Views and interactions
Command palette
The command palette gives you quick access to nearly everything you can do in Nemo.
To access the command palette, hold down
As you type in the command palette, the displayed options will filter to match what you typed.
Diagram view
The diagram view is a visual display of a map.
Collapse and expand
Collapsing and expanding nodes is a powerful feature unique to Nemo’s diagram view. It lets you quickly get to the right level of detail for yourself or your audience by hiding or showing semantically-meaningful sets of nodes. Instead of tediously tweaking individual components of an image, or having a meeting move past the visual aid that was keeping it on track, you can instantly hide all the small details during a high-level discussion, or expand the related topics that you weren’t expecting to cover.
When you collapse a set of nodes, instead of seeing every individual node on the diagram view, you’ll see a single node that represents everything collapsed under it. You’ll also see dotted edges between the aggregate node and any other nodes that have an edge with the child nodes, so you don’t totally lose track of those connections.
Click the icon in the top left of the diagram view to choose what you want to collapse - you can collapse all nodes with a given label, category option, or integration.
Containers
Containers help you explain the overall spatial structure of a diagram view. Containers are colored rectangles with a title. They are NOT part of your map data - each container only exists in the diagram view in which you create it. That means you can describe how a diagram is laid out without adding more nodes, edges, or labels.
To create a container, hold
To move the container, drag the top bar. When you move a container, any nodes that overlap the container will move along with it.
To resize the container, drag any corner.
To edit the container’s title, click the title text.
To change the container’s color, click the palette icon in the upper right and choose a new color.
To delete the container, click the X icon in the upper right.
You can undo and redo edits to a container.
Containers aren’t selectable, unlike nodes and edges.
If two containers overlap, the most-recently created one will display in front of any other containers.
Hover / fade
If you hover over a node for a second, we’ll fade out all nodes and edges in the map except the hovered node, its outgoing edges, and the nodes those edges connect to.
This helps you see relationships to a particular node and navigate around, even in a complex map.
You can turn this effect on or off with the command palette or in the diagram context menu.
- Open the command palette (⌃ + K)
- Type
fade - Select
Toggle fade effect
Edge details
To keep the diagram view more manageable, by default Nemo only shows edge details - the type icon and any edge text - when a connecting node is hovered.
You can change this behavior to always show edge details.
You can toggle this on or off with the command palette or in the diagram context menu.
Node highlighting
Nemo offers three ways to highlight nodes.
- Labels: uses the color of the first applied label
- Categories: uses the color of the option for the chosen category
- Relationships (based on edge types):
- Green if the node has at least 1 incoming “helps” edge and no incoming “harms” edges
- Red if the node has at least 1 incoming “harms” edge and no incoming “helps” edges
- Yellow if the node has at least 1 incoming “helps” edge and at least one incoming “harms” edges
- No color otherwise
You can toggle between these options or turn both off with the command palette or in the diagram context menu.
Layouts
Nemo offers several ways to automatically rearrange the nodes in your map. This can help you discover new insights and connections, communicate dependencies and/or a plan over time, or just tidy up after quick brainstorming.
Dependency layout
Organizes nodes based on their edges into a vertically-ordered tree-like structure.
Clustering layout
Organizes nodes based on their edges. More-connected nodes will be closer to the center, and less-connected nodes will move toward the edges.
Grid layout
Organizes nodes into a rectangular grid.
Labels layout
Organizes nodes in columns based on their labels
If node has more than one label, it will be placed in the first column that matches one of its labels.
Category layout
Organizes nodes in columns based on their assigned category option within the category you chose for the layout.
Selected nodes without an assigned option in the category will be placed in a separate column.
How to use layouts
Pre-req: at least 2 nodes in your map.
Select the specific nodes you want to rearrange, or don’t select anything to rearrange the whole map.
Right click on an open area of the diagram, or enter layout in the command palette to see layout options.
Label and category layouts are available from the menu in the bottom right of the diagram view.
Paste data in
Whatever other tools you’re working in, you can copy text, lists, tables, and more, and paste that content into Nemo’s diagram view.
How? Just copy from the outside app, switch to Nemo, click the diagram view, and paste with
- Text: Nemo creates separate nodes for every new line
- Bulleted lists: Nemo creates nodes for each bullet, and creates edges to reflect the tree structure
- Google Sheets: Nemo creates separate nodes for every cell
- DOT language (what Graphviz and many other tools use): Nemo creates all nodes and edges
Contextual actions
Contextual actions appear in the lower left corder of the diagram view. The available actions update depending on how many nodes you have selected.
You can hide contextual actions with the command palette.
- Open the command palette (⌃ + K)
- Type
context - Select
Toggle contextual action display
Toggle word wrap for diagram view nodes
You can choose to disable word wrapping for nodes displayed in the diagram view. This makes it easier to read long strings with no spaces, like hostnames or URLs.
Enter wrap in the command palette to get to the Toggle Word Wrap on Nodes command.
Table view
The table view shows your map as a structured table that you can easily pivot, filter, and reorder to show exactly what you need. Because it’s using the data from your map, everything’s up to date no matter how you’re slicing it.
