Feature Requests / Suggestions

Thanks for a great app! I second the request above for the ability to paste images directly into the app. I’m using Scapple to build a map for certain mathy subjects and I do a lot of clipping of formula screenshots. Currently I have to save them to Desktop and drag them into Scapple, it would be fantastic to just copy-paste.

I love Scapple and use it for “brainstorming,” plotting, timelines, family trees for characters – the possibilities are endless. I often have more than one Scapple file for a project, and would like to be able to “Find all Projects in Spotlight” as you can in Scrivener.

I am a long term user of Scrivener and have been using Scapple now for about 6 weeks. I’ve also encouraged adoption by about 10 new users, whom I’m confident will end up purchasing as well.

Scrivener is an amazing authoring tool.

Scapple is exactly what I need for a free-form thought capturing tool. I’m hesitant to ask for too much, but here are a couple of things that would be awesome.

  1. The ability to have other shapes besides the rectangle background object. All other capabilities being exactly the same. Embedded text, magnetic, etc…
  • Circle
  • Triangle
  • Free hand
  1. The ability to manage line attributes would be nice.

Again, I have become a heavy user of Scapple for home and work, and am sharing very actively in all areas, with both the Windows and MAC versions. I’m a MAC fan & advocate.

This is an awesome product. If nothing changes, I’m still an ecstatic customer. If any of the above is added, all the better and I become an even greater advocate. :smiley:

Thank you for this solution to my Mind-Mapping & thought capturing needs!!
Cameron

+1 for the “lock” feature. to be able to lock elements would be very useful

for example, it could be used to put a PDF as a “background” (a screenplay, for example) and put comments, shot indications, script supervisor notes, right “over” the screenplay - not having to put them on the side, which is very impractical for shots / script supervisor notes

I would love Linkback support and the ability to drag and drop equations from LaTeXit to scapple.

I understand if this is outside of the scope of what you want to accomplish and also see that MathType is supported, as well as dragging PDFs onto the page. I just love the simplicity of LaTeXit and the ability to edit those equations that are possible with LinkBack.

Thanks for taking the time to read this feature request. I love your work (and hearing you on nerdy podcasts).

BTW - I played around with MathType a bit and it’s the complete antithesis of the excellent work the indie mac community (like you) is producing. The interface does not follow typical mac design guidelines and the output (the equations) are just plain ugly compared to latex. Sorry, just a pet peeve.

Scapple is awesome! I would love to have a quick-access bar for note styles. I’m using color to organize my notes visually and having to go through four levels to get to a note style is wearing.

anjiro, does CTRL+SHIFT+I (show inspector) help? You can also set the Inspector to embedded in the Options.

Help, I composed a long post and then apparently hit the wrong button and “saved the draft”. Where is it? I can’t find it.

-Bob

Found it!

I was using this in the beta, but fell out of the habit for a while. Just finally purchased and see some easy improvements. I like it a lot.

First, a very easy add that would make my life MUCH easier in Scapple. When the SHIFT (or whatever) key is held down, constrain dragging of selected objects to vertical or horizontal. Once stuff is aligned, this makes retaining alignment very easy. Right now I have to realign after most drags. I know the arrow key movement works for short drags.

Second, and this is a lot more trouble, make “stacking” a persistent characteristic. This could mean cells in a stack could be dragged to another position in the stack and the stack would “re-stack” in the new order. Also, when a stack is surrounded by a magnetic shape, when the stack is added to, the shape should expand to contain the new element. I use stacking a lot because it is the only way to create indented content. For me, a stack is one note in multiple pieces and should be kept intact.

Third, a minor thing really, the “padding” in background shapes. I notice that the padding around notes within a background shape is modifiable with the mouse. This is impractical because there is no good way to make it uniform or quick. Why not make this a setting in the Preferences? Something like “Padding pixels”.

-Bob

Yesss, it would be so cool to be able to lock notes in place.
It would be nice also to have keyboard shortcuts for the alignment commands
and also to bring the styles not as deep as they are now (format>note style>apply note style>then the style I need to apply) and keyboard shortcuts would be nice too for that.

I just wanted to say that I do a lot of online group meetings and individual coaching. I share my scapple screen and people love it, they see things cropping up and making sense in a way they never experienced before (there are some whiteboards for virtual meetings but nowhere near scapple in terms of performance). On several occasions, I had participants asking me “what was that program you were using? where can I get it?” :smiley:

Thanks to the L&L people for making so many of us happier and more effective.

