A new application, relevant to this forum, from the Scrivener developer, "SCAPPLE is a tool for getting early ideas down as quickly as possible and making connections between them." (Emphasis added.) It's in free beta now.

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=20396&start=0&sid=d1fc3900f9cda28f595c347dd6810351#p137100

I'm evaluating it. First impressions are that it is a rarity, a clean, lightweight application which enables fast and natural use of a narrow, well-chosen set of features.
Expect this to replace for Inspiration for me.

It is very reminiscent of CMap Tools. It can nevertheless stand out if it is fast, light and intuitive. CMap is just the opposite.

Mac only. Bummer, because it looks quite useful.

Jon

I don't have a Mac but as far as I can see from the screenshot you can achieve the exact same thing with VUE in Windows (and it's free):

http://vue.tufts.edu/

You can easily replicate the Scapple look by setting the shape background and border colours to white (if node shape borders bother you and you only want text snippets to show and be connected).

I like CMapTools but I prefer VUE because VUE does not force you to have to label your arrows as CmapTools does (it displays ugly question marks in the middle of the arrows if you leave them blank).

For that early stage of planning, brainstorming, what-have-you, I've found nothing works as well as paper and a few of my favourite fountain pens, well fueled with Noodlers ink.

For some things, pen and paper to me are still the best option - faster, and more versatile. As well, there is an aesthetic kick which I have yet to find at this stage with any software,

There comes a point when it "feels" right to make the transition to MindGenius or NovaMind, or to develop an outline.

From then, most of the actual writing for me is best done on the computer.

Daly


yooj wrote:

A new application, relevant to this forum, from the Scrivener developer,
"SCAPPLE is a tool for getting early ideas down as quickly as possible
and making connections between them." (Emphasis added.) It's in free
beta now.

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=20396&start=0&sid=d1fc3900f9cda28f595c347dd6810351#p137100

I'm evaluating it. First impressions are that it is a rarity, a clean,
lightweight application which enables fast and natural use of a narrow,
well-chosen set of features.
Expect this to replace for Inspiration for me.

Do you also find VUE faster and more responsive?

I use CMap Tools only for diagrams that are to be presented. There's a simple workaround for the question marks in arrows (just drag them under the topic) so that doesn't bother me.

But like Daly, at the first stages I have found nothing better than pen and paper, especially when I collaborate with others. The PC is too much of an attention grabber to let me focus on the conversation.


Dr Andus wrote:

I like CMapTools but I prefer VUE because VUE does not force you to have
to label your arrows as CmapTools does (it displays ugly question marks
in the middle of the arrows if you leave them blank).

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Do you also find VUE faster and more responsive?

Definitely, if you're referring to launching it. CmapTools takes a long time to launch. However, I never had problems with CmapTools being slow in the concept-mapping process itself.

I use CMap Tools only for diagrams that are to be presented. There's a
simple workaround for the question marks in arrows (just drag them under
the topic) so that doesn't bother me.

Sure, but that's a loss of momentum when it comes to concept-mapping as brainstorming, which needs to be as hassle-free and fast as possible.

But like Daly, at the first stages I have found nothing better than pen
and paper, especially when I collaborate with others. The PC is too much
of an attention grabber to let me focus on the conversation.

I thought that in the past but VUE is already very quick if you use the "rapid prototyping" mode and if you figure out its minor quirks such as what to click on or not to click on to avoid unnecessary nodes being created.

The reason I switched from paper and colour pencil/pens is because 1) VUE can be almost as quick if not quicker (if you use a text expander), 2) you have unlimited space (not the case with paper), and perhaps most importantly 3) you can more easily find and organise them on a PC, then free floating pieces of paper or notebooks in a messy office. I say that as someone who has an A3 size artist sketchpad and a box of 120 Faber-Castell colour pencils :)

Dr Andus wrote:

The reason I switched from paper and colour pencil/pens is because 1)
VUE can be almost as quick if not quicker (if you use a text expander),
2) you have unlimited space (not the case with paper), and perhaps most
importantly 3) you can more easily find and organise them on a PC, then
free floating pieces of paper or notebooks in a messy office. I say that
as someone who has an A3 size artist sketchpad and a box of 120
Faber-Castell colour pencils :)

Another benefit is the ability to rearrange a map and modify an old map, which you can't do on paper without wasting time with an eraser or starting all over again or ending up with a very messy picture.

