Hi Tom,
Keyboard maestro allows you to access any command in the menu bar. So for expanding notes proportionately…
If you are unfamiliar with keyboard maestro , MacSparky has the keyboard maestro field guide, which features video lessons. It is a good overview of version 9 (current version is 10).
Thanks Niram and David. Good points to use KM to resize multiple notes proportionally per note.
Tom
Yes. Prototypes are also useful. They can even start with no customisation.Why do that? Well it’s easy t o, for example, change the shape or colour of 20 notes if they all use the same prototypes. also as those attributes are inherited the changes are non-permanent. Thus you can use prototypes to start to tease the Y things from the Z things even if what Y and Z are isn’t clear beyond the fact they differ.
I’m also cautious about drawing lots of link lines too early. The issue isn’t that the link is not valid, but that 2 icons joined with a line have more (unintended?) visual impact than two not so linked. Note that you can toggle the visibility of links (at per-type scope) so that two can be a way to use links but reduce their initial impact.
Personal styles differ, but besides shape and colour don’t overlook subtler clues: badges, borders, flags (which can also encode simple attribute data).
Using short titles for notes (the full title can initially always go in $Text) helps keeps icon small allowing more space and less textual noise.
I also recommend Mark Bernstein’s ‘map grammar’ TBX shown at the 12 Nov 22 meet-up (the tread includes a link to the TBX). There are lots of simple placement styles (many of which don’t need perfect gridding to work) that can help surface relationships.
Theres’ no one right way though, as personal styles vary.
I watched MarkB’s masterclass on Map Adornments and felt humbled again for the second time. How maps can be used to convey information (MASTER) vs the way I have been using them (novice). Out of habit, I have tended to focus primarily on proximity and to some extent color…but that has been it. Map Adornments is superb at conveying how much more can be done with maps. Take aways for me were getting better at using shapes and looking at note pairs. Lots to learn and grow from for the right type of problem.
Always learning something new, bit by bit.
Tom
What you say mirrors the creation story in Genesis. First there is chaos. Formless and void. Then, out of the chaos - boom! Light. Illumination. Enlightenment. A glimpse of a gestalt in a lightbulb moment. “Let there be light”…