Extra Features Could Add More Snap and Crackle to Popplet

Popplet, an app from Notion, is available for US$4.99 at the App Store.

When traveling from one place to another, sometimes a map can be more useful than a set of directions. The same can be true for planning projects, such as essays, presentations, or for noodling with less structured activities, such as brainstorming.

One popular way of visualizing projects is with "mind maps." The maps can be very simple. An organizational chart is a prosaic example of a mind map. So, too, are the bracket graphics accompanying sports tournaments like the World Cup or the NCAA's March Madness basketball tourney. The maps can also be very complex, such as those drawn by Mark Lombardi to illustrate mob money wizard Meyer Lansky's financial network or the byzantine elements of the Iran-Contra scandal.

Although mind mapping began with paper and pencil, it quickly moved to computers and the Web. So it should be no surprise that mind mapping apps started appearing on the iPad as soon as the tablet began arriving in the hands of consumers. One of those programs is Popplet, by Notion.

The app is offered in two versions. There's a free edition that limits you to a single popplet and a $4.99 release that lets you create unlimited popplets and to share images of your popplets with friends.

Mind Maps Become Popplets

What's a popplet? It's essentially Notion's name for its flavor of mind map.

When you launch the paid version of the program, a screen will appear with colored boxes representing your popplet projects. Poking the edit button on the screen permits you to delete popplets. Tapping the "make new popplet" button allows you to create a new project.

The first step in creating a new project is picking a color for it. Six colors are available, including black and gray.

New popplets are automatically named "my new popplet." Names can be easily changed, though. You just tap the name and type in a new one.

Controls inside a popplet are simple. There's a home button for returning to the screen listing all your popplets. There are buttons for changing the popplet's color, displaying a help screen, sharing popplets and viewing all "popples" in a project.

Proliferating Popples

Popples are boxes in which you place information. They correspond to the nodes in a mind map. A blank popple appears on the screen when a new popplet is created. To add a popple to a popplet, you merely double-tap the iPad's screen.

You add information to a popple by poking it. Three kinds of info can be added to a popple -- text, pictures and drawings -- and a color can be chosen for the popple's border.

Three sizes of text are available, as well as three alignments -- left, center or right. Only one san-serif font is available for text. A little more font variation may be something Notion might want to consider in future editions of the program.

Images can be imported into a popple from the iPad's photo library or copied from Web pages. When you paste into a popple a picture copied from Web page, you're given a choice of inserting the image or its URL.

URLs in popples aren't active. You can't poke them and be launched to their locations on the Web. That's disappointing. It also detracts from the research value of the program. Since it's not a good idea to make the nodes in a mind map too text-heavy, active links would allow map makers to add some information depth to their work.

You can also draw inside a popple or write in one with your finger or a stylus. A drawback to this method is that there's no eraser to correct mistakes, which is like doing the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink.

Exploits iPad's Strengths

To enlarge a popple, you finger an arrow at its right corner and drag it around the screen until the popple's the size and shape you want it to be. To delete a popple, you just poke an X on its border.

On each side of a popple are dots. They're used to associate the popple with its mates. To link one popple with another, you finger a dot, drag it to the associated popple and a line will tie the two together. Unfortunately, there's no way to add arrowheads to the lines to show how links flow from one to another.

Maps created in the app can be shared via email. The program will turn a popplet into an image suitable for that purpose. Notion is also working on synchronizing information between the iPad and a Popplet website . The website could also be used to collaborate on popplets.

The iPad's touch interface is nearly perfect for creating and manipulating the components of a mind map. Those strengths are exploited by Popplet and that makes the app useful in creating simple mind maps. With a few more tweaks, like active links and online synchronization, the software could double its usefulness and be the kind of app that's a permanent fixture on the home screens of many iPad users.