All you need to do is drag and drop the hyperlink onto an open Library folder on IdeaMason’s homepage. This automatically creates a new source in the IdeaMason library and displays the webpage instantly in our internal browser.

For more information on managing web research in IdeaMason see our videos featured on the Tutorials page on our website. Take a look at “Manage Web Research Using the “Source on Web” Panel” under the Sources section.

ANSWER: If you want to copy sources from a specific composition, open the Library folder and find the subfolder called “library cited by composition”. This gives you a complete list of the sources in each composition in that portfolio. To copy the entire list of sources or a selection of the sources to a new portfolio hold down the shift key and just click through the list until you have highlighted the sources you want to copy. Then just drag them to the open new portfolio window and drop them on the open Library folder.

If you are dragging the sources into a portfolio that already has sources in that portfolio, the newly added sources might be hard to find, so here is a tip. Tag the sources before you copy them across by simple changing the “status”. Highlight all the sources in the list, right click and change the status to something you can easily recognize like “new chapter”. [You can instantly add a new status by clicking on the green plus sign in the “Status” pop up box]

Once you have dragged the items to the new portfolio/libray folder, click on Status column to sort the list by status type. From there you can simply copy them straight into a new composition to instantly create a new bibliography.

You can use this same process to copy materials (ideas, quotations…) into a new portfolio. Just go to the Material Folder on the homepage and click on the subfolder called “Materials by Composition”. This gives you a complete list of compositions in a portfolio, and in turn, all the Materials (ideas, quotations…) in each composition. You can highlight the entire list or a selected group of materials and drag them over into the Materials folder of the new portfolio. Again, if you want a quick way to find the materials in the new portfolio, just highlight the list and right click to change the “status” of the items before you drag them into the new portfolio.

A huge time saver to remember is that when you drag a Material (idea, quotation…) from one portfolio to another IdeaMason automatically takes the associated sources with it. What this means is that any material in a composition that has associated sources that helped you “automatically” build your bibliography in an old composition, will do the same for you in a new composition.

When you first drag a material(s) with attached sources into a new portfolio, the material(s) will get inserted into the Material Folder and the associated sources will get inserted into the Library folder for general use. If you then drag that material (idea, quotation…) into a new composition, the associated sources will automatically get inserted into the Source List tab within the new composition. This instantly creates your bibliography list without even having to drag those sources independently from the old portfolio to the new portfolio.

Here’s a link to the Review

If you have some books to log, start with opening a new Source. If you just want to get started writing, open a new Material and just start typing. As you transition between thoughts, open a new idea or create a new linked the idea directly.

Maybe you just want to jot down some thoughts and link them to online research you are doing. If you have some external files you want to organize, you can do that too.

And it is never too early to start a composition. (more…)

All your work in IdeaMason is organized into portfolio. When you open IdeaMason for the first time, you find yourself working in your first portfolio “My Portfolio”. Think of a portfolio as a file or container of ideas, sources, links, notes. You can create as many portfolios as you like and name them whatever you like just like you would an ordinary file. Tip: Under File/Portfolio properties you can write a brief description to help you outline or describe the work you intend to do in the portfolio.

Use a single portfolio for a large project
If you are starting work on a big project you could create a single portfolio that will contain all the work, ideas, sources and compositions. You can divide your work into a number of different activities within this portfolio. You can also organize your materials and sources within the portfolio into different categories. The work you do in this portfolio might result in the creation of one major composition. Or you might choose to divide your work, chapter by chapter, creating a new composition per chapter. Inevitably, a large project always seems to break off into smaller subsets projects and even subset papers. This is where the advantages of IdeaMason come into play. If all your ideas and sources are in one portfolio, it will be easy to reuse ideas and/or sources, or even expand on a single idea or category of ideas creating a whole new project.

Create a home library
The work in a portfolio doesn’t always have to consist of ideas, sources and the compositions created with these materials. You might want to use a single portfolio focusing on only one of the features. For instance, if you have a home library or read a lot you could use a single portfolio as a library. This portfolio will grow (more…)

Here are a few quick links to a few really good ones:

Do more with Saved Searches
The Matrix relationships between projects, activities and categories
Organizing your Library
Think differently about how you use a Composition

Website and Tutorial Videos:
There is a lot of information on our website specifically targeted to helping you learn how to use IdeaMason and get the most out of the tools available to you throughout the application. The favorite area for most new comers is without a doubt the Tutorials page. Click on the Tutorials side link to get a top to bottom view of IdeaMason in easy to understand videos.

Built in Help File:
There is also a comprehensive help file built directly into the software and accessible from the help menu inside the application. For faster help just when you need it you can also hit F1 on a specific window or section of a window. This action will instantly pull up help information that pertains directly to the features within that window.

You will see the discounted price on the second page during the purchase process. This discount can be applied to any license type you are looking to buy - multi-pack or single license.

This sale is sponsored by Bitsdujour.com. Please visit www.BitsduJour.com for more details.

For 24 hours only - buy IdeaMason at 40% off.

Just log on after midnight [US Eastern Standard Time] on May 21st to get IdeaMason for the lowest prices of the year.

We will feature the discount code right here on our blog. Use the discount code during the purchase process to get 40% off any single or multi-pack purchase.

Download a copy of IdeaMason today and come back Wednesday, May 21st to buy at 40% off.

This sale is sponsored by Bitsdujour.com. Please visit www.bitsdujour.com for more details.

All of these editing features can also be found under the Edit menu in the Dashboard window along with their respective keyboard shortcuts. The keyboard shortcuts typically correspond with the same shortcuts you use in Microsoft Word.

GOOD TIP: The keyboard shortcut for bullets actually lets you extend the function of the toolbar item itself from a plain bulleted list to a lettered or numbered list. Just press and hold down Cntrl Shift and then keep pressing L to toogle through the variations of list types available, anything from 1, A, a, I, i.