Scapple Beta - New Users Please Read

EDIT: Scapple is now available for purchase. Please visit the product page:

literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php


Hello all,

It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to Literature & Latte’s newest piece of software - Scapple.

Scapple is now ready for beta-testing, and I’d like to invite everyone who is interested to download it, give it a whirl, and report any bugs to us.

[size=150]What is Scapple?[/size]

Scapple is the software equivalent of how I work out my rough ideas on paper. (If I didn’t hate the word “brainstorming” so much, I’d probably call it brainstorming software.) When I’m in the early stages of any project, whether that’s a writing project or a software project, I tend to throw a bunch of ideas down on a big piece of paper, spacing out as-yet unrelated ideas, clustering related notes, and drawing connections between them, trying to work out how everything fits together. Here’s an example of how my messy thoughts translate to paper at that stage:


[size=85](I wish I could say I hadn’t spent time wiping instant coffee on the bottom of a mug to add the coffee ring stain especially.)[/size]

And here’s how that same braindump (another neologism I dislike!) looks in Scapple:

In short, then, Scapple is a tool for getting early ideas down as quickly as possible and making connections between them. The main advantage of doing this in Scapple instead of on paper is that you don’t run out of paper (the Scapple canvas expands to fit as many notes as you want to create), you can move notes around to make room for new ideas and connections, it’s easy to delete and edit notes, and it’s easy to export your notes into other applications when you know what you want to do with them.

Scapple isn’t mind-mapping software - rather, it’s more like a freeform text editor, allowing you to make notes anywhere on the page. It doesn’t force you to make any connections, and it doesn’t expect you to start out with one central idea and branch everything else off that. There’s no hierarchy - every note is equal, so you can connect notes in circles or even connect every note to every other note if you so wish. Individual notes can be a short or as long as you like. Creating and removing connections between them is as easy as dragging one note onto another.

Most importantly, because its purpose is to allow you to get ideas down and make connections between them quickly, Scapple is dead simple to use. Although I’m currently writing a full manual for it, the QuickStart Guide a little further down should contain everything you need to dig in and get using Scapple.

[size=150]About the Beta Version[/size]

Please do remember that this is a beta version. Although we’ve been testing it in-house, and alpha versions have been publicly tested, this is the first full-scale beta-test. There are therefore bound to be bugs and quirks lurking - but that’s the whole point of beta-testing.

Thus, please do not download this software unless you are prepared to run into bugs and quirks, and, most importantly, report them.

If you run into bugs, please start a thread in this Beta Testing area. (Note that the “Technical Support” and “Bug Hunt” Scapple forums are currently locked and will only be unlocked once Scapple is out of beta - all posts about the beta version should be posted in the Beta Testing forum.)

Also, please note the following:

  • This beta will expire on 27th February. I’m hoping to have this on sale before then.
  • The manual is not yet complete. You can access the partially-finished manual via the Help menu, but it peters out halfway through. :slight_smile:
  • The current application icon is just a placeholder. I have commissioned our regular graphics and icon designer to create one, but we are still throwing around ideas about what it should look like. If anybody has any ideas for a great icon, feel free to start a thread about it!
  • 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.

[size=150]The Download Link[/size]
(Current version: Beta 0.9.0.2 Build 2786)

EDIT: Scapple is now available for purchase. Please visit the product page:

literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php

[size=150]System Requirements[/size]
Scapple requires an Intel Mac running OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) or above.

[size=150]QuickStart Guide[/size]

  • To create a new Scapple document, select “New” from the “File” menu (⌘N). Also use the File menu for saving, exporting and printing.
  • Double-click anywhere on the canvas to create a new note (or hit ⌘⏎).
  • Double-click into a note to edit it; hit Escape (⎋) to end editing.
  • Drag one note onto another note to make a connection between them. Repeat to remove the connection.
  • Hold down the Command (⌘) key when dropping a note onto another to switch between making an arrow or dotted-line connection. Hold down the Option (⌥) key when dropping to have the arrow point the other way. Or, hold down both Command (⌘) and Option (⌥) to have arrows pointing both ways.
  • Hold down Option (⌥) while double-clicking to create a note that is connected to selected notes by a dotted line, or hold down Command (⌘) to create a note connected to selected notes by an arrow. Hold down Shift-Command to create a note connected with the arrow pointing the other way, or Option and Command to create a line with arrows pointing both ways.
  • Click on a note to select it, or click and drag outside of a note to create a marquee rectangle that allows you select several notes. Shift-click or cmd-click also allows you to select multiple notes one at a time.
  • When the mouse is over a note, a dotted line border will appear around it. Click and drag the left or right of the border to make the note narrower or wider. (You can also drag the top and bottom borders of images.)
  • Drag notes to move them around (to move multiple notes, select them before dragging).
  • Grab and drag the connecting line between notes to move connected notes.
  • Drag in image files from the Finder to add them to your Scapple map.
  • Most text files can be imported by dragging them in from the Finder.
  • When a note is selected, hit ⌘⏎ to create a new note that is stacked directly underneath the selected note. (When notes are stacked, they will automatically adjust their vertical positions when you edit notes above them in the stack.)
  • Stack selected notes by choosing “Stack” from the “Notes” menu ( ⌘[ ).
  • Hit ⌘+ or ⌘- to make the font of selected notes bigger or smaller.
  • Use the inspector (View > Inspector or ⌥⌘I) to change the appearance of notes or of the document. (Most of these options can also be found in the “Format” menu.)
  • Use ⌥⌘↑ and ⌥⌘↓ to zoom in and out, or use the slider in the footer bar.
  • Hold down the “z” key while not editing to zoom out and see the entire canvas. When you release the “z” key, the previous zoom setting will be restored, but now showing the part of the canvas the mouse was over when you released the “z” key.
  • Hold down the space bar and the left mouse key to drag-scroll the canvas.
  • The contextual (ctrl-click) menu contains many common commands.

