What's new for you in Topicscape Pro 2.5?
Topicscape Pro 2.5 introduces something new, outstanding and unmatched: Flip backwards and forwards between 3D and 2D in just a second. Added to its renowned 3D information landscape interface you will now find a 2D option for traditionalists. Choose which one fits your needs at the time and your personal taste.
If you've seen Cooliris®, with its wall of images that you can swing and fly past you'll immediately know how to fly with Topicscape's new 2D Map format. Just click on the background and drag in any direction using the mouse or arrow keys.
If you're not familiar with the present live version of Topicscape, please refer to the on-line User's Guide or Topicscape Pro's Help pages after you install it.
Warning: The Help system in this beta version does not yet reflect the changes described here.
The 2D Map
We refer to the 3D environment as the 'Scape - short for landscape - and call the 2D environment the Map. The new 2D Map sits on a vertical wall that you can fly along or up and down. The wall can have your (own) image of choice behind it, or be textured with one of the patterns used for the Field in 3D.
What you will find in the 2D Map
Topics appear as rectangles. You can work with these much as you do with the cones in 3D. Some minor differences are described later.
Association lines show how topics are connected. Their parent-to-child orientation is indicated by arrow heads with the arrow pointing at the child. The color gives an indication of how close in the hierarchy the topic is to the Current Topic. Loose associations are shown as black and white dotted lines and have no arrow.
For performance reasons, association lines disappear briefly while you are flying around the wall.
The Current Topic - the topic around which you choose to focus a Topicscape at any one time - is still present in 2D. It's the largest rectangle in the center near the top in the above image - "Topicscape in your Life". Children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren flow down from the Current Topic in 4, 5 or 6 columns. As with 3D, that choice of column numbers is up to you, and the choice you make will probably depend on the size of your screen.
Parents flow upwards, siblings flow sideways from the parents and exploring a large map is easy with the swinging wall. You can see much more, more easily on the 2D map than with competing products. You can select the level of detail shown (up to seven levels) with a toolbar item or function keys as you prefer.
Halo menu and toolbar
These have 2D versions. Their functions are the same as in 2D, but the icons have been made to suit the new environment.
2D Map customizing
2D maps do not have named skins, but you can customize appearance, and associate a particular customization with one Topicscape if you wish. You can choose a texture for the field, have black lettering on a white background or the reverse, adjust topic transparency and choose color schemes as in 3D.
The white topic name-plate background is also now available in 3D.
In 2D, you can also choose an image for the background. The image will remain static and the Map will swing in front of it, when you fly. For technical reasons, we do not provide in image facility for the field in the 3D landscape.
New sets of flying controls
If you are familiar with Google® Earth, you'll find Topicscape's controls to fly and zoom in 3D very similar. The purposes of Google Earth and Topicscape are not the same so they are not identical in every respect.
The old classic Topicscape controls are still available for existing users who don't want to change.
And in the new 2D view, the default option is to control your movement around the Map much as you move around in CoolirisŪ, with movement extended to up-and-down as well as side-to-side. It swings the Map to give a more extensive perspective view, and then slides in the direction you've chosen. There is an alternative that those familiar with the 3D controls in Topicscape might prefer. These are described in detail in a later section.
Even die-hard Topicscape users on our staff are finding they prefer the Google Earth and Cooliris-style controls, so if you're reluctant to change, do try these before you decide.
New installations of Topicscape: Controls adopted
After installing, Topicscape version 2.5 will ask if you want to view in 2D or 3D. If you select 3D, and it finds you have installed any version of Topicscape before, it will ask if you want to use classic controls.
You can pick different ways of controlling Topicscape from the Tools menu | Options | Flight control | Customize tab.
And to switch between 2D and 3D whenever the 'Scape or Map is in view, press Ctrl+w or click the leftmost button on the toolbar.
Mouse and keyboard sensitivity adjustments are provided in the Options panel. Access these as follows: Tools menu | Options | Flight control | Speed
Bringing even more to your fingertips
We are always looking for ways to put the information you organize in Topicscape ever closer to your fingertips, and have made some powerful changes in Topicscape Pro version 2.5.
There are often two phases when you use a Topicscape: The overview and the detail. Until now, the overview has been the 3D landscape and for the detail you mainly entered the Topic Center.
The overview serves for orientation, navigation, filtering by tag and viewing search results. That is, everything to do with finding what you want, or finding where to put a new item.
You would get down to the detail when you have found the target of your search and are examining and using occurrences (files and notes).
The Contents List - 2D
We've made it much easier to see a list of contents of a topic, just by hovering your cursor over its peeled back corner.
Now, you can see a list of occurrence names from the topics in the landscape or Map, the search results list, the history list, and the tag pool. From the contents list that shows, you can open occurrences or see previews where they are available. You may still go into the Topic Center for lists of details like dates or file sizes, but when all you need is just to see what's there, and then open a file, which is often, this saves a lot of time.
The Contents List - 3D
You may have found the combined "Enter topic or Show contents" icon on the Halo menu useful. If so you're not alone. The Halo menu is aimed at new users and many users soon switch it off and use shortcuts. Some experienced users have told us that we should make that particular icon appear on hover even when the Halo menu is switched off.
