When working in the Gantt view, you can use the Gantt Outline to work on tasks exactly as in the main Outline view. You can for instance: When working in the Gantt view, you can use the Gantt Outline to work on tasks exactly as in the main Outline view. You can for instance:
Add, delete, move, cut, copy and paste tasks as in the main Outline view.
Add branch pictures, icons, text notes and pop-up comments to any of your tasks.
Attach objects such as text files, video files, sound files, hyperlinks and so on.
Use the Numbering Scheme icon 
of the Gantt Tools tab or Home tab to apply sequential numbers to the tasks and choose between various numbering styles.
Use the Detail Level icons 
of the View tab to determine how many levels of tasks should be visible.
Use the Apply Branch Focus icon 
of the View tab to restrict the display to a particular task and click the Clear Branch Focus icon 
to view the entire project plan again.
Use the Filter icon 
of the View tab to hide all the tasks that do not meet the filter criteria you have defined. You can also use the Highlight icon 
to highlight tasks that meet the filter criteria but still keep the rest of the tasks visible.
For details on how to perform these operations, see "Using the Outline view".
You can also create the tasks of your project plan in other ways:
By importing a task list from Microsoft Outlook and converting it to a project plan.
For more information on the import procedure, see "Importing from Microsoft Outlook".
By importing a project from Microsoft Project, either directly or via the Microsoft Project XML format.
For more information, see "Importing from Microsoft Project" and "Importing from XML".
By copying a list of tasks from an external application such as Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word or Microsoft Project and pasting it into the Gantt Outline.
By default, all tasks that you create in a Gantt project with MindView are given the scheduling task mode Automatic Scheduling and the scheduling task type Fixed Units. For more information about task modes and task types, see "Using scheduling task modes" and "Using scheduling task types". You can change these default settings from the MindView Options dialog; for more information, see "Setting up your preferences".
By default, automatically scheduled tasks have a duration of one day and are marked with a question mark, to indicate that the duration is only an estimate. As soon as you edit the duration, the question mark disappears.
You can modify the duration of a task in various ways:
On the Gantt chart, position the cursor at the end of the task bar until it changes to 
, and drag the end of the bar to the right or left.
In the Gantt Outline, type a number of days in the appropriate cell in the Duration column. You can follow the number with letter(s) to indicate time units other than days: m (minutes), h (hours), d (days, the default), w (weeks), mo (months). You can enter the letter e before the time unit (for instance "3ed") to indicate elapsed time, in which case the task will last exactly the time specified, regardless of what the project calendar defines as working and non-working time.
You can indicate that a duration is still an estimate by adding a question mark.
Select the task and choose View | Task Information 
on the Gantt Tools tab to open its Task Information dialog. Enter a value in the Duration field as described above.
You can also open the Task Information dialog by pressing Shift + F2 or by double-clicking the task bar on the Gantt chart.
Select the task and, in the Task/Timeline panel, enter a value in the Duration field as described above.
The duration of the task is now indicated on the Gantt chart by a bar extending from its start date to its end date.
If you are using manually scheduled tasks, you can also enter free text in the task Duration fields (for instance "a few days") or Start/End fields (for instance "tomorrow") in addition to the values and time units described above. For more information about manual task scheduling, see "Using scheduling task modes".
At this stage, although the task has a duration, it does not have any work associated with it, because you have not yet assigned any resources to it. Work represents the amount of effort the resource or resources will need to spend on the task to complete it. For more information about work, and the effect of adding resources to tasks, see "Assigning resources".
Advanced notes: When you enter durations, for example "4 hours", MindView converts them to minutes and that is the number it stores behind the scenes. MindView uses standard values to convert hours to minutes: one hour equals 60 minutes. However if you specify a duration in days, weeