Using the Center command to explore relations
Like many of the edit commands, Edit > Center requires you to select an item or items on a map before performing the command. If you select just one item it does the same thing as control+clicking on an item. If you select multiple items in a map and choose Edit > Center you can create some very interesting maps quite quickly.

For this example we will keep working with the American Clean Skies Foundation map. Let’s select three of the items in the map that were interrelated: Aubrey K. McClendon, Denise Bode and Chesapeake Energy Corporation. Once they are selected we choose the menu option Edit > Center and end up with the map below. Notice how there are fewer extraneous items in the map allowing us to focus on the relationships we are interested in exploring further.

We can continue to explore relations in this map to see if there are any other interesting connections we might want to know about. With a little bit of clicking around we discover that Aubrey McClendon and former Chesapeake director Tom L. Ward have teamed up as co-owners of the Professional Basketball Club LLC. Professional Basketball Club LLC happens to be the owner of the Seattle Supersonics, and is trying to move the Sonics from Seattle to Oklahoma City, the home of Chesapeake Energy. Muckety that!

A quick review of the Edit menu
We made it through all of the commands in the edit menu. Let’s review them quickly.

• Edit > Find… allows you to locate and select items in a map.
• Edit > Delete allows you to delete selected items from a map.
• Edit > Group allows you to group two or more selected items in a map and create a name for them.
• Edit >Ungroup allows you to ungroup items that have been grouped.
• Edit > Organize automatically creates groups from names related to the selected name. Groups are created of two or more names having the same relation to the selected name. The groups are named using the name of the relation.
• Edit > Expand allows you to expand relations of the selected names, bringing new names into the display that are related to the ones you have selected.
• Edit > Center centers the map display on the selected names. This is the same display you would get if you started a new search from the names you have selected.

The File menu
The File menu has only one option at this time: File > Save.

The File > Save command allows you to save a map in the current state that it is in. It is sometimes useful to save maps you are working on so that you can return to a previously saved map if your explorations take you in a direction you really didn’t want to go and your map gets crowded and confused with items you are not interested in. At Muckety we save maps frequently so that we have previous versions that we can explore freely without loosing the time we took to get a map to a certain state.

Once you have a map in a state which you would like to save choose File > Save. You will be presented with a popup box asking you for a title for your map. Choose a descriptive name and click OK.

You will then be presented with a dialog box (see image below) that has the address of your saved map. Copy the address and paste it into your browser’s address bar. You may want to also email the address to yourself, or bookmark it for future reference.

On the Muckety web site we feature user created maps in our Make a Muckety section.

The View menu
The view menu has four options that are available. None of these require items to be selected in the map for them to function.

View > Repel
Using this command forces the map to move the names in the map so you can see them all. It may not be possible if there are too many names. Choosing View > Repel a second time will cause additional adjustments to be made. If you select items on a map, these items are not affected by this command; select the ones you want to remain stationary before choosing View > Repel.

View > Toolbar
Using this command enables or disables the Toolbar, which appears above the map. The Toolbar contains some of the tools available under the Edit and View menus. Note that leaving the Toolbar enabled will use up some of the area normally used for items in the map. For busy maps it might be best to disable the Toolbar. The Toolbar is turned off by default.

View > Status bar
Using this command enables or disables the status bar, which appears at the bottom of the map. The Status bar reports the number of items selected in a map. This information is useful because some commands are limited by the number of selected names. For instance, the Center and Expand commands are limited to 30 selected items. The Status bar is turned off by default. You can turn it on by clicking on Status bar in the View menu.

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