Network Pane Help

Clicking on a word in the lefthand side scroll list of words makes the word appear in the Network window surrounded by its related words.

Double clicking your left or only mouse button on a related word will "sprout" its related words around it. (The words will move around until they're almost evenly laid out - that is, if you don't Scramble or Shake them.)

The colour of the links tells you the relationship between the two words - words that mean the same or the opposite, alternate forms used by different dialect groups and so on. You can see the meaning of the colours by looking at the Legend display. By default it is in the top left of the window. You can turn it on and off with the Legend checkbox.

There are two other useful checkboxes. The Show English checkbox shows a simple English gloss for each word. Often words have many meanings or senses, or various ways of glossing them. They can't all be shown below the word, so you should always check the meaning of a word in the Formatted Entry pane for more information. Words in the Network pane move around and attempt to keep away from other words. You can drag one and move it around and watch other words follow and flee. The Stop Moving checkbox stops all automatic node movement.

Clicking on your right mouse button, if you have one, or else holding down the shift key while clicking, will give you a few options such as:

  • find in list: Highlight this word in the Word List and display it in other windows. This is the same as single-clicking the left (or only) mouse button.
  • sprout: Select this word in the Word List, display it in other windows, and sprout the related words of this word. This is the same as double-clicking the left (or only) mouse button.
  • collapse: Unsprout the current node. Links to neighbouring nodes will be removed, and the neighbouring nodes themselves will also be removed, unless they are themselves focus nodes.
  • delete: Removes the word from the graph. Neighbours of the current word will also be removed, unless they are themselves focus nodes.
  • see definition: open up a small window with the full dictionary entry in it and a notes box
  • anchor down: Stop just this word from moving around
  • release: Allow this node to move around again

You can control some aspects of the Network pane by setting Network pane preferences.