[size=150]About the Final Retail Version[/size]

Once Scapple is out of beta-testing, we will sell it both via our own site and via the Mac App Store. (The Mac App Store version will support iCloud - only Mac App Store apps can do so.) We haven’t settled on a definite price yet, but I’m thinking that it will be around $10 or just under. If you have any strong feelings about the price, you can let us know by starting a thread in the Beta Testing forum, but note that we can’t afford to give it away (which includes prices such as $5 :slight_smile: ).

Finally, a big thank you to everyone who took part in the alpha testing thread and who gave me so many ideas for turning an originally-very-rough app into something that I hope is a bit more polished. A lot of ideas from that thread went into this version.

Oh, and just as with Scrivener, Scapple certainly won’t suit everybody - like Scrivener, it’s designed to aid with the way my brain works when working out writing projects and ideas, so please take it for what it is (i.e. if it seems pointless or of no use to you, then move along, nothing to see here).

Thanks!

All the best,
Keith

You tease!

I think the sandwiches are very good… But one thing, Keith - when I open the programme a notification appears telling me the beta will expire today (12th October).

H

Eh?

D’oh! That will teach me for making a quick alteration to the beta expiry panel right before releasing it. I’ve fixed that and re-uploaded it. In fact, it wouldn’t have expired until 31st December, it was just the date in the panel that was wrong (it would have kept showing you the date on which you opened it, whoops).

Thanks!

All the best,
Keith

Scapple > About Scapple - Sandwich Making: Keith Blount

D’oh no. 2. I’d forgotten about that!

Scapple seems to be 10.6 and Intel only, isn’t it?

What happens, if I use it on my MB Pro with 10.6.8? I have to update Scrivener too, as I understood. Is it possible to use the same Scrivener Project with notes from Scapple on different machines with 10.5.8 and 10.6.8?

I should have quoted the original post - now my post looks incredible out of context. For future record, it initially said “Placeholder text”.

Congratulations Keith - I will download it and give it a good playing with shortly.

Matt

Sorry, I should have specified that - I’ve added a section on system requirements. It does indeed require an Intel Mac running 10.6 or above. Unfortunately, Apple makes it very difficult to support anything earlier, these days. That’s why we now have to have two separate builds of Scrivener, and to build the 10.4+ version I have to maintain a Mountain Lion partition and an old version of Xcode and boot into that. I didn’t want to have to do that, or maintain lots of old legacy code, for a brand new app.

You only have to update Scrivener to the beta version if you want to test out importing Scapple notes by dragging them into the freeform corkboard. But you can use the same Scrivener project on different machines running different versions of OS X, yes. Once the notes are imported, they are just part of a Scrivener project, and Scrivener projects are platform-independent.

All the best,
Keith

Thanks for the quick reply and clarification!

Looking forward to try :smiley: My ideas need some procrastination and a new order!

Have now played with this a bit more.
Very nice, Keith.
H

Is it too early to ask about a Windows/Linux version? :slight_smile:

That having been said, I’d totally dig something like this. I’ve tried mind mapping software, but you can only have one root node, which pisses me off. Sometimes things aren’t connected immediately, and you need to have different things entwine.

Just a quick one… in the preference panel the option to check for updates does not fit in the box it says “Automatically check for” and a drop box that says when. i assume is for updates but i may be wrong

Oops, good catch, thanks! I’ve fixed that for the next update (and you’re right, the “updates” is cut off).

Heh, a bit too early, as Lee has his hands full for a while. :slight_smile: It will be a matter of seeing whether it is worth Lee’s while - if we sell only two copies then there probably won’t be any other versions. :slight_smile:

That’s exactly why I wrote it. Everything I could find either insisted on having everything connected off a central idea and were very structured, or the more freeform options seemed to be part of much bigger (although very good) applications, or you had to do this sort of thing in a graphics app. I just wanted something simple and freeform. Like my brain.

All the best,
Keith

Yay! Many congratulations.

See the attached jpg for my first Scapple test. I started with a Yay! item and a Boo! item. Guess what, so far nothing in the Boo! column.

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.

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”. :slight_smile: 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 :slight_smile: ).

Thanks!

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

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.

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. :smiley:

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. . . .