Scapple and other platforms (iOS, Windows etc)

[spankybus]

I read your comments regarding iOS and scapple. I have been trying it for a few days and, as much as you will hate to hear it...this kind of app screams touch interface. It screams iPad.

For example, Scrivener is extremely appropriate for the Mac and Windows, being an authoring tool requiring a keyboard. I am excited to get my hands on the iPad version so I can work on projects when I cannot carry around a MBP. But scrivener feels more at home on a device with a nice keyboard and proper file management...a real PC, either Mac or Windows based.

Now, Mind Mapping by its very nature is a very organic process. It originaled from pen and paper, markers and white boards, hell even napkins. It is built around the rapid flow of handwriting. Hence why people are telling you that scapple seems more like a native iOS app. I don't want to think about the tool, i just want ideas to flow.

I like scapple, but it just feels too cumbersome for mind mapping. Everything I do is deliberate and requires thought...not about what I am trying to mind map...but HOW I am doing it. I am too conscience of the tool.

a free-draw tool might help...especially if it could convert the hand-drawn lines into your connector lines automatically. recognize the lines with or without arrows. Differentiate between solid and dashed lines. Not sure if its possible, but can one use the trackpad to free-draw when the FN key is pressed? something like that?? How about a wacom tablet??

Anyway, this is some initial feedback. Sorry if its depressing. But this does feel like a touchscreen app ported to the Mac....without the app to port it from. For whatever its worth.

[KB]

Not depressing at all - I'm flattered you like the app enough to want it for your preferred platform so much that you registered here just to make your points, much as I disagree with them. (I don't get your point about mind-mapping originating from pen and paper, by the way - so did word processing, spreadsheets and suchlike. I guess what you mean is that you find i-devices better for freeform thinking, whereas I don't because I just keep running into the device's limitations.)

Hence why people are telling you that scapple seems more like a native iOS app.

You and a couple of others, you mean.

Personally, I love Scapple and use it all the time, and find it entirely frictionless - the Mac is the perfect platform for it. For me, anyway, and that's what counts when I write software, so I'm not going to go into boring detail about the technical details of why Scapple is at home on the Mac, as that's secondary. I'd find it a lot more difficult to use on an i-device because it works best when there is a decent amount of space on the canvas, but even more importantly, as it is for getting ideas down, it is predominantly about typing, which is hideous on i-devices unless you use an external keyboard (in which case I'd use my MBA anyway). But that's fine, because I wrote Scapple predominantly for me, just as I did with Scrivener, and it's a bonus if other users like it enough to buy it. Obviously it's not the tool for you while it is Mac-only, and that's fine too.

[ptram]

As much as I like iThoughtHD to sketch ideas on my iPad, I would find Scapple much easier to use for free-form drafting. Not that you cannot do it with iTHD, but Scapple is more direct, cleaner than that. Obviously it does less, but this is its strenght.

Yes, yes, yes, please make an iOS version as soon as you can! You will need it, when you start liking the iPad more and more! Can't you imagine your frustration, when you discover that there is no Scapple on the iPad?

Paolo

[robertdguthrie]

It screams iPad.

You should get a refund then. I don't think I could use Scapple if it kept screaming iPad at me. Or any word for that matter.

[nom]

It screams iPad.

You should get a refund then. I don't think I could use Scapple if it kept screaming iPad at me. Or any word for that matter.

Mute switch.

Actually, I'd love Scapple on my iPad and hope that, one day, I'll be able to map out my ideas on the tram and move notes around with my finger. Scapple seems perfectly suited to the direct, physical, interaction a tablet allows. In the meantime, however, I love it on my Mac. I'll happily wait.

[KB]

Yes, yes, yes, please make an iOS version as soon as you can! You will need it, when you start liking the iPad more and more! Can't you imagine your frustration, when you discover that there is no Scapple on the iPad?

