Scapple Beta - New Users Please Read

[AmberV]

Thanks! That post had a link to the old beta. I have updated the download link and the information pertaining to it.

[MrDarcy]

This is a super cool development! I've been looking for a concept mapping tool (explicitly not a mind-mapping tool) for Windows and Android for some time. The closest I found so far is VUE (http://vue.tufts.edu/index.cfm) which is really bloated and too multi-functional

Looking forward to future development of Scapple!

[Tokyoguru]

I am another convert from the newsletter. I wish I had know about this before working so hard in vain to overcome the deficiencies of mindmaps.

Sadly I have not yet found any bugs - it's splendid.

I would endorse much of jtw's wishlist - especially "group objects" with (permeable) boundaries, although I can handle this using colours, image pasting, and foo, bar, foobar.

[jsriggio@cs.com]

I've been using Scapple Beta for a couple of weeks. I love the product conceptually, and I'm about 90% to loving it technically. Simply ... it works. I love when a product does what it sets out to and does it well.

The challenge I have is the complexity of the command set. Too many keys to push and hold to get the product to respond to more sophisticated commands. However, for the most part that's overcome by the simplicity of the most used and useful commands, e.g.: new note creation with a double click, or connecting notes by dragging.

What I'd love to see as an example is a simpler way to turn a dotted line into an arrow by clicking on it and pressing an arrow key with the direction you want it going at the same time.

[TimEss]

Keith. I like the way your mind works: I've been a fan of Scrivener for several years, but now that you are in the throes of launching Scapple, I decided I must post my appreciation:

This (Scapple) is already looking like a superb, and really useful, piece of software. I have been tinkering with it on and off since finding and downloading it a few days ago; and it's easily the best (and, assuming you price it as you've indicated you will, affordable) idea-mapping software I think I've seen, and I look out for these. Indeed, the more I think about it the more it seems to do what I always (ignorantly) hoped I would be able to do with a computer 'just like that' when I first obtained one 20 years ago! So, 'thank you', and 'well done'.

A small technical query though: Is it possible to change the font? From what I can see, it seems not. But I noted in someone else's post a reference to using a different font, suggesting it was possible and therefore wonder how so, if so; and if it's document-wide, or whether individual notes could appear in different fonts? I'm not sure this would be an enormously important feature, but since I like variety in typography I'm curious about it.

[gameboy70]

It there a way to revert the fill color of notes to their default?

I was experimenting with background color changes in Preferences without realizing that "Fill Color" referred to the background color of a note, not the document.

Then I tried changing the fill color back to match the document's background color from the color picker, but I've only been able to get a somewhat close match that makes my new notes blend in less than seemlessly with the background.

The Inspector has a Use Default button for the background color in the Document tab, but that option doesn't exist in the Note Style tab.

EDIT: Finally "solved" the problem by uninstalling the app and its .plist file (necessary to keep the reinstalled .dmg from using the previous configuration). I'd still like to know if there's a user-friendly way to revert the setting.

[UnusualSuspect]

@TimEss

To change the font, click on View and choose the inspector. Not the most obvious way to do it, but it works. I imagine you can change fonts from one map to another (haven't checked to see if you can, so experiment.) But each map apparently only allows one font.

[TimEss]

@UnusualSuspect

Thank you for your advice on where to find the font change. Funnily enough, I'd just stumbled upon it myself, and was going to post to that effect; observing that it's the kind of thing one might have hoped to find in the Preferences instead of the Inspector. However, having done the experiment you suggested, and discovered that one may have a different font per map (but only one font within each map) I can see why choice of font is not a global preference.

[davidblistein]

I find I'm using align edges (top/bottom particularly) when I want to make a bit more order out of the chaos…is there a keyboard shortcut planned? Or is this something I should just do from OS X shortcuts. Again, it's the perfect software at the perfect time. Been using it for less than a week and has already saved me hours (and a lot of scrap paper!) Thanks.

[MimeticMouton]

It there a way to revert the fill color of notes to their default?

You can select multiple notes and then use the Note Style "Fill Color" in the inspector to adjust the colour. To match the background, just select the "remove color" square, the top left in the colour grid (white with a red line through it). If you need to match a particular colour, select a note with that colour and open the colour palette either by pressing Shift-Cmd-C or choosing "Show Colors..." from the Fill Color drop-down menu. Then just select the notes you want to change and click on the colour at the top of the palette to switch the selected notes to that colour. You can also drag the colour from the top of the palette to one of the empty white squares at the bottom to set it as a custom colour, selectable then from the menus without bringing up the palette.

[Parzival]

I can't seem to drag Scapple notes into Scrivener, either Corkboard or Binder...

Nor can I drag Scrivener into Scapple...

I'm running the current version of BOTH Scapple and Scrivener on a Mac 10.7.5

Any thoughts on how to drag them into one another?

Thanks!

From beta-site: "The functionality is already built in so that you can drag notes from Scapple into Scrivener's freeform corkboard or into the binder. You can also drag from Scrivener's freeform corkboard into Scapple. However, all of this requires an updated version of Scrivener, so you should download the latest beta of Scrivener if you want to try this out."

[MimeticMouton]

Parzival - You need to be running the latest beta version of Scrivener, rather than the current official release as it sounds like you have. You can download and install the beta from the Mac beta forum.

[Parzival]

Thanks Jennifer. You were right, I did need to install the latest beta version of Scrivener, which I have now done.

I can drag the Scapple items into the Scrivener corkboard, but I can't drag the corkboard items into Scapple.

Am I doing something wrong, or is this functionality not ready yet?

Thanks,

[KB]

It works with the freeform corkboard only.
All the best,
Keith

[gameboy70]

You can select multiple notes and then use the Note Style "Fill Color" in the inspector to adjust the colour. To match the background, just select the "remove color" square, the top left in the colour grid (white with a red line through it).

That's exactly what I needed. Thanks!