The Four Modes of Thortspace

Think Mode, Do Mode, Present Mode, Explore Mode

The four modes are:

• Think — for Thortspace’s innovative sphere-format editing
• Do — for Kanban format editing
• Present — for read-only creation, editing and viewing of Journeys (ie. read-only in respect of sphere content)
• Explore — for read-only exploration of your thortspace

The four noble modes? Oh alright then, I guess they are not especially noble. But here they are, and this is what they’re for and why we have them.

(1) Think Mode

Think mode gives you read-write access to the current sphere, as long as you are the owner of that sphere, or that sphere has been shared with you with editing permissions turned on.

Think mode is the most basic operating mode of using Thortspace, and for many users it is where you will spend most of your time.

(2) Present Mode

Present mode gives you access to Journeys through Thortspace.

A journey is made up of a series of viewpoints of one or more spheres. The spheres visited by a given journey can be any you have access to; they can be your own spheres, or spheres that have been shared with you, or even public spheres.

Present mode is read-only in respect of sphere content. You cannot edit thorts or thortgroups or thort positions, or make any of the other editing changes such as you make in Think mode.

However you can, of course, edit the viewpoints of journeys you make, and create and publish journeys.

There is much more information about all this functionality in a series of articles which begins with this one:

(10) How to … Present and Publish the thinking you’ve created in Thortspace (Part 1)

(3) Do Mode

Do mode presents you with a “Kanban” format of the same content you have on your current sphere.

The idea here is to be able to turn the insightful thinking you may have achieved in Think mode, in to actionable insights — things that you can actually go ahead and take action on.

Here is an article about starting out with Do Mode:

(2) How to … use “Do” mode

(4) Explore Mode

Explore mode is a read-only mode. Like Present mode, Explore mode also blocks the editing sphere content (such as Thort text and position), thereby making it a “safe” mode for browsing sphere content in. I say it’s “safe” because you won’t accidentally change a thort position or text — or whatever else.

It also hides away almost all the tab panels and button bars, leaving nothing on the screen to distract from the content of the spheres themselves.

(9) How to … use Explore mode

Andrew is a Product Designer at Thortspace, the world’s first collaborative 3D mind mapping software. Thortspace enables breakthrough collaborative thinking whenever and wherever you need it most. More stories here.