Scenario: research projects

You're writing a paper, comparing products, or learning something new. After a day you have five windows and eighty tabs, and you've lost track of what each one was for.

Here is one way to keep it under control.

1. One question per window

• Open a new window for each question or sub-topic. Right-click empty space in Side View → New window puts it beside Side View.
• Name each window after the question, not the site: "How do others measure X?", "Related work", "Data sources".
• Give the windows that matter most today a color, so they stand out.

When a link leads to a different question, move that tab: drag it to the right window, or right-click → Move to new window and name the new window.

2. Let the tree show your trail

• Open links in new tabs. Each one nests under the page it came from.
• When a trail turns out to be a dead end, close it. If it is at the end of the window, right-click its first tab → Close tabs below, then close that tab too.
• If a trail at the end of a window turns into its own topic, hover the gap above it and click the scissors. It moves to a new window.

3. Park, don't hoard

• A page you want to read but not now: right-click → Read later, then close the tab.
• A page that is a keeper: bookmark it into a project folder.
• Two copies of the same page: the colored DUP label on the right of the tab rows shows them. Close one.

4. Map it

Open Concept Mode with the orange wand.

1. Double-click the canvas and type the project name. That is your main topic.
2. Press Tab to add a concept for each question.
3. Drag each window from the list onto the question it belongs to.
4. Drag the project's bookmark folder from Bookmarks on the right.
5. Add a note with the things you already know, or quotes you want to keep.
6. Select a concept and press / to turn it into a checkbox. Tick it when the question is answered.

The map is kept automatically as Live. Save a copy with the save icon when you hit a milestone.

5. End the day

• Green power button → Save & Close All. Right-click it if you want the session on your other computer too.
• Or keep the windows open and use the snowflake → Hibernate other windows to free memory.

Next morning, open Session Manager, rename yesterday's session to the project name, and open it.

6. Finish the project

• Move the session to Archive.
• Go through Read Later. File what's worth keeping, delete the rest.
• Save the map under the project name so you can look back at how the work fit together.