Build on the canvas

Write, connect, arrange and restyle a map, and get back to an earlier state.

Write and connect blocks#

If you can edit the map, press Add a block in the toolbar (or N), then click where the block goes. Click a block to select it; click it again, or press Enter, to open its panel, and press Enter once more to switch between reading and editing. Double-click a block to rename it on the card. Ctrl S saves what you edited in the panel. On a Mac, read Ctrl as ⌘.

To connect two blocks, drag from the dot on the bottom edge of one to the dot on the top edge of another. A selected block also has a + under it that adds a new block already connected below it.

Ctrl C, X and V copy, cut and paste; Delete removes the selection. Press ? to see every key.

Add pictures and drawings#

Paste a picture with Ctrl V, or drop a file on the canvas, and it becomes an image block. Or press Add a block, choose Image or Drawing in the row that appears, and click the spot. It takes JPEG, PNG and WebP, and a large picture is shrunk to fit.

Drawing opens a sketch pad; press Place on map when you are done. To carry on later, open the drawing's block and press Edit drawing.

Drag or paste a picture from another website onto the canvas and, if you can edit the map, it is copied onto the map and becomes yours in one step.

A picture that a block's text still takes from another site is not loaded until you allow it: the block shows a placeholder naming the site, with Show, and a notice at the top of the map offers Show pictures for every site at once. Loading one lets that site see that you opened the map. A picture that still lives on another site carries a small badge in its corner; if you can edit the map, press it to Save into map. That keeps a copy on the map, so the picture no longer depends on the other site, and one undo puts the link back.

Arrange and restyle#

Arrange in the toolbar lays the map out in the shape you pick: Tree (top-down); Tree (left-to-right); Spine (top-down); Mind map (bilateral); Radial; Columns by depth; Grid; Timeline; Compact (keep columns). Once you have picked a shape, tick Keep this map arranged and it is applied again whenever a connection is made or broken.

Colour map gives each branch its own colour (Branches; press again to reshuffle) or removes colours (Clear colours). It recolours every block, hand-coloured ones too. Arrange and Colour map each save a version first.

⋮ ▸ Map settings… ▸ Look & shape sets how blocks added from now on look and where they go: a ready-made view or one of your own, and a colour theme (Calm, Blueprint, Mono, Vivid).

Keep links beside a map#

A map can carry named links along its top edge. Press + (Add a link to this map), paste the link, add a name if you like and press Add link. A link's menu has Edit… and Remove; Hide this map's links (in ⋮ by default, or in the toolbar if you moved it) folds the strip away. How many a map holds depends on your plan.

Undo, and go back to an earlier version#

Undo (Ctrl Z) steps back through your own edits while the map is open in your browser; Redo is Ctrl Shift Z, or Ctrl Y on Windows. It forgets when you reload, or when the assistant or someone else changes the map.

A version is a saved copy of the whole map. Open ⋮ ▸ Version history…, optionally name it (up to 100 characters) and press Save a version. Corlecti Map keeps 20, counting the ones Arrange and Colour map save, so pin a version you want to keep for good. Open a version to see what changed, rename or pin it, or open it as a separate map. Restore brings it back and keeps comments and authorship.

It also saves one itself before the assistant's changes, an import, a connected app's changes or a restore; changes of the same kind within 15 minutes share one.