A Mind node is a labelled node that knows its parent. It lives in the palette's Build category in Diagram mode, and the whole point of it is the keyboard: you can build an entire branch while you are still talking.
The two keys
Press Tab to add a child, then start typing. The new node is already connected and selected, so your first key starts its label.
Press Enter to add a sibling directly after the node you are on, and keep typing.
Press Escape when you are done. What you typed is kept; a new node you left empty is removed and its parent selected, so a Tab pressed one time too many costs nothing.
You never have to stop typing to reach for the palette, and you never have to draw the connectors: each new node arrives joined to its parent. Type as fast as you like: keys pressed before the next node is on screen are held for it, so a burst of several nodes lands exactly as typed.
The keys work from inside the label editor as well as from a selected node. Typing a name and pressing Tab commits what you typed and starts the next node in one keystroke, which is what makes a whole branch flow. On any other element, Tab still moves the selection to the next element.
More than one line
Because Enter adds a sibling, a node's label takes a new line from Shift+Enter instead, the same key chat apps and outliners use. Press it while typing a label and carry on: the node grows taller to fit its lines, and a tidy map makes room for it. Enter still finishes the label and adds the next node, so building a map from the keyboard works exactly as before.
With the mouse or on a touch screen
Select a mind node and Add Child and Add Sibling are on its toolbar. They are also the first options on the quick-add + on each side of the node, each naming its shortcut. On a phone or tablet, where there is no Tab key, these are how you grow a map.
Where nodes land
A map you build from the keyboard stays tidy: each parent sits centred on its children, and siblings stack neatly with no gaps or overlaps. As you add nodes, the map makes room for them, and the view scrolls to keep the node you are typing in on screen.
Once you drag a node yourself, the map is yours: new nodes are placed where they fit and nothing you arranged moves. To tidy it again, right-click a node, open Tools, then Mind Map, and choose Tidy Map under Outline. A message at the foot of the screen says Map tidied, or Map already tidy when there was nothing to move.
The Mind Map menu
Right-click any node of a map, open Tools, then Mind Map. It has three groups, and everything in them acts on the whole map:
- Outline: Edit Outline (see below), Tidy Map, Select Branch (the node and everything under it, with the lines between) and Select Whole Map.
- Branching: the shape the map takes.
- Spacing: how far apart its nodes sit.
Branching
- Tree: branches to the right, siblings stacked down. The default.
- Leftward: branches to the left, siblings stacked down. The tree mirrored.
- Balanced: branches both ways off the root, the classic hand-drawn mind map.
- Downward: branches below, siblings spread across, like an org chart.
- Upward: branches above, siblings spread across. Downward mirrored, for a map that builds up to its root.
- Bubble: branches fanned around the parent.
Picking one re-arranges the whole map straight away, around the root, which stays put. It is one step, so Undo puts the old arrangement back. Tab and Enter mean the same thing in every flow; the flow only decides where the new node lands.
Spacing
Tight, Compact, Comfortable and Wide set how far apart the map's nodes sit, both from their parent and from each other. Comfortable is the default. Picking one re-arranges the map at once, as one step, and the map keeps that spacing as it grows and whenever you tidy it.
Edit Outline
To rethink a whole map at once, open it as a list. Hover over the map's root (the node it starts from) and press Edit Outline among the small icons on the root (along its top, or its footer with the Footer indicator style; they hide while the root is selected; see Element Indicators), or find Edit Outline under any node's Tools, then Mind Map, then Outline. The whole map opens as a list, one row per node, so you can reorder, nest and rename branches as fast as you can type, or paste a list in from your notes. Save applies it all as one step, so Undo puts the map back exactly as it was.
See Edit a Mind Map as an Outline for the keys, pasting a list in and what Save keeps.
Sizes and looks
A new node looks like the others at its level: siblings match each other, and the first node of a new level takes after its parent, except a root's first branch, which starts with the plain default look. The connector matches the ones already in the map. So a map drawn with bold roots, tinted branches and dashed lines keeps growing that way.
A mind node can be made round: right-click it, open Style, then Border, and pick the last (fully rounded) Radius option. A square node with a full radius is a circle, which is how the bubble map template draws its bubbles.
Moving and deleting
Dragging a node takes its whole branch with it. Resizing a node resizes only that node.
Deleting a node deletes its whole branch: everything under it and the lines between them go with it, in one step, so Undo brings the whole branch back. Cut takes the branch too, so pasting puts it all back. A locked node in the branch stays, with everything under it, as a map of its own. The eraser removes only what it touches.
Every mind map template (Mind map, Tree mind map, Bubble map and Sitemap) is made of mind nodes, so you can grow a template with Tab and Enter straight away, and the new nodes match the template's look.
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