Scapple Beta - New Users Please Read

Thanks for your reply. I am actually looking forward to use Scapple for mind mapping. I would use it prior to writing longish texts in Scrivener.

I am attaching an actual Scapple file, not a screenshot. Although it is short and simple, I have had no success when automatically aligning/distributing/autofitting in order to make visual sense of its info.

I will be grateful if somebody can make something out of it and let me know the steps it takes. Thanks.
alignment_test.scap.zip (2.76 KB)

Aligning and distributing are quite flexible and powerful but not automatic.

1 Select the anchor note, the one to which others selected will be aligned.
2 CMD-Click to select the notes to be aligned to your anchor.
3 Right-Click to select the type of alignment - by border or by mid-point.
4 Distribution, same principles.

Hope this helps
alignment_test.pdf (55.8 KB)

In fact, automatic layout is precisely what Scapple was designed to avoid.

1. I select the note I consider to be the anchor. And what do I do with it?
2. I select the rest of the notes.
3. I know there are several alignment choices (Left/Right/Top/Bottom edges or Horizontal/Vertical centers). The problem is that whichever one I choose, the notes come one on top of another.
4. Same as 3.

Would you be so kind as to specify which specific choices I have to make so that notes don’t come one on top of another? I am quite certain I am missing something here. Thanks.

The Distribute function takes the note with the greatest X or Y value (depending upon the direction you choose) and the note with the lowest respective X or Y value, and then counts the number of notes in the selection, and does the math so that n notes are spaced in an equidistant fashion between X1 and X2. Hence, if you pack 800 pixels of cumulative note width into a 600 pixel wide area, you will get overlap. I can’t really see a way around that without modifying the value of X2 or X1, and then it is no longer “distribute” but “line these notes up…”.

I finally get it, thanks. I was not using Scapple for headings but for full quotations. I was hoping to use Scapple’s nice capability to split imported text into multiple notes as a simple and polished alternative to docear.org, the academic literature suite. But I understand now that this is not the case.

Thanks for your support.

jmm, you may be overlooking Stack, which lines up notes vertically. It’s really another form of distribute.

-Bob

Thanks for your help, Bob. I’ve checked it but it seems of no use to me either because it places all notes in line, one below another, without attention to their hierarchical connections. If it can be combined with other distribution/alignment commands to achieve something different, I don’t know how to do it.

Hi, JMM.

Sorry for not being more clear. Let me start by saying that for me, Align and Distribute are essentially cosmetic functions to make the final product look pretty. Intended, I assume, for neat freaks like me.

In my first few tries with Scapple, I aligned and distributed as I went and wasted a huge amount of time. Now I just brain dump like mad, and try really hard not to worry about appearances until later.
Step 1 - Brain Dump (or, if you prefer something less crude, Brainstorm)
Step 2 - Move stuff around, make connections, add new ideas triggered by the connections, move the dross aside (but don’t delete) et cetera.
Steps 3 to ??? repeat step 2.
Step omega minus one - pretty it up with align / distribute.
Step omega - finish the project.

Let me go through your example.

It sounds like you might be selecting all notes at the same time. If so, this will not work. You need to maintain control and deal with smaller groups and arrange them the way you want them to look.

As above, the high level view of my process is:

• roughly move individual notes into an approximate arrangement, then
• then tidy it up with the Align and Distribute functions

Rough rearrangement - Please see rough_fix.pdf

From this point we can tidy up different groups of notes, one at a time.

VERTICAL ALIGNMENT

• for the 3 primary headings, intro, body, conclusion:
• • Intro first so Body and Conclusion would align with it. This is arbitrary.
• I then Cmd-Clicked Body and Conclusion so that all 3 are selected for alignment.
  – the usable alignment choices are Horizontal Centre, Left or Right edge. Vertical centre will cause a pile up.
• Right Click, select Align, horizontal centre.
  HORIZONTAL ALIGNMENT - Article, Body, and ‘uso de la tercera’
• Select Article first, then Cmd Click to also select Body and ‘uso’
• • Article as the first selected will be the ‘anchor’.
• Right Click, Align, Vertical Centre

Remaining notes are similarly rearranged in horizontal and vertical alignments. For vertical alignments of boxes with connections I align on Horizontal Centre (keeps the lines straight) and for unconnected boxes I use Left side. For horizontal connections of connected boxes I use Vertical centre and for unconnected boxes Bottom side. But I’m a neat freak.

Please refer to final.pdf

DISTRIBUTION just ensures equal horizontal or vertical spacing among selected boxes.

Again, I hope this helps.
Ama

Final.pdf (56 KB)
rough_fix.pdf (56.5 KB)

Thanks so much for your exhaustive support -

I’ve been using Scrapple for the past few days, and it’s an ideal, simple but flexible tool for my purposes, flushing out ideas of things that I want to cover in a complicated data analysis project.

I’m on a mac. Just want to comment that in the quick guide description in the manual the description of the roles under bullet 6 are reversed in practice.

It would be nice to add to the contextual menu the “Add Link” feature.

The QuickStart guide is being completely revised, don’t worry - it’s out of date at the moment. I’ve just written a PDF QuickStart guide which will feature in the Help menu of the final version.

Thanks and all the best,
Keith

In Scapple, how do I change the color of the background canvas? In other words, how do you change the color of the canvas from beige to another color?

Under the “Document” pane of the inspector.

It seems that you can’t expand the canvas neither to the left nor in upwards direction…

If you drag notes there, it expands as necessary, but no, you can’t expand it arbitrarily; this works as intended, though.

To effectively increase the canvas size to the top and/or left, use Cmd-A to select all of your notes and drag them all right and down by how much space you wish to create.

Keith, thank you, this is wonderful.
It is possible to see the margins of the page (the I have set in ‘page set up’) in the map window?
If not in the actual version, do you think it would be possible for the next?
It would be useful (visually) to set the map while I work, and for have it ready for a fast printing in the right paper format without any automatic resize
Thanks again
Frix

Hi Frix,

Thanks, glad you like it!

As for margins in the map window, no, this isn’t possibly, sorry–please see my explanation here:

https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/feature-idea-preview-of-printing-borders/21997/1

All the best,
Keith

Just dl’d the trial version of this SCAPPLE thing. After about five minutes it was clear that I would be buying it. I’m a list-maker, note-taker, and idea-doodler and Scapple looks an awful lot like a digital napkin to me. Many thanks!