Scapple's ability to work tightly with Scrivener is its appeal. I like VUE quite a lot and use its ability to visually display relations contained in csv files. It is also a wonderful brainstorming and planning tool. Dr. Andus, are you able to drag the map or selections to the cork board in Scrivener as Scapple allows? Can you do the reverse?

Jon

Jon Polish wrote:

Scapple's ability to work tightly with Scrivener is its appeal. I like
VUE quite a lot and use its ability to visually display relations
contained in csv files. It is also a wonderful brainstorming and
planning tool. Dr. Andus, are you able to drag the map or selections to
the cork board in Scrivener as Scapple allows? Can you do the reverse?

Sure, if it integrates with Scrivener like that, then I can see its appeal. But I don't have a Mac and I don't tend to keep too many images in Scrivener for Win.

Instead, I save a VUE map as an image file (JPG or PNG), and then drag and drop it into ConnectedText (from my Dopus window). For just a section, it would have to be a screenshot (with Greenshot) and then do the same. It involves a few more steps but it's still fairly quick, as Dopus is always open in the background for me, as is CT. I suppose the same process could be followed with Scrivener.

For that early stage of planning, brainstorming, what-have-you, I've
found nothing works as well as paper and a few of my favourite fountain
pens, well fueled with Noodlers ink.

I would say, in fact, that Scapple is more targeted at *this*, than the mindmap or concept map usage. The idea is to present a small suite of frictionless tools for mimicking the process one goes about with on a sheet of paper or a blackboard. It is almost better thought of as a freeform text editor, where text can be written anywhere on the "page". You can draw lines or arrows between things if you wish, or enclose bits of text in informative bubbles like you might circle an item on the blackboard for emphasis---but it has no concept whatsoever of depth, in the outliner sense. Connecting two things together is not an act of declaring semantic ownership (you can pretend it does, but the software will still think of a line as declaring a mutual equal connection between two thoughts). That's where it deviates most strongly from mindmapping, which tends to have a rigid approach in encouraging information to be developed into a hierarchy. It's a bit closer to the concept map idea, but lacks the explicit typed connector philosophy that this type of software encourages.

As for integration with Scrivener, it can be picture based if you want. In fact if that's all you want you could just dump the whole Scapple file into the binder and on a 10.7+ Mac it will show the canvas as the Quick Look preview. It could then be interacted with like any other research item in the binder. The other form of integration is where a Scapple page develops into a pre-structure, and you'd like the individual bits of text to become discrete items in Scrivener. Then the aforementioned technique of dropping the notes into a corkboard, or into the binder, is what you'd want. When doing so on a freeform corkboard, the original spatial properties of the map will be preserved as closely as possible.

So in a nutshell,this software is intended for folks who prefer pens and paper because there isn't any heavy interface between the idea and the capture of that idea, but at the same time would like to have the benefits of digital power on the way out (not to mention the added editing one can do when the act of putting something into a certain position is not relatively permanent).

Anyway, thanks for posting the software here! Glad to see it has some interest in the outlining community.

--
Ioa Petra'ka
Literature & Latte - Scrivener
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/

Ioa, many thanks for your posting and clarification of the concept behind Scapple. Are you planning to port it to Windows as well?

In the long term we are interested in bringing it to Windows as well (and *maybe* mobile). However we still have a lot of work to do getting the Scrivener version for Windows up to speed with the Mac version, so it may be a while.

Scapple beta for Windows is here http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=24110

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Scapple beta for Windows is here
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=24110

So, I downloaded this and played with it for a bit. I'm not sure I get it?

Well, I think I get it, but I just don't see it as being particularly useful for me, anyway.

I've thought before that I'd like a mindmapping app I can just throw down nodes and connect them later and this seems to do that but then...there doesn't seem to much else you can do with your data beyond make connections that are purely graphical (besides bring it into Scrivener.)

I guess I'm a little disappointed.

shatteredmindofbob wrote:

I've thought before that I'd like a mindmapping app I can just throw
down nodes and connect them later and this seems to do that but
then...there doesn't seem to much else you can do with your data beyond
make connections that are purely graphical (besides bring it into
Scrivener.)

For more complex concept mapping there is always VUE or CmapTools. However, I think there is a niche in the market for a simple, focused concept mapper without too many distractions (a minimalist app), and Scapple might just fill that gap.

We have a couple of other threads on this forum on infinite whiteboards. Scapple also fits that category (so it competes a bit with OneNote's similar function or Story Turbo).

