1. Top Box

The Top Box is the starting point for your map. Usually, it presents the topic or problem you’re addressing, or the question you’re trying to resolve. In a grouping map, it’s the broad theme that will be broken down into categories in lower levels of your map. (We call it the Top Box, and refer to ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ map levels, even though you can choose to orientate your map from left to right or even from bottom to top.)

A map box and all its descendants are known as a branch. A map will often consist of many branches, themselves containing sub-branches.

You can hide the descendants of a selected box by clicking on the small ‘subtract’ sign in its corner. To show the hidden boxes again, click the small ‘plus’ sign.

A map is made up of boxes linked together. Every box has one parent (except the Top Box), and can have any number of siblings and children. All boxes below it are its descendants, and all boxes in a direct line back to the Top Box are its ancestors.

When a map is linear like this one, without branches, it’s not always obvious which box is the Top Box. The Map Origin line marks the Top Box in a linear map. It disappears when branches are added to the map.

You can begin your map from scratch by dragging an initial map item from the Building Panel onto the workspace and typing in your text. Good item types to start with are Question, Topic or Contention. You can also start with a template such as the Basic Map. Just drag it from the Building Panel onto the workspace, and click on any box to add text.

There are several ways to add a new box to your map.

Drag and drop your chosen map item from the Building Panel onto the workspace.

Double click on the workspace to create a new box. Enter text, and then drag the box to its new home in your map. The box type will be decided automatically depending on its place in the map. If you want to change the type of box, click on the ‘Box’ button in the Home ribbon or use the right click menu.

Press the Insert key to add a new child box to a selected box. The new box is automatically set to be the appropriate type for the next step in your decision mapping process, but you can change it by clicking on the ‘Box’ button in the Home ribbon or using the right click menu.

Press the Enter key to a new sibling box of the same box type to a selected box. If you’re editing the text in a box and want to exit and add a new sibling box, you can do this by pressing Shift-Enter.

When you drag a new box near your map, indicators appear to show you where it will attach when you release the mouse button. The parent box it will attach to is outlined in blue and a red line shows where the new box will be in relation to the boxes around it. The same thing happens when you relocate a box or a branch within your map. Just click on it and drag it to its new position.

To detach a box or a branch from your map, click on it and drag it away from the rest of the map. It will stay on the workspace and you can reattach it where and when you like.

You can also select ‘Detach’ in the right-click menu, or press Ctrl-Shift-D.

Press the Delete key or select ‘Delete’ from the right click menu to delete the box and its descendants from the map.

The ‘Delete’ button on the Home ribbon will also delete the box and the branch it heads. Use the drop-down menu to delete the selected box only.

When a box is selected, press the Backspace key to delete the text in that box.

Ok, so what next?

Why not try a free trail? (use the Trial Download menu at the top of the page).

You can also download the PDF brochure and guide from the 'Resources' menu at the top of this page.

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