Map Panel

🌻 Map Panel

🗺️ What you can do here: See your causal relationships as an interactive network map. Drag nodes around, click on links to edit them, and use the controls to customize how the map looks. You can even drag one factor onto another to quickly create new links. This is where your data comes to life visually.

Map Controls #

Jump to factor - Type-to-search dropdown to quickly find and select factors on the map. Type to filter options, then press Enter to select all matching factors. Supports multiple selections.
Refresh layout - Return the map to its original state before zoooming, moving etc.
Copy image to clipboard - Get a very high-quality image copied straight into your clipboard which you can paste in a report or presentation.
Copy legend
Zoom in/out controls
Double-click anywhere on the map background to zoom in to that point

Map Legend #

Discrete text legend showing:

projectname and included sources
Citation coverage percentage
Visual encoding explanations (link sizes, colors, numbers)
Applied filters summary
💡Tip: Click Copy legend to copy this text to clipboard.
You can drag the legend box to reposition it on the map.

Map Formatting #

Customisable formatting (Things you can tweak)#

Layout: change how the map is laid out and how you interact with it.

Interactive and most of the other layouts are good while you are conducting your research. They are fast and you can interact with the results -- moving factors around, clicking to edit, etc.
Print/Graphviz layout is best for static images e.g. for reports and journal articles.
Direction: For Interactive and Print/Graphviz layouts, choose LR (left-to-right, default), TB (top-to-bottom), or BT (bottom-to-top).

Factor Labels: (you can see the same data in the Factors Panel)

Source count (default)
Citation count
Sentiment (mean incoming edge sentiment, -1..+1)
None

Link Label Font Sizes Link Widths: Citation count (default) Source count, None Link Colour: Default link line colour (applies to Interactive and Print/Graphviz layouts). When sentiment is neutral (0), this colour is also used for arrowheads and node borders. Link Labels:

Source count (default)
Citation count
Sentiment (mean edge sentiment, -1..+1)
Custom Links label - Use configuration from Custom Links Label filter
Unique Sources - Alphabetical list
All Sources - Complete list with repeats
Unique Tags - Alphabetical list
All Tags - Complete list with repeats
None - Show no labels on links

Factor Colors:

Outcomeness (default) - Based on in-degree ratio
Source count
Citation count
None

Factor Sizes:

Citation count (default) - Font size scales with citation count
Source count - Font size scales with source count
None - All factors use uniform size (increased by 50% for visibility)

Self-loops:

Show toggle (default: on)

Fixed visual appearance (things you can't tweak)#

Link Styling:

Arrowheads colored by mean sentiment (neutral uses Link Colour)
Color scale: muted blue (+1) → grey (0) → muted red (-1)
Bezier curved edges with bundling

Factor Styling:

Size scaled by node degree (with bounds)
Border color reflects mean incoming edge sentiment
Matched factors show dashed colored borders

Interactive Features#

These work for all layouts except Print/Graphviz layout (which is mostly for static export, but does support clicking nodes/links now).

Drag factors to temporarily reposition them
Drag factor to factor to create new links
Shift+drag for box selection of multiple factors (opens edit modal)
Ctrl+drag for box selection of multiple factors (direct selection, no modal)
Click a link to edit.
Click a factor to edit; shift-click or ctrl-click to add to selection without opening modal.

Editing and deleting (multiple) factors#

Select factor(s) by clicking a factor, shift-click or ctrl-click to add more, or shift+drag/ctrl+drag a box around multiple factors, then:
Move selected factors together
Delete matching factors everywhere or in current view only
Rename matching factors everywhere or in current view only

What does "everywhere or in current view only" mean?

everywhere: all links containing factors with exactly the selected labels will be deleted
in current view only: all links containing factors with exactly the selected labels (and matching the current filters, i.e. those you can see in the current map) will be deleted

💡Tip: By control-clicking or shift-clicking multiple factors you can easily rename several at once, e.g. you can merge multiple factors as a single factor.

Grid layout#

Factors containing a tag of the form (N.M) or (N,M) anywhere in the label (where N and M are integers) are positioned on a grid layout. The grid coordinate tags are automatically stripped from displayed labels.

Grid layout toggle: Enable/disable grid layout in Map Formatting. Defaults to enabled. Disabled automatically when no grid tags are present.

Interactive Layout:

Grid-tagged factors are positioned at their grid coordinates and locked in place
Other factors with no grid tag are positioned freely within the grid bounds
Grid bounds: from smallest x -1 to largest x +1, and smallest y -1 to largest y +1

Print/Graphviz Layout:

Grid-tagged factors anchor the initial and final ranks:
Factors with minimum rank coordinate (first number) are anchored at rank=min (initial rank)
Factors with maximum rank coordinate are anchored at rank=max (final rank)
This improves layout stability while allowing Graphviz to position other nodes optimally
Grid coordinate tags are stripped from labels in the output

Grid coordinates respect layout direction:

First number (N) always maps to the rank direction (main flow direction)
Second number (M) always maps to the perpendicular direction
BT (Bottom-Top): First number = y (rank), y starts at bottom (flip y), second = x
TB (Top-Bottom): First number = y (rank), y starts at top (normal), second = x
LR (Left-Right): First number = x (rank), x starts at left (normal), second = y, y starts at top
RL (Right-Left): First number = x (rank), x starts at right (flip x), second = y, y starts at top

Vignettes #

📝 What you can do here: Generate AI-powered narrative summaries of your causal maps. Choose between a "whole map" summary that covers all the relationships, or a "typical source" story that focuses on one representative case. Perfect for creating reports or explaining your findings in plain language.

How to use:

Select your model and region settings
Choose Whole Map or Typical Source
Enter or edit your prompt (use the navigation buttons to browse previous prompts)
Click Write Vignette to generate

Whole Map: Creates a summary of all relationships in your current map view. the app provides the following data which is appended to the prompt:

The overall map (same as you can see) including factor frequencies and bundled causal links with average sentiment
Up to 5 "typical sources" that tell the most common stories within the current map, with their quotes and metadata including source ID, Title and Filename.

Typical Source: Focuses on the single most representative source, showing individual links with quotes and sentiment.

Output format: Results are displayed as markdown with support for:

Headers, bold, italic text
Bulleted and numbered lists
Callouts/quotes (using >)
Code blocks

You can edit your prompt to change the tone, audience, or focus before generating. See the tips on using prompt history for more details.