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One of my favorite uses for mind maps is brainstorming. The idea behind brainstorming is to write my ideas down on paper or screen. I start with the subject as the root topic, create the first subtopic, and then I'm off. I type in the idea and press enter twice to create the next. I will create branches off the subtopic, but I don't branch often. My goal is to get all the ideas down, not develop them. Usually, I brainstorm with a stop time in mind. Whether the time is 5 minutes or 15 minutes, the clock forces me to focus on writing my ideas down. I don't have time for distraction. Once the time is up, I can look at the big picture of ideas. I will see relationships between ideas or notice one idea is actually the child of another. An order or process begins to develop. If I did this on paper, I'd have to redraw the whole map. With Freeplane, I'm able to move the nodes around and reorder them. This is a great time saver. Today, we'll look at how Freeplane lets us organize and manipulate nodes.
Scrolling
As your map grows, you will want to zoom in on different sections of your map. Once you zoom in, scrolling the map becomes important. Click and drag a blank spot in the workspace to move the map around. If you have a scroll wheel on your mouse, spin the wheel to move up and down. The SHIFT key + the mouse wheel moves left and right. If the scrollbars are visible, you can scroll with them. From the menu bar, View > Controls > Scrollbars hides and shows the scrollbars.
Zooming
To zoom in and out on your map, hold CTRL + the mouse wheel. From the keyboard, ALT + up arrow zooms in, and ALT + down arrow zooms out. When you need to view the whole map, you can use the menu bar View > Zoom > Zoom to fit to page. You can also select the zoom percentage from the drop-down box in the main toolbar.
Selecting Nodes
To select a node, hover over it for a few seconds. Once you have the node you want, you can hold the SHIFT key to lock the selection. The selection of the node by hovering requires you to pause over the node. After the selection, you can move across other nodes as long as you don't pause. The selection only changes when you pause over another node. The selected node is highlighted in your systems default highlight color.
You can select many nodes on the same level and branch using the SHIFT key. Select the first node, then, while holding the SHIFT key, select the second node. This selects all the nodes between the two nodes. You select non-sequential nodes and nodes in different branches using the CTRL key. Hold the CTRL key while clicking the nodes.
Use the arrow keys to move around the map without having to grab the mouse. The up, down, left, and right keys work in the way you would expect them to. Holding down the SHIFT key allows you to select many nodes as you move around the map. CTRL + A selects all the nodes in the map. Press the ESC key to jump to the root node.
Moving Nodes
Ideas rarely comes in the correct order, and you need to move and rearrange the nodes in a map. Freeplane lets you move nodes through the mouse and the keyboard. You can move a node by the drag and drop method. When you drag and drop a node onto another node, you get gray highlights at the top or on the child end of the node. To insert as a sibling above the node, drop the node on the top gray highlight. If you drop on the end gray highlight, Freeplane adds the node as the last child of the node. Hold down the CTRL key to make a copy of the node instead of moving it. You can drag and drop to the left and right side of the root node. This allows you to balance the two sides of the map when needed. Sometimes, you want to set a node off by itself. You can move a node away from its siblings by hovering over the parent connector end. An oval will appear. This oval is the move handle. Click and drag to move the node to a new location.
From the keyboard, CTRL + the up/down arrows move the nodes up and down among its siblings. CTRL + the left/right arrows promote and demote the node by one level.
Folding/Unfolding Nodes When working on sections of the map, it helps to collapse or fold the children of other nodes. To fold the children of a node, hover over the connection point for the nodes. A circle with a minus (-) will appear. Click on the circle to fold (or hide) the nodes. When a node's children are folded, Freeplane marks the node with a small circle on the child side. This shows the node has hidden children. You can expand or unfold the node by hovering over the circle. A larger circle with a plus (+) will appear. Click this circle to unfold or show the child nodes. With a node selected, you can use the spacebar to fold and unfold the children. For more refined control, buttons on the toolbar allow you to fold/unfold one level or all levels. These options are also available in menu Navigate > Fold.
Core Text and Node Details The core text of the node is the main text you enter when you create the node. To see the area for the core text, select the menu Format > Node Core > Bubble. This places a bubble around the core text. To edit the core text, press the F2 key. To replace all the content of the node with new information, start typing with the node selected. If you need to break the core text into many lines, you can use the SHIFT + ENTER key combination. You can edit the core text in an editor dialog using the ALT + ENTER key combination. We will discuss the editor in a later article.
The node details is extra information about the node. The text is placed below the node with a triangle to the left side. Clicking on this triangle shows and hides the node details. From the keyboard, ALT + F2 hide/show the details. Press F3 to edit the node details. You can change the details text in an editor dialog by pressing CTRL + F3.
Freeplane doesn't expect you to get things perfect the first time. In fact, it allows you to drag the nodes around as needed. Whether you prefer the mouse or the keyboard, Freeplane allows you to quickly change your map. In my next article, I will present the 7 guidelines for mind maps from Tony Buzan, and we will explore the Tool Panel.