Scapple Beta - New Users Please Read

[cor_stellae]

Already downloaded and testing! Congratulations. It's good news knowing that your family of software grows every day.
I love the concept, and the fact that it can somehow integrate with Scrivener by dragging notes from here to there. My comments right now are on the side of interface. I'm a terribly visual person, concerning ideas, thus, I do love and appreciate this free way to take notes. But I would adore a different background (I really didn't like the yellow one as default; but I'll change it soon if possible), and I would appreciate more control or options on the forms of the bubbles, perhaps more like the kind of stuff you draw on paper… I mean, having circles, squares, clouds, etc…
Besides that, I understand that it's still developing. I mean this only as feedback, not criticizing. Congratulations again! Looks really promising.

[KB]

You can change the background colour to anything you like, and set the new background colour to the default. Someone suggested having different types of bubbles during alpha-testing, but I don't really like that idea as it goes against the dead-simple nature of the program.

I should also probably make it clear that it isn't "still developing". This is a beta version, so the features are pretty much finalised. As with all software, it will be enhanced and improved as time goes on, but the idea is to keep this simple and not have it turn into software that is constantly changing and having features added to it (like Scrivener ).

Thanks!

[dhruva]

It looks great! And is dead simple to use. Congrats!

[youngdad33]

Wow, LOVE this new software guys, thanks. Just wish there was something this good to use on my mobile.
Look forward to sharing bugs with you.

[dafu]

Pretty refined, there, Keith. Guess all these years in Xcode have honed your process.

I must confess though that I prefer your handwritten example at the top of the page.

Do keep it as simple as possible.

Dave

P.S. For people who require many more bells and whistles for this sort of thing, yesterday Zengobi released Curio 8, a vast redesign and simplification of a fine program. Frankly, I see good reason to have both. . . .

[viki]

Have two observations for applying note styles:

1) note style > apply note style > select red text > nothing happens to text, just the border disappeared
2) note style > apply note style > select title text, if then switching note style for this note to a bubble note style the text reminds formatted bold

Fine App. If Scapple-Files could be imported/synced to/with Scrivener, it would be the perfect companion.

I've tried CmapTools on Windows, which is a similar approach, but I didn't get it running on my Mac.

[matchavez]

One might want to give the option of the coffee-stain as a background. A music app called Sibelius has just that... and it adds fun to the thing.

[Kalus]

Keith, thank you, this is wonderful. Quick, easy, simple, versatile, and lets me have multiple unrelated clusters. Exactly what I want in a mind-mapping program. The fact that it's of the Scrivener lineage makes it all the better.

I know you're looking for bugs over feature suggestions, but it would be handy to let the canvas zoom in and out with the Mouse wheel, with a modifier. Perhaps holding the CMD key would let the canvas zoom?

Also, is there a way to center type within the bubbles when you're typing? It looks strange to see it left aligned.

I've also posted a zoom related bug into the forum.

-Lukas

[Declan]

I've enjoyed my little test. Good product. I foresee greatness in the near future.

This is neither a bug report, nor a feature request, but a question.
Is there a simple way to describe the way in which notes should be ordered to facilitate ordered opml export.
It seems that it respects Top to Bottom, and Left to Right. But it seems not to be too interested in links or arrows. Is that right?
Are there any guidelines to getting the opml export to have something like the order one intends?

Declan

[KB]

1) note style > apply note style > select red text > nothing happens to text, just the border disappeared

Curious, I can't reproduce this. The note styles affect everything - borders and so on - so the border will disappear. But are you saying that it didn't even change the text to red for you?

2) note style > apply note style > select title text, if then switching note style for this note to a bubble note style the text reminds formatted bold

I was going to say that this is normal, because the way things work is that if a note is *all* bold or *all* italics, then when you copy its style, the note you apply it to will also be made all bold or all italics (if a note has a mixture of bold, italics and regular, then the bold or italics won't get copied into the style). But I agree that it is a bit odd that changing back to another style doesn't get rid of the bold, so I have fixed this for the next update - it now works that if you switch to a style that, say, doesn't have bold, but the selected note is currently *all* bold, then the bold will be removed (but if it has some bold and some regular, then the bold won't be touched). That makes more sense, I think.

If Scapple-Files could be imported/synced to/with Scrivener, it would be the perfect companion.

Well, you have a few options. If you download the latest beta of Scrivener, you can just drag notes from Scapple into Scrivener's corkboard. Or, you can drag a Scapple map from the Finder into Scrivener's binder and view it in the Quick Look preview in Scrivener. Or you can export as text or PDF from Scapple, and import that into Scrivener.

Thanks!

All the best,
Keith

[KB]

I've enjoyed my little test. Good product. I foresee greatness in the near future.

Thanks!

This is neither a bug report, nor a feature request, but a question.
Is there a simple way to describe the way in which notes should be ordered to facilitate ordered opml export.
It seems that it respects Top to Bottom, and Left to Right. But it seems not to be too interested in links or arrows. Is that right?

Not quite. There's no really logical way software can work out the intentional order of a freeform approach like this - it can even be difficult for a human. But the approach it takes is first to go from left to right, but then, when it finds a note with connections, it walks through those connections. With a map with many connections, this might not always be obvious in the results, though, because of how the connections can branch off, or point back to earlier notes. But if, as a test, you create, say, eight notes in random positions, and join four of them in a chain and the other four in a chain, you'll see what I mean.

Are there any guidelines to getting the opml export to have something like the order one intends?

Open it in an outliner and start shuffling.

All the best,
Keith

[mikedunham]

Very interesting - for me it fills in the gap between "mindmaps" and concept maps. Both have a lot of value when you are trying to quickly jot down ideas and map the relationships between them. The truth is - thoughts don't automatically come in outline form! Well, at least not in my head.

Right away I can see this being a good tool for character relationships, scene progressions, and character motivation - the list goes on...

Adding to my tool kit for writing and yes - $10 is quite nice at this point - compared to some of the overburdened mindmapping programs that are out there...

Regards

Mike

[Hugh]

Pretty refined, there, Keith. Guess all these years in Xcode have honed your process.

I must confess though that I prefer your handwritten example at the top of the page.

Do keep it as simple as possible.

Dave

P.S. For people who require many more bells and whistles for this sort of thing, yesterday Zengobi released Curio 8, a vast redesign and simplification of a fine program. Frankly, I see good reason to have both. . . .

... and you can use both together. Export a "scappling" as OPML to the desktop, then drop the file on a Curio 8 idea-space - you have a mind-map or list.

[KB]

Export a "scappling"...

Hey! If you take a look at the manual, you'll see that I'm really trying to make "Scapple map" happen.

[Floss]

,mapple,