Documenting Trees: Groups and Comments

You can add comments to document your trees. Like comments in programming code, they help to explain your trees to people who might be trying to use or modify them, including yourself!

Commenting a Single Node

Nodes with comments display a speech bubble in their title bars. Click the speech bubble to display or hide the comment.

To add a comment to a single node

Right-click on a node (not over a port) and choose Create Comment. The Comment property editor opens.
Enter the comment text and set its color as desired.
Click Apply to apply your changes and keep the Comment property editor open.

Changes are automatically applied when you close the property editor.

To modify a comment for a single node

If necessary, display the comment by clicking on the speech bubble.
Double-click on the comment text. The Comment property editor opens.
Make any changes you want and click Apply or close the property editor.

To offset a comment for a single node

By default, comments are displayed along the top of the node. You can move them by clicking and dragging. Comments remain attached to their nodes by a thin line.

To remove a comment from a single node

Right-click on a node with a comment (not over a port) and choose Delete Comment.

Adding Comment Nodes

As an alternative to attaching a comment to a specific node, you can use a Comment node to place a comment anywhere in a tree.

To add a comment

Drag a Comment node into the tree from the Comment category of the Tools tab of the preset manager.

To edit a comment

Double-click on the Comment node. The Comment property editor opens.
Enter the comment text and set its color as desired.
Click Apply to apply your changes and keep the Comment property editor open.

Changes are automatically applied when you close the property editor.

To resize a comment

Make sure that Auto Resize is off in the Comment's property editor.
Move the mouse pointer over the Comment's border.
When the pointer changes to a double-headed arrow, click and drag to define a new size.

To minimize and restore a comment

To minimize a comment, move the mouse pointer over a comment and click the Minimize icon that appears.

To restore a minimized comment, double-click on it.

To delete a comment

Select it and press the Delete key.

Commenting Groups of Nodes

You can document multiple nodes in a section of a tree using a Group Comment node. Group Comments have a couple of advantages:

You can middle-click on its label to select and move the Group Comment node and all other nodes that overlap it.
The background color is displayed in the Bird's Eye View, so you can quickly find specific areas of your tree.

NoteGroup comments are just regions in the workspace. Selecting or branch-selecting the nodes inside a group comment does not select the group comment itself. Middle-click on the group comment's label to select it and its contents, or use Shift to add the group comment to the selection.

To add a Group Comment node

Drag a Comment node into the tree from the Comment category of the Tools tab of the preset manager.

To edit a Group Comment node

Double-click on the Group Comment's label. The Comment property editor opens.
Enter the comment text and set its color as desired. To make the color show more clearly in the Bird's Eye View, increase the Background Color's Alpha value.
Click Apply to apply your changes and keep the Comment property editor open.

Changes are automatically applied when you close the property editor.

To resize a Group Comment node

Move the mouse pointer over the bottom or sides of the Group Comment. When the pointer changes to a double-headed arrow, click and drag to define a new size.
To move the top of the Group Comment, first click the label and drag it to a new location and then adjust the sides and bottom.