From a single map (like our roadmap template) you can quickly create the many different views you need:
- Customer-facing roadmap: customer-impacting features by delivery timeline
- Internal-facing roadmap/planning: all features and internal projects by delivery timeline, customer impacts, involved teams, and affected systems
- Staffing: which teams are working on which projects and when
- Changelog + support enablement: which features impact which systems
- Decision-making and prioritization: see how two options and their effects compare
How to use it
Create a table view
Type table in the command palette, or use the keyboard shortcut
At the top of the table view, you can choose what values to show on each dimension - the rows and columns of the table view.
Options for dimension values:
- Nodes: group by specific nodes from your map.
- Nodes with label: group by each node with the chosen label.
- Label: group by the chosen label(s).
- Options in a category: group by each category option in the chosen category.
- All nodes: no sub-grouping, just show everything in one row or column.
Each cell of the table view then shows all nodes that have any edge to both the column and row selections. By default we also show a row or column for “Other” nodes that match one but not both dimensions. Click the settings icon to show edges in each cell instead of nodes - note: this is only available when the chosen dimensions could have edges between them.
You can reorder rows and columns at any time - just drag the header for the row or column to where you want it.
Realized you need to add a new option to your table view? No problem - you can add a row or column. Just click the plus icon next to the dimension dropdown.
You can also hide rows and columns - click the x icon in the header cell Don’t worry, hiding doesn’t delete anything! Click the settings icon to see everything you’ve hidden, and unhide it if you want.
Editing in the table view
You can drag to update existing nodes in the table view, and you can create new nodes there too.
This means you can use the table view as a flexible Kanban board, where Nemo’s flexible graph structure lets you create any view you need.
You can also use it for categorization exercises like an impact/effort matrix, BCG growth share, or any other exercise where you map items into multiple categories to uncover insights and better understand the overall landscape.
You can drag any node in the table view to another cell. When you do, the labels corresponding to the new cell will be added and the labels corresponding to the old cell will be removed.
For example:
The map has two labels: Project and Team
The map has one category (Timeline) with 3 options: Q1, Q2, and Q3
The Team label applies to three nodes: Frontend, Backend, and Integrations
The Project label applies to five nodes: New sign up flow, ChatGPT integration, automatic user setup, compliance certification, and metrics dashboard
- New sign up flow has an edge to Frontend and a Timeline option of Q1 (the frontend team is delivering it in Q1)
- ChatGPT integration has edges to Frontend and Integrations and a Timeline option of Q2 (the frontend and integrations teams are working together to ship it in Q2)
- Automatic user setup has edges to Frontend and Backend, and a Timeline option of Q2 (the frontend and backend teams are working together to ship it in Q2)
- Compliance certification has an edge to Backend and a Timeline option of Q2 (the backend team is delivering it in Q2)
- Metrics dashboard has edges to Frontend, Backend, and Integrations and a Timeline option of Q3 (all teams are working together to deliver it in Q3)
Let’s assume you set the table view to show Timeline (the category) as the columns and Team (the label) as the rows.
- If you found out that Compliance certification will be handled by Integrations instead of Backend, you could drag Compliance certification into the Integrations row - that will remove the edge between Backend and Compliance certification, and add a new edge between Integrations and Compliance certification.
- If you heard there was a delay on Automatic user setup, you could drag it from Q2 to Q3 - that will update the category option on the Automatic user setup node.
- If you have a great idea for a new integration, you could create a new node in the Integrations team row.
Saving and sharing table views
You can save your table views to refer back to later, and to share with others.
To save a table view, click “Save As” in the lower right and enter a name for the view.
To manage saved table views, enter manage table views in the command palette or choose the option in the map header menu. From that modal you can rename, open, copy, and delete all saved table views.
You can also export your table view in CSV format to paste into spreadsheet tools like Google Sheets and Excel.
Dependency view
A key part of working through any complex problem is understanding the dependencies and dependents for each of its parts.
Planning requires thinking carefully about cause and effect - the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, but we might need to put shoes on even before we take that step, and that in turn might mean getting them out of the closet.
Understanding dependencies isn’t just useful for determining in what order to do things. It can also help you decide to do something different. Sometimes when you’re focused on one path, it’s easy to forget adjacent options that were too difficult when considered earlier, but now that you’ve made progress it might be better and easier to pursue the adjacent option instead of the original plan. It’s often at least worth a discussion among leadership.
How to use it
Right click on a node or enter dependency view in the command palette when you have a node selected.
Click any node in the dependency view to see that node’s own dependencies. Use the browser back button to return to the previous node.
For dependencies at depth 2 or greater, you can see the path of dependencies from the selected node by hovering over the See Path button to the right of the depth column.
Settings
Settings gives you one place to:
- View all your maps
- Rename a map
- Change a map’s sharing settings
- Delete a map
- View your integrations
- Delete integrations
In-app feedback
Trying to do something in Nemo and can’t figure it out? Wish Nemo something it doesn’t do? Hit a bug? Use the Feedback button at the top of the diagram view to let us know.