One important contribution of Scapple seems to be the export (TXT, RTF, OPML). I tried the text export and it actually produced a decent output (though I only tried it on a relatively simple concept map, not quite sure what a complex one would look like). But theoretically one could export from Scapple as OPML into another outliner and then reorder the notes there (on the way to a more formal outline).

So, what's the verdict on Scapple for Windows? I see that it has gone on sale now. Has anyone persisted with the beta?

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php

Yes, I've been playing with the beta for Windows for a while. It's lovely. Very simple, pretty quick. Like a kind of combination of outliner and mindmapping tool. It's rapidly becoming my favourite drafting tool (taking over from TreeSheets), because of its enormous flexibility. Unlike mindmappers, the whole thing is text-focused, so each node is effectively a note - a much more effective approach for writers, I feel.

Yes, I've CRIMPed - just bought the final version.

Now if it just had the fantastic "fruit-machine" feature of Gingko... (can't wait for the Gingko app to appear!).

Having played with Scapple a bit since buying it, I can confirm it's a truly gorgeous writing tool. It's intelligently written - it's got a bundle of little features that are optimised for fast drafting. Rich text, different borders and backgrounds, simple styles, easy creation of linked notes, easily editable defaults - the whole thing is very easy to use, but also very flexible. It's also got a nice search/replace function. It shows or hides page guides, if you're thinking of printing out or exporting your Scapple "map" to paper or PDF.

It has one other nice feature, which it calls stacking. This actually means producing a little list of notes one below the other (by pressing Ctrl+Enter; there are keyboard shortcuts for everything, so despite its graphical look, it's highly keyboard-oriented). This is very convenient for producing mini chapters or essays in the middle of a mindmapped document. It also has Bring to front/Send to back options, plus full control of alignment. Oh, and you can isolate searches to selected notes only.

As I say - a very intelligent piece of programming. Thoroughly recommended!

Oh, and I've just discovered Scapple can also export OPML files (including a separate note field, which OmniOutliner among others can interpret accurately).

Other export options include: image, PDF, rich text, plain text, plain text list (haven't tried that one, but I suspect it means delimited text file).

Dang! This is purty darn cool!

MadaboutDana wrote:

Oh, and I've just discovered Scapple can also export OPML files
(including a separate note field
Dang! This is purty darn cool!

Thanks, Bill, you reignited my interest in it :)

Since it has been released in full, I've played with it a little more.

I like the overall concept, but still, it seems like you can't do much with what you make. The export files don't seem to preserve any kind of hierarchy. I realize that may be by design but still, I'd find this a lot more useful if there was more I could do with the data once I've made a map, like pull it into a more traditional outliner to refine it further, for example.

But then, I'm not sure it's fair to complain, considering the price.

shatteredmindofbob wrote:

The export files don't seem to preserve any kind of
hierarchy. I realize that may be by design but still, I'd find this a
lot more useful if there was more I could do with the data once I've
made a map, like pull it into a more traditional outliner to refine it
further, for example.

I've just run into this problem as well with a larger concept map. I've decided to try Scapple for Windows once more, as I had difficulty extracting a usable outline from VUE, plus it kept crashing when I tried to dictate into it with Dragon, while Scapple could handle that.

Yes, it would be nice to get a hierarchy out of Scapple. It's not entirely hopeless though, as the OPML export, while only producing a flat list in my case, managed to keep the neighouring items more or less next to each other.

So after I have imported it into Natara Bonsai, it should only take a few keystrokes to indent and move around items to reconstruct the original hierarchy, which is probably easier than the method the Scapple user manual suggests, i.e. copying and pasting each item from a PDF export.

Nonetheless, it would be nice to have a concept mapper that could export a more ordered hierarchy natively (even if it might be impossible to reconstruct all the relationships).

Does anyone know of a comparable concept mapper with an easier workflow for turning a concept map into an outline?

The other option would be to just forget about concept mappers and use a mind mapper instead. I did in fact start out the map with Freeplane, but for some reason it felt less constraining to do the brainstorming in Scapple.

Delineato manages to keep hierarchies in OPML exports -- Mac only because its iOS version doesn't export OPML. Concepts at the "root" level (i.e., those that have no parents) are not always exported in the same order as they appear on the visual map, but they are close and can easily be arranged when the export is opened in an outliner app.

Paul Korm wrote:

Delineato manages to keep hierarchies in OPML exports -- Mac only
because its iOS version doesn't export OPML.

Looks nice! Too bad there is no Windows version...