Mind map

Learn how to create mind maps in Collaboard.

How to create a mind map

Open a project and navigate to the main tool box on the left. Choose mind map under More.

Select the mind map with one click and add it to the board by drag and drop to or with a single click.

Nodes

All mind maps start with the parent/ master node. There is only ever one master node per mind map, serving as the center of the mind map.

The master node comes with a dummy text as placeholder and features the standard context menu of a Shape plus:

• Node type
  define the border style of the node (pill, rectangle, rounded rectangle)  
• Direction
  • define the direction in which the mind map branches off. Simply click the greyish "+" buttons the the left and right of the parent node. Toggle between right/ bottom or top/left via the Direction option in the context menu.
  • define the connector style: orthogonal or curved.
    Changes of the connector style will update all connectors of the mind map.
• Auto layout
  Allows you to toggle between custom and auto node positioning. Refer to the chapter Node positioning below.

All other nodes you create will be child nodes. The mind map can have virtually unlimited child nodes.

Child nodes feature the same context menu as the parent node minus the Direction option.

First level child nodes that are created directly from the parent node will automatically get a different color each.

You can create further child nodes (grand children) or you can opt to create siblings.

Collapse/ expand nodes

Nodes that have two or more children will feature a minus button when selected. Click the button the collapse the downstream tree.

Click the numbered button to expand the tree.

Nodes positioning

Custom node positioning

Allows you to toggle between custom and auto node positioning.

• Auto: custom node positions are not retained. Adding a node at any place to the mind map will result in auto-adaption of the layout.
• Manual: custom node positioning is enabled and positions will be retained when adding new node to the mind map.
  CAVEAT: adding siblings will cause all other siblings to auto-arrange. 

Moving children to new parents

Drag and drop any node (not the master node) onto the new parent. The whole mind map tree associated to the child will be moved along.

Inheritance

The master node

• will pass down the direction of the mind map and the connector style. Changing these features will override all other connector styles.
• will pass down its formatting, but NOT the border color.

The child nodes

• will pass down their entire formatting. Any changes will not override the formatting of downstream children, but only affect new children.

Selection,  connections

You can single or multi/ area select any part of the mind map. If you select connectors AND nodes you can only modify the selected nodes. To modify connectors, select connectors only.

You may use the remaining anchor points of a node to create connectors to any other board object.

 

Formatting, labelling and context menu

Use the context menu of nodes and connectors to modify at your leisure. Nodes will have a very similar context menu to Shapes and connectors feature the Line context menu.

Double-click the connector to add a label.

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