Nodes

What is a node in Nemo?

A node can represent anything you need it to - a goal, a step in a user’s workflow, a server, a piece of work, a metric - anything!

A node always has some text. A node may also have a ref, labels, category options, and/or details.

Refs

A ref is a URL. Refs let you connect your Nemo maps to outside systems. Make connections between different tools and sites in Nemo, then use refs to access them quickly.

To add a ref, right click the node and choose “Add ref” or click the link icon in the node table in the Ref column.

To visit a ref, double click the external link icon that appears on the node in the graph view, or single click the external link icon that appears in the table view.

Labels

Labels let you indicate that multiple nodes are part of the same group.

Labels are defined at a map level, not per-node. A label can apply to zero, one, or many nodes. Any node can have zero, one, or many labels.

If you need mutually-exclusive groups, Nemo also offers categories

How to use them

Right click a node in the diagram view to edit the labels on it.

Click label names in the bottom right of the diagram view to select all nodes with that label.

Labeled nodes can also be seen in the table view.

Enter manage labels in the command palette to open the label management view for the map. From this view you can view, create, edit, and delete labels.

Enter label effect in the command palette to toggle node highlighting based on labels. In the diagram view, with the label effect enabled, if a node has more than one label, it will be highlighted with the topmost matching label color. Drag and drop the label list to change the order for label highlighting. Nodes will also display a label icon to indicate the presence of labels that aren’t shown with the current highlighting.

Use the labels layout to arrange nodes in the graph view by their labels.

Collapse and expand all nodes with a label

Sometimes you need to focus on one part of a problem, but still be able to pull in context about other parts.

Nemo makes it easy to simplify your diagram view based on the meaningful labels you’ve applied, so you can add or hide context as the discussion moves or your thought process evolves.

and choose Collapse to hide all nodes with that label under a temporary node with the label's text. When a label's collapsed, clicking Expand in the label context menu will show all the hidden nodes and remove the temporary label node.

For example, this shows what it might look like to focus the discussion on engineering concerns (by collapsing the other labels) and then expand it to also show product management goals (by expanding the PM focus label):

Node to label conversion

Since Nemo is a graph, you can change a nodes and labels can be changed into one another. A node that’s connected to 3 other nodes can be converted to a label on those 3 nodes, and conversely a label on those 3 nodes can be turned into a separate 4th node.

Node to label conversion: right click on the node you want to convert and choose “Convert Node to Label”. A new label will be created with that node’s text, and the label will be applied to all nodes connected to the converted node. Label to node conversion: right click in an open space on the map view and choose “Convert Label to Node” (this assumes you have defined at least one label). A new node will be created with that label’s text, and edges will be added to all nodes that had the converted label.

Categories

Sometimes you need more structure than a label provides. Good news: there are categories for that. Categories are ordered sets of options, and options are mutually-exclusive; you can only apply one option from a given category to a node at a time.

This is useful for mutually exclusive concepts like status (something can either be To Do or Done, but not both) or impact mapping (something can be High impact or Zero impact, but not both).

Categories and their options are defined at a map level, not per-node.

How to use them

Right click a node to edit the category options applied to it.

Enter manage categories in the command palette to open the category management view for the map. From this view you can view, create, edit, and delete categories and options within them.

Enter categories effect in the command palette to toggle node highlighting based on a category you select.

Use the category layout to arrange nodes in the graph view by the options in a specific category.

Details

Node details is an optional per-node Markdown text area. It’s great for taking extra notes, making lists of items, or additional context that you’re sure doesn’t need to apply to the rest of your map.

To access node details, select a single node and hit

, or right click the selected node and choose “Edit Node Details”. Once a node contains details, an icon will appear on the node - you can click that to quickly reopen the detail panel for that node.

Once the detail panel is open, you can freely add text. You can also edit other node attributes.

Interacting with nodes

Create

Create nodes by double clicking in an open area, hitting

or using the +Add New button on the Nodes table. You can also create nodes by pasting content into Nemo or using one of our integrations.

Hotkeys for creating multiple nodes quickly from the graph view:

• Enter
  Finishes editing the current node and creates a new node vertically aligned below the just-finished node.
• Shift + Enter
  Finishes editing the current node and creates a new node horizontally aligned to the right of the just-finished node.
• ⌘ + Enter
  Finishes editing the current node and creates a new node vertically aligned below the just-finished node, and adds an edge between the two nodes.
• ⌘ + Shift + Enter
  Finishes editing the current node and creates a new node horizontally aligned to the right of the just-finished node, and adds an edge between the two nodes.

Edit

Like most things in Nemo, you can edit nodes by double clicking them or right clicking them in the graph view, or by editing fields in the node table.

Move

You can drag nodes around in the map view. Click and hold on the center of the node to move it. (Dragging from the border will create a new edge instead).

Nemo also offers several commands to help you arrange your nodes just the way you want:

• Align

  Line up the selected nodes along the outer edges or center of the selection.

  

• Distribute

  Space the selected nodes evenly on the horizontal or vertical axis.

  

• Transpose

  Reverse the x and y coordinates of the selected nodes. Make a row into a column or vice versa.

  

Nemo also has layout options like dependencies and clustering that take the graph structure into account.

Delete

You can delete a node by selecting it in the diagram view and hitting

, right clicking the node in the diagram view and choosing “Delete” from the context menu, or clicking the trash can in the node table that appears when you hover over each row.