How to … add web links (“URLs”) to Thorts in Thortspace

(1) The easy way — drag and drop

You can drag-and-drop a URL from the address line of the browser…

Drag from the URL line of the browser, across onto the sphere

Choose the position on the sphere where you want to drop, and let go

… or with some browsers and web-pages you can drag a link from a page.

Drag a link from the middle of a web page and drop onto the sphere

The new link appears on the sphere just as before

Drop the URL on the sphere for a new thort.

Drop the URL on an existing thort to apply the link to that thort.

Drag the link from the web page … and drop onto an existing Thort.

The link is attached to the Thort.

More about Drag-and-Drop in Thortspace including a tutorial video is here:

(14) How to … take advantage of Drag-and-Drop into Thortspace

(2) The slightly less easy way — copy-and-paste

(1) Copy a web link from somewhere… it can be from anywhere. Plain text is fine. For example you could use a browser right-click menu to copy a web link.

Or you could just copy a the text of a web link (a web link is sometimes called a “URL”). For example you could copy the following Text: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news

(2) In Thortspace, open a thort for editing and click or tap the “Paste Link” button:

(3) The web link (URL) on the clipboard is set to be the link of the Thort:

(4) Return the thort to sphere (ie. take it out of edit mode) in any of the usual ways. Now you can see that the link has been assigned to the Thort, and test that it works. (Click the middle of the Thort to test the link.)

More about using Copy-and-Paste in Thortspace is here:

(15) How to … take advantage of Copy and Paste in Thortspace

(3) And now you have the Thort with a web link on your sphere — how do you follow that link to its webpage?

You can tell which thorts in thortspace have web links attached to them by the outward pointing arrows that run around the edge of the thort.

To follow the web link attached to a Thort to its page in a web browser:

On desktop computers:

• You can follow the web link attached to a thort in either the App version of Thortspace or the Web version of Thortspace by clicking on the centre of the Thort.
• To edit the thort text of a thort that has a web link attached to it, just click on the edge of the thort twice (when in Think mode).

On mobile devices and touchscreens:

• In the App version on mobile devices and touchscreens you need to “long press” to follow a link.
• In the App version on mobile devices and touchscreens you can edit a thort (when in Think mode) by tapping on it as usual.
• In the Web version on mobile devices you can follow a link with a single tap.

Andrew is a Product Designer at Thortspace, the world’s first collaborative 3D mind mapping software. More stories here.