Who says I don't like iPads? I have five iPads, the first of which was shipped to me from the US before they were even available in the UK, and I use them regularly--for reading, internet browsing and coffee table stuff. In the three years I've been using iPads, however, I haven't once had the urge to do anything involving writing more than a few words, and in cases where I've started to write any more, the frustration has soon driven me to fetch my MacBook. I am still as baffled as ever that anyone sane would choose to do anything that involves much typing on the iPad--I just assume they are all masochists, or too in love with the device to see that there are other, older devices that can do certain tasks better (or probably both).

Anyway, all current iOS resources are devoted to Scrivener for iOS (something I want if only so that I can make very brief notes on my iPhone).

Baiting iPad users everywhere,
Keith

[ptram]

I am still as baffled as ever that anyone sane would choose to do anything that involves much typing on the iPad--I just assume they are all masochists

My dissertation on theatre included several references to works of de Sade and Sacher-Masoch. So many great works of art come from the experience of suffering and pain. So, I guess that using an iPad for writing is a great way to go into the next masterwork. A missing Scapple would only make things even bitter.

Paolo

[vic-k]

Baiting iPad users everywhere,
Keith

Ay up! Kev mate! Wouldn't go there if I were you. Ange, the missies's got one. She vicious enough when everything's going her way. Don't do it Kev...please Think de Sade to the power of ten
Vic

[KB]

I am still as baffled as ever that anyone sane would choose to do anything that involves much typing on the iPad--I just assume they are all masochists

My dissertation on theatre included several references to works of de Sade and Sacher-Masoch. So many great works of art come from the experience of suffering and pain. So, I guess that using an iPad for writing is a great way to go into the next masterwork.

It all makes sense now.

[KB]

Ay up! Kev mate! Wouldn't go there if I were you. Ange, the missies's got one. She vicious enough when everything's going her way. Don't do it Kev...please Think de Sade to the power of ten
Vic

I wouldn't dare upset Mrs K!

[jennydiski]

I've just got the loveliness of using Scapple for running daily notes and to dos. But hampered by not having them on my iPad. I knw I can use mac notes, but I hate the lined yellow paper. Does ithoughts sync with a Mbp?

[KB]

Oh no! Not you as well, Jenny, lost to the world of the iPad?

[jennydiski]

It's worse than that. I'm devoted to my mini Ipad. Perfect weight, decent sized screen. It's dying to sync my Mac's Sapple.

[5catChris]

There have been a couple of folks asking about existing iPad apps that might play well with Scapple. I have not tested this yet, but MagicalPad might be one. It does not have the clean-sheet-of-paper design (I mean in design of functionality, not physical look) of Scapple, but it does let you create a new point anywhere easily, it lets you relate notes in outline forms as well as free form, and it will import/export opml (this is the part I haven't test yet to see how well it works with Scapple).

I will still look forward to the clean design of Scapple for iOS, but MagicalPad might fill the gap until then.

Hope this is helpful.

=Chris=

[AmberV]

There are likely no programs that play nice with Scapple, because there are no universal standard formats for this kind of data, short of heavy-duty illustration formats like EPS, PostScript and PDF. These formats are not at all designed for the efficient transfer to abstract data models, however. They are designed for device-independent setting of printable material, so that a shape drawn in one of these forms (say, a clipart of a pencil) will print in the same dimensions and aspect ratio no matter where you print it from. In other words they are more a standard for plotting, drafting and laying out documents, than sharing data as one might with an OPML file between outliners.

Scapple does support export to data biased formats like OPML, but they will be non-spatial, flat and linear lists. So unless your definition of 'plays nice' includes rebuilding the visual appearance of the board every time you switch platforms: there is no such beast. Upon return to Scapple, you'll find only linear text files are support. There is no support for OPML import because there would be no advantage to supporting it over a linear text file.

And yes, Scapple does support vector PDF output, but you won't find any PDF editors that work with the same philosophy as Scapple. If you have Acrobat Pro you can try, and you'll see what I mean. A note with a fill and a border is actually some text overlapping a vector shape of one colour that is slightly smaller than, and overlapping a second vector shape of another colour, causing the illusion of a border being drawn around the first shape. The data model is almost entirely lost, it is just a painting of one.