Selecting a Topic or Cross-Link

All SimpleMind commands act on the selected topic or cross link. Tap on a topic or cross link to select it. A selected topic is displayed with a thick border, a selected cross link is displayed with a thick line and a contrasting color.

Adding Branches

Tap the topic to which you want to add the child (branch) topic to. Then, either:

• Double tap in the empty area on the Mind Map background. This adds the new topic at the location you double tapped.
• Single Tap on the node-well (+) icon. This adds the new topic at a default location.
• Drag the node-well (+) icon to a location in the empty background area. This adds the new topic at the location you release the node-well.

Editing Topic Text

Double tap a topic to activate the text editor and bring up the keyboard. Stop editing by tapping outside the text editor.

Adding Cross-Links

Cross links are used to connect any two topics that are not hierarchically connected. Select the topic to which you want to add a cross link. Then, either:

• Drag the node-well (+) icon and release it on the topic you want to connect to.
• Use the topic tool bar and select the Cross Link command. Next, tap the topic you want to connect to. By scrolling the Mind Map you can cross-link topics that are located a further distance away from each other.

Deleting Topics or Cross-Links

Select the topic or cross link you want to delete by tapping it. Then use the Delete button from the toolbar. Note: deleting a topic also deletes its child topics. Deleting a cross link does not delete the connected topics.

Moving Topics

Drag a topic to move it to a different location. To move child topics together with the dragged topic, hold down your finger before starting to drag for approximately 1 second. The child topics are now also displayed with a thick border.

Changing Parent/Child relations

To reconnect a topic to a different parent topic, drag the topic and drop it on the new parent topic. The dragged topic and its child topics are auto-layed out.

Collapse / Expand Topics

Child topics can be collapsed (hidden) to keep oversight in large maps. Hidden topics are not not deleted from the Mind Map and can later be Expanded (made visible) again.

Tap the expansion (>) icon on the selected topic to either collapse or expand its child topics.

Notes: when moving a topic with collapsed child topics, the child topics are also moved and displayed with a dashed outline. You cannot add new branches while a topic is collapsed.

Topic Tool bar

Single Tap again on an already selected topic node to bring up the topic tool bar. The topic tool bar contains these topic related commands:

• Cut - cuts the selected topic and its children to the clipboard
• Copy - copies the selected topic and its children to the clipboard.
• Paste - inserts topics previously cut or copied to the clipboard. The pasted topics are added as child to the selected topic.
• Select Color - select a fill and line color from the selected style's Color Palette (top row) or a (predefined) custom color (bottom row). Also, the color selector allows reverting the topic to the selected style's color scheme.
• Layout - rearranges child topics to default locations
• Add Cross link - see: Adding Cross Links
• Select Icon - select (or clear) a predefined icon for a topic.
• Link to Mind Map - add (or remove) a hyperlink to another Mind Map. A navigation icon is displayed to the right of the linked topic. Tap this navigation icon to open the linked Mind Map. The topic's text is auto-linked to the linked Mind Map's title. Editing the topic's text breaks this auto-linking without removing the navigation icon.

Zooming disables editing

The standard two finger pinch gesture zooms the Mind Map in or out. Beyond a certain zoom-out level, the node-well becomes too inaccurate to use and is no longer displayed. Zooming out even further also disables all other commands, to avoid unwanted changes. This is most noticeable by the Delete and Add buttons on the toolbar becoming disabled. Zooming-in again brings back the normal functionality.

Selecting Border and Line style

SimpleMind has a set of predefined visual styles that adjust color scheme, line style and border styles. In the Mind Map editor, use the "S" (Style) button to select a new style.

Additionally, full edition allows to pick a (border and fill) color from the style's color scheme or from predefined custom colors.

SimpleMind Desktop has more advanced features to control Topic appearance. When opening Mind Maps created with SimpleMind Desktop, SimpleMind Touch shows these customizations.