In this video, I'll be showing you how to add Topics, Floating Topics, Shapes, Callouts,
and Boundaries to your Mind Maps.
To add a new topic as a sibling of the topic you have selected, press Return. To add a
sibling above the selected topic, press Shift+Return. To add a sub-topic, press Command+Return.
To group one or more topics as the child of a new parent topic, you can use the Insert
Parent option on the Insert menu on the toolbar or main menu, or use Command+Shift+Return.
You can also add topics by dragging them on from the toolbar. The indicator will show
you where the topic will be attached and positioned. Just drop it at that point to attach it there.
Normally, you will just have one central topic on your Mind Map, and all the sub-topics as
descendants of it, and if you need another Mind Map, it will be on another canvas, but
sometimes you may want to add a floating topic that is not connected to the main Mind Map
at all. Floating topics can also have subtopics, shapes and callouts attached to them just
like the Mind Map. To add a floating topic, you can use the Insert Floating topic option
from the toolbar Insert menu, or from the Insert menu on the main menu, or drag a topic
on from the toolbar and drop it where it is not going to attach to another topic.
You should be aware that although floating topics look like other Mind Maps on the same
canvas, they are different in several important ways. They are not included as part of the
normal outline of topics, and are instead added on at the end of the outline. They are
also secondary as far as layout is concerned, and if the actual Mind Map bumps into a floating
topic or any of its descendant topics, the floating topic will be automatically pushed
out of the way.
Callouts are a way of annotating topics using an item that is visually connected to the
main topic, kind of like a speech bubble. To add a callout, select the topic you want
to add it to, and use the Insert/Callout option on the toolbar or main menu, or use the Command+Option+Return
shortcut. When it comes to arranging the Mind Map, the sub-topics will have precedence and
push the callouts out of the way if necessary. Callouts can themselves have subtopics, callouts
and shapes attached to them, just like an ordinary topic.
To duplicate a topic, floating topic, or callout, hold the Option key down while you graft the
topic. You can have multiple topics selected for this if you want, and NovaMind will duplicate
all of them.
To visually group topics, you can insert a boundary around them. Just select the topic,
and use the Insert/Boundary option from the toolbar or Insert menu. Boundaries are also
a good way of spacing out groups of items without needing to manually move the topics.
The boundary formatting options include a number of different shapes as well as the
ability to set the margin between the topics and the boundary to add to the visual separation.
Shapes are a unique feature of NovaMind, and allow you to add shapes or images that are
attached to topics but not part of them. On the insert menu, you will see the types of
shape you can add. In addition, you can drag images on to topics and choose the option
to add them as shapes.
Shapes give you a lot of flexibility of layout with a topic, because you are not limited
to just staying within the confines of the topic. Instead, you can add the shapes so
that they overlap the topic, and be either in front of or behind the topic, adding a
lot of visual interest. You can use the context menu to send a topic to the back or bring
it to the front. You can also include text on any of the shapes, so you can have visual
annotations for your topics. When you select a topic and move your mouse over it, you will
see lines to all the shapes that are connected to it, and when you have a shape selected
and move your mouse over it, you will see a line back to the topic it is attached to.
Shapes normally push other topics out of the way (apart from the one it is attached to),
but if you want to, you can use the context menu, there is an option to ignore the shape
when doing layout. When you select this option, it will not push the other topics out of the
way, and you can have a shape that is behind or in front of a number of topics. This gives
you a massive amount of flexibility of layout for your Mind Map. You can see whether a shape
is ignored or included in the layout by the color of the line between it and its topic.
It will be red if it is pushing the other topics out of the way, and green if it's not.
All shapes are an extension of a topic, and move when their owning topic is moved, but
you can also use them as statically positioned elements on your Mind Map which still push
other topics out of the way (as opposed to floating topics that get pushed out of the
way by the main Mind Map), by attaching the shape to the Mind Map title.
Note that if a shape is inside a boundary, it will push the boundary out, unless you
have it ignored in the layout. This provides added flexibility with the combination of
shapes and boundaries.
So now you know how to add all the different types of topics that are used on a Mind Map.