tab in this order:

Table → Raw → Markdown → Notebook → JsonTree → YamlTree → EpubReader → Map → Compare

Note: Neither Chart nor the SQL panel are view modes. Chart opens in its own tab via Analyse → Chart or F5; the SQL panel docks alongside the table via Analyse → SQL or Ctrl+J. The cycling list above only walks true view modes, and cycling inside a chart tab is a no-op.

Modes that don't apply to the current file are skipped silently, so for a CSV, F4 cycles between Table and Raw only.

Read-only mode

F8 (ToggleReadOnly) toggles a session-only read-only state independent of view mode. Every editing path short-circuits:

The status bar shows a [Read-only] pill while active. A one-shot notice explains the mode the first time you toggle it.

Read-only is not persisted, so it resets every time you launch Octa.

Per-mode references

  • Raw Text shows the file contents as plain text, with syntax highlighting for source languages and column alignment for CSV/TSV.
  • Markdown renders CommonMark with a Preview / Split / Edit toggle.
  • JSON & YAML Tree is a collapsible tree view with in-place key + value editing.
  • Notebook renders Jupyter notebooks with cell outputs.
  • EPUB Reader is a chapter-by-chapter reading view with embedded images.
  • Map is a slippy-map view for GeoJSON feature geometries.
  • Compare is a side-by-side diff of two files (text or row hash).

The Table view itself is covered under Usage → Table View. The SQL panel and the Chart tab live under the Analyse menu and are documented on their own pages.

See also