I forgot:

  • of course, I concur with everything that I have red above.
  • also, it would be great to be able to make things vertical and horizontal (like in most apps when you move something and hold the shift key down).
  • and, for those of us (like me), who work in stuff such as system thinking, the ability to make curved lines. that would be great! :slight_smile:
    At the same time, I love the simplicity of Scapple as it is, so what to do? :mrgreen:

I hope someone is looking at these posts. There’s no indication of it.

Another small thing that would make editing quicker is that when you click on an arrow or connection, select the two connected notes. Right now, that action has no semantics.

I use Scapple like a huge paper with no limits, so I’d love it if

  • when hovering over the linking line, the linked node be highlighted if within visual
  • when hovering over the linking line, a temperary ghost copy shows up when the node if outside of the window
  • a quicker way to jump to a linked node that’s far far far away and out of sight
  • resize the font size when drag and resize the node area (iThoughtHD)
  • Chalkboard mode with blackboard like back ground and white fonts
  • I would like a Chinese name which I can use to explain to my friend what Scapple is since it’s not mind map
  • Endless energy and creativity to the development team for more goodies to come

I really love Scapple for organizing research. Putting together ideas, files and concepts on a limitless space in a non-hierarchical manner is really great. Scapple is by far one of the best mind-mapping tools that I have tested so far. However, to make it even more powerful I would have some suggestions.

add scaleable background images, for example horizontal and vertical lines (with adjustable distance). I use Scapple for time-lines and it would be cool to use background lines as indicator for days, years etc.
Add a comment or note feature. As I said, I use Scapple for research and sometimes need to write memos for certain nodes (for example when Data is incomplete or whether I need to check an idea). Memos would be cool to keep track of things that need to be done
It would be helpful to give names to the connecting lines and arrows, which would enhance usability for flow-charts or causal chains
Also, add the MacOSX quick-look feature for documents that are embedded within the mindmap. Other mind mapping tools do this and it is great
Make a mobile version (iPad) to edit on the go

Ok, thanks!

Just so you know where I come from: I love Scapple as is. Bare bones, simple, just a jotting paper or napkin where I throw down a few words or phrases and sometimes draw e line or arrow between a couple of them, underline something and ringing in a couple of notations… So any suggestions that makes Scapple less of a paper napkin and more like one of all those rigid and complicated mind-map apps that tries to read my mind, makes me nervous.
But this is not a bad idea, actually. If it can be introduced, and with minimum fuss.

Scapple is my favorite way to organize my thoughts - they’re not linear enough for most mind mapping software, so I love that I can put it all down on paper and then find the connections.

One thing I’d really love to do with it would be the ability to flatten items onto the background. The items already group as layers, so hopefully it wouldn’t take a big coding change for you, and it would allow me to post my thoughts directly on top of pictures (for example), instead of having all the comments have to be outside of the image - well, you can kind of force a comment on top of an image now, but it takes some finagling to get it there, and anything connected to the comment shows the line under the image instead of across the top.

What I’m wanting to be able to do is something like this, where I added my own measurements for a project I’m doing, but I’d like to be able to connect those measurements with other comments, and right now, the lines to connect them go under the image instead of across the top of it.

Hi,

It would be great if Scapple notes could be revolved and/or angled. To turn right or left, vertical writing at least. Also to have the possibility of inserting circular notes, and curved lines.

Thanks, great software.

Guille, Buenos Aires

Another vote for enhanced importing into Scapple, primarily OPML but Markdown support would also be very useful.

Call me a fundamentalist, Scapple(without R)-hugger. But I’m against anything that makes Scapple more complex or “versatile”. Theres a shitload of programs like that, that (probably due to my limited intelligence/attention span) I just couldn’t get my grips on.

Enter Scapple, and suddenly I could do whatever I needed to do: sketch out a scene, disentangle an argument… without first define some central thesis, just jot down random thoughts and observations and draw some lines between them.

I even drew Keith’s ire when I in the Beta stage characterised background shapes as eye candy. Now I’ve come to see the point of background shapes, even if I don’t really use them. But I have to agree with Keith that

It’s up to Keith. But from my “less is more” (sorry, I’m Scandinavian) point of view: Keep It Simple!

In love with Scapple! Points of further improvement could be:

• An obvious place where background textures are stored (like icons in Scrivener). Cannot find it now. Looked in Library > Application Support > Scapple and in the package contents of Scapple. Maybe that would ease collecting textures. And a few samples by L&L would be nice :slight_smile:

• Using arrows is a bit cumbersome imho. Would be great to be able to easily change connections into arrows. And change arrowheads from left to right to both. Probably best from the inspector.

• I do not understand why ‘Arrow Keys Move Notes’ is a file setting and not a program setting. For me it could better be the latter.