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The diagram editor
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You can add events, characters, places, things, ideas, text, images and lines to
diagrams. As such you can use diagrams for any number of purposes including planning
chronology, designing family trees - or, as in the case of a corkboard, storing
miscellaneous information and notes.
After adding a diagram, family tree or corkboard using the
add diagram wizard, the diagram will be opened within the main workspace.
Before we delve into understanding how to create a diagram, it is useful to see
a few examples:
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Chronology diagram
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Following is a typical diagram (taken from The Hero's
Journey template) which displays the ordering / chronology of the primary
events. You can also visualize chronology using the timeline.
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Chronology diagram
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Basically, we start at 'the call' which is highlighted, then follow each
arrow in turn to the next event - the last being 'the return / the frustration'.
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Relationships diagram
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This is a more complex example which details the relationships between the events
of The Hero's Journey template and the characters
within it.
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Hero's journey diagram
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The lines which are drawn between the events, characters and so on are created automatically
when you add relationships between entities. For more information on relationships
see the relationships topic. As soon as two entities
which are related are dragged onto or added to a diagram the relationship is drawn
between them as a line.
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Corkboard
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Following is a typical corkboard which enables you to pin miscellaneous information
to it, in a similar way to the way you would use a real-life corkboard.
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Corkboard
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The corkboard above has two characters pinned to it. Ordinarily these will be mug-shots
of the characters you intend to use! The images displayed in each note on the corkboard
are taken from the character's images which you can add via the
add character wizard or through the properties window.
Only the first of the character's images is used.
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Diagrams can contain arbitrary text, images and arrows
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You can also add arbitrary text, images and arrows to a diagram. The following screenshot
shows all three of these in situ:
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Diagram with text, images and arrows
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How to use the diagram editor
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When you open a diagram and it is available for editing, you use either the buttons
on diagram tab on the ribbon bar or commands on the context menu which you can display
by right-clicking anywhere on the diagram.
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Pastes from the clipboard onto the diagram (works for text and entities you have
copied from the diagram to the clipboard etc.)
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Cuts the selection from the diagram.
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Copies the selection from the diagram.
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This is enabled for images and text on the diagram. It enables you to choose a different
image or to edit the text.
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Add an entity to the dialog. |
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Draw a line on the diagram. |
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Draw text on the diagram. |
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Drag an image on the diagram. |
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Bring the selected item to the front of the diagram. |
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Send the selected item to the back of the diagram. |
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Show relationship text. |
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Create a new event and add it to the diagram. |
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Create a new character and add it to the diagram. |
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Create a new place and add it to the diagram. |
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Create a new thing and add it to the diagram. |
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Create a new idea and add it to the diagram. |
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Enabled when an entity is selected, add a relationship to another entity. |
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Enabled when an entity is selected, choose one of the related entities and add
it to the diagram. |
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Selecting objects
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Having added an object to the diagram, select it by clicking on it.
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Moving objects on the diagram
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After selecting an object, to move it depress the left mouse button and drag it.
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Resizing objects on the diagram
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To resize an object, select it by clicking on it. Then drag any of the orange drag
handles located at the corners of the object (or at the end of the lines.)
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The include entity dialog
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This dialog is shown when you click the add button or select add entity from the
context menu.
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Include entity dialog
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Simply select the entity you want, within the tree, and press okay. All of the entities
(events, characters, places and things) you have not already added to your
diagram are listed. It is not possible to add the same entity twice. A character
for instance can only appear once upon the same diagram.
If you use the expert novel explorer, folders
you create in the novel explorer will be displayed
in order for you to navigate through a large number of entities.
Important: you can also drag an entity from the novel explorer directly onto
a diagram. This means you can avoid using this dialog box if you wish.
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