Skins and layout

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(Go to:Topicscape Pro User Guide - contents list)

You can choose different skins for different Topicscapes in 3D, and customize many aspects of appearance in 2D.

When you install Topicscape Pro for the first time, you will find five 3D skins, Crystal, Festival, Hyperglo, Pearl, Smoked Glass and Smoky Plastic. There is also a skin "Users" that lets you experiment with skin settings without changing the others (initially set to Smoky Plastic).

All skins can be reset to their 'factory' settings. On the right are some examples:

There is a skins installer that can be downloaded from our website.

This provides many more skin variations. You can mix Field textures (for the ground) with other skins, add filters to change the color of the ground and pyramids, choose amongst three systems for coloring topics, and select variations of cone and pyramid shapes. All pyramids and cones have two layers and the transparency of these allows you to experiment further. Some strong textures require more opaque name panels and List surfaces for legibility, and very light colored skins (like Crystal) will need black text instead of white for the topic names. All of this is available for user control if you want to customize your 3D mindmapping environment.

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. 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.

If you don't select a special skin, Topicscape will use whatever you have chosen as the standard (default) skin. If you choose a skin for "This Topicscape", Topicscape will remember that from then on. This means that if you have many Topicscapes, you can recognize the Topicscape you're working on immediately from its appearance.

The detailed entry on skins is in Appendix A.

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