So now, when you turn off the Halo menu and hover over a topic in the 'Scape or on the Lists, you'll see a large red 'flash' (right). Hover over the red flash and the contents list will pop up (image marked "3D" above). This allows you see the contents of a topic without entering its topic center, open any of its occurrences by clicking an item in the list, or see any preview it may have by hovering over the item. Not all files can show previews, see below.
Something else happens as you hover over entries in the contents list: The Details Panel shows information about each occurrence.
All this means that you can now more easily and quickly examine the contents of the topic in detail, and often see previews as well.
Another place to see the contents list
When a topic with occurrences is selected, at the top of the Details Panel you'll see a caption something like "Occurrences : 2" and a View button. Press View and a contents list appears next to the View button. This works like the one described above. You will not see this if the Details Panel is minimized.
Tunnel viewing easier
Similarly for topics with a tunnel, the Details Panel will show something like "Topics loosely associated with this : 2" and a View button. Press View and now a small context menu appears next to the View button. From there you can view the loose associations, and make one current by a single click.
Previews
In earlier versions of Topicscape, you had to enter the Topic Center to see a preview. Now, hovering over an occurrence will show any preview that Windows makes available to Topicscape, wherever you see an occurrence: In the Hit List (search results); History List (recent activities); Tag pool (tag-filtered items); Contents list (see previous item); or via the Detail Panel's 'View' button.
So in Pro 2.5, previews can be seen even from the 'Scape or Map.
Not all files can show a preview, and if Windows does not make one available, in the Topic Center, the preview panel will say if there is none to display.
In the Topic Center, we show a message when no preview is available because it need not cover other information. In the 'Scape or Map if no preview is available, nothing will show.
Topic controls
When using Google Earth or Cooliris-style controls:
- hover over a topic to select it;
- click on a topic (mouse left-button click) to make it current;
- left-click on the red flash or peeled corner to go to the Topic Center;
- hover over the flash or peeled corner to see contents.
When using Alternative 2D flying or classic Topicscape 3D flying:
- click a topic to select it;
- double-right click on it to make it current.
- double-left click a topic to go to its Topic Center;
- left-click on the red flash or peeled corner to see contents.
In 2D, tunnels (loose associations) show up as small icons on the bottom left of 2D topic rectangles, promoted occurrences appear at the top left and any '+' indicator shows at the bottom right for children that are not shown, and top right for hidden parents.
If you are not familiar with tunnels, promoted occurrences or '+' indicators in 3D, please refer to Topicscape Help.
2D flight controls
There are two ways of controlling the 2D Map: The Cooliris approach where you drag the map with the mouse; and the Alternative, where the mouse controls your point of view (like flying).
Cursor keys:
Cooliris-style and Alternative controls are the same when using cursor keys. Both swing the Map, then slide your viewpoint in the direction of the arrow you pick.
Mouse drag:
Cooliris-style: Drag the Map, and it will swing away from you for a perspective view, and move the Map in the direction of your drag.
Alternative: Drag the Map, and it will swing and move your viewpoint in the direction of the drag, along the Map. This is the reverse of the Cooliris approach, and you can decide which suits you better.
Prefer sliding to swing-and-slide? If you prefer not to see the map swing first, just hold the Ctrl key down for all of the above actions and it will slide instead.
A new Home position
Home and Shift+Home provide two views of the Current Topic. Alt+Home now provides another that will be useful if the Current Topic is low down the window in 2D or 3D when using the normal Home position. It will move the Current Topic up to show more of its children and fewer of its parents.
Suppressed sibling child indicator
In 3D, you can use a checkbox on the Appearance tab of the Options panel to suppress children of siblings when there are more than 10. The missing ones will be indicated by three floating dots.
The equivalent in 2D is to show the topics fading out to suggest that there is more there. The limit is set at four, rather than 10, for space reasons.
MindManager import improvement
Floating topics in MindManager maps are now imported. The floating topics will be attached to Topicscape Islands, with any sub-topics of the floating ones attached to them in turn. If you use floating topics as on-map comments, notes, a color key or legend, these will be treated in the same way, because MindManager does not distinguish them internally.
Floating topics that are connected to a topic in the main map with an association line (dotted) will be connected with a loose association in Topicscape, and not appear in Topicscape Islands.
Footprint hiding
You may now hide the large gray Current Topic footprint, and if you wish, also the Current Topic child footprints. Two checkboxes appear in the Appearance tab of the Options panel (reached from the Tools menu) to allow this.
Moving "My Topicscapes"
On the first run of Topicscape, you are asked where to put a folder called "My Topicscapes" that will, by default, be the base for all of your Topicscapes' folders and files. At that time, you can also opt for a name other than "My Topicscapes" if you wish. But to move or rename that folder required re-installing Topicscape, resetting all customizations, and manually copying folders. Many users asked us to make it easier.
Now we have. You can use a new item in the Tools menu: Transfer Topicscape's base folder ('My Topicscapes')...
The first time you use it, a message will appear, to tell you that a small download is about to begin. Once that is complete, the Transfer Wizard will start and tell you that Topicscape has to close. Then you can chose the new destination folder, and change the name "My Topicscapes" if you wish. Once the validity of the location and space available have been checked, all the folders and files in your existing My Topicscapes folder will be copied, a checksum verification will be made to ensure that the source and destination folders have identical contents, and you'll be asked whether to keep the original files or delete them.
