Better info and annotations

Have new ideas for the next release of IHMC CmapTools and IHMC CmapServer?
We welcome your suggestions and we will carefully consider whether to incorporate them into the software.
Post Reply
JeffN
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Mar 06, 2011 2:07 pm

Better info and annotations

Post by JeffN »

I like to attach text and comments to concepts on my maps as it allows my to elaborate on the definition of a concept in a way which would be difficult to capture just with the concept names and connections. For this purpose I use the annotations instead of the 'Info' option because they are:
- easier to track (you don't know if a node has info or not unless you put your mouse over it, whereas annotations have an icon)
- easier to view and edit (only a click of a mouse, whereas notes can only be viewed if you right click, then click info in the pop-up menu)

Unfortunately the annotations are not attached to concepts, so when I move a concept, the annotation does not move with it.

It seems like the same functionality has been split into two different objects (notes and annotations). Maybe it would have been simpler and more powerful to have just annotations and allow users to attach them or not to the concepts.

Moreover, I think maps with annotations would become much clearer visually if the open annotations showed only the body of the text without the large border, the title, author and email address. These extra fields, which are completely redundant when you are the sole author of the map, could be displayed only when you move your mouse over the annotation box. Or at least this could be a configuration settings somewhere in CmapTools.
acanas
Posts: 753
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 5:52 pm

Re: Better info and annotations

Post by acanas »

We considered at one time to add a 'text editor' window that would create text documents that would be attached to the concepts as resources but decided that was better done by other tools -- whether a text or html editor. The annotations are not associated with a concept because you can select more than once concept to annotate, and when the annotation is opened, those concepts are highlighted. Having a simple way of adding text resources continues to be a good feature to add.
Post Reply