Scapple for Mac - Beta Testing Has Begun!

shrumpkin · October 18, 2012, 5:55pm

The bottom of Scrivener’s editor indicates that the file indeed is a Scapple Map; however the image itself is only a blank page with a curl of the top right. :-/

Best,

Michael
Scapple Document.jpg

AmberV · October 18, 2012, 7:24pm

What version of OS X are you running? If it is Lion up you should be getting the Quick Look preview for Scapple file, which is just a graphic snapshot of the whole map.

shrumpkin · October 18, 2012, 8:09pm

I’m running Lion, 10.7.5 Hmm…

KB · October 18, 2012, 8:12pm

Scapple doesn’t run on anything lower than [EDITED]Snow Leopard anyway. That indicates that OS X isn’t using Scapple’s Quick Look plugin. After moving to your Applications folder, launch Scapple, then relaunch the system, in order to coax OS X into recognising the plugin.

shrumpkin · October 18, 2012, 8:25pm

…I did exactly as directed: 1) Launched Scapple, 2) Restarted the system (twice), but same thing. The plugin isn’t working, for me. :-/

AmberV · October 18, 2012, 9:41pm

Try resetting the Quick Look cache with:

qlmanage -r

On the command-line (Terminal). You should get a message, “qlmanage: resetting quicklookd”, then do another reboot. Then test a .scap file in Finder, verifying it works there, and then testing in Scrivener.

shrumpkin · October 18, 2012, 9:52pm

Thanks, Amber, but clearing the cache didn’t work. It doesn’t afford me a preview in the Finder or in Scrivener. What to do?

shrumpkin · October 18, 2012, 10:20pm

Anyone else have any ideas to help me out? I deleted the QuickLook preferences, still no go. I think I’m going to need the QuickLook plugins. Mine are missing or aren’t working right.

Lord_Lightning · October 19, 2012, 12:57am

Hi shrumpkin. Please don’t think I am talking down to you. But it may be possible that you are confusing QuickRef with QuickLook (Quick Look)?

Quick Look and Finder that Amber is referring to are Apple Operating System functions.
apple.com/findouthow/mac/#quicklook
FINDER > VIEW > CUSTOMIZE TOOLBAR > QUICK LOOK
Drag Quick Look up to your Finder Toolbar - it looks like an eye in a little box.

QuickRef is a Scrivener function - you can also customise your Scrivener tool bar to have QuickRef visible all the time when you have Scrivener booted up by dragging Quick Reference up to your Scrivener toolbar.
SCRIVENER > VIEW > CUSTOMIZE TOOLBAR > QUICKREFERENCE
It looks like a little grey box with a couple of opposed arrows.

schakwin · October 19, 2012, 2:56am

KB:

schakwin:

So I downloaded the Scapple beta to my laptop. Created a file. Stored it in Dropbox. Went to my desktop to open it. I went to FILE/OPEN/DROPBOX/SCAPPLE DOCUMENTS/[name of document]. Nothing happened. Went to FINDER/DROPBOX/SCAPPLE DOCUMENTS/[name of document] and double clicked. Nothing happened. Right clicked and went to OPEN WITH. Scapple was listed as the associated application. Nothing happened. Right clicked and selected OPEN. Same story.

Mystery to me.

This one’s a mystery to me, too, sorry! It sounds as though the file got corrupt somehow. Scapple files are just flat XML files, saved using Cocoa’s regular document structure classes (which is all handled by OS X), so there shouldn’t be anything in Scapple that could affect things at this level. Is it just the one document?

being able to assign colors to text in the entries and to the borders - not necessarily the same colors

You can already do this. Just bring up the Inspector or use the Format menu.

Thanks for the other suggestions, but many of them fall outside the scope of the app, sorry - especially the idea of having master notes. The whole idea is that it is freeform with no hierarchy.

All the best,
Keith

Thanks Keith -
It looks like a great product and I can do without the node function, though it would be useful. I will buy it as soon as you can have it ready to sell and $10 seems fine to me.

FWIW, I think your corruption theory is possible but I don’t understand why a corrupted (and not very complex) file would open from Dropbox perfectly on the computer that it was created on (my laptop) and not on my desktop. I tested it by trying the reverse - file created on desktop and stored in Dropbox. It opened perfectly on laptop. As they say in XML programming, go figure.

Thanks for the point to the inspector. That helped a lot. Next time I’ll read the manual ( ). If we could apply styles (line options (including color), directional arrows, and labels) to the note connectors, that would be a wonderful thing - in effect a new kind of layer of information hierarchy. And tagging of notes and connectors would be nice.

Still, if you issued it as it is now, it would still be a great product. Thanks for coming up with it. Now on to ios versions??

All best,

Stephen

shrumpkin · October 19, 2012, 4:24am

Hi Lord Lightning,

I do understand the difference between QuickReference and QuickLook being a function of Scrivener and OSX respectively. My system is not allowing me to see previews of Scapple files as it does with other files. And because Scrivener uses QuickLook for the user to see the entire map file, mine just shows a generic piece of paper. The plugin is not working correctly.

shrumpkin · October 19, 2012, 4:28am

Keith,

Any other ideas how I can get OSX to recognize the Scapple QuickLook plugin?

AmberV · October 19, 2012, 4:52am

I found this searching Google for “Quick Look” doesn’t work. This this will reset your Finder and Quick Look preferences:

shrumpkin · October 19, 2012, 5:10am

(sigh) Nope. Neither worked. It’s interesting: QL works for all other files my system recognizes such as .txt, .rtf, etc., it’s the .scap files that are not recognized. grr…

Lord_Lightning · October 19, 2012, 5:37am

I wonder if just doing a preferences clean up on the scap files would let Quick Look see them. Check that the scap files are indeed open to you and even the administrator.

Just out of curiosity try EXPORTing the files. I tried export to my desktop as an OPML for this exercise and found that I had to change the file preferences after doing a Get Info on the file to examine the preferences.

Maybe go to Utilites and then Disk Utility and run Repair Permissions - that will reset the Apple Quick Look permissions.

Well, it’s worth a try.

shrumpkin · October 19, 2012, 5:57am

What did you change? What app do you use to open your opml files?

shrumpkin · October 19, 2012, 6:03am

I’ve ran disk utility dozens of times. No avail. FYI, I cannot QuickLook .opml files either.

shrumpkin · October 19, 2012, 6:06am

I should mention that I once did have a mindmapping software called Xmind; also Mindnode. But I’ve since uninstalled them. I wonder if something has been deleted at the system level?

Lord_Lightning · October 19, 2012, 7:14am

Scrivener or Omni Outline Pro or Tree or my big research depository on Devonthink Pro.

You say you have run Disk Utility - I guess that means you have updated the permissions on the disk that has the scapple files on it. But you did not say whether you had done a Get Info on any of the actual Scapple files to examine and eyeball the preferences settings for those particular files.

The reason I am suggesting this is that you are saying that Quick Look is behaving with all BUT the Scapple files. Since, that would indicate a problem with ONLY those files then logically Occam’s razor says try the most obvious things first - and that has to include the permission settings for the problem files.

KB · October 19, 2012, 10:51am

Ah, okay, it turns out that the Quick Look and Spotlight plugins were set to link against the 10.8 libraries only, which means they won’t work on earlier systems. I’ve changed this for the next beta, so don’t worry about it in the meantime; it will start working when the next beta is ready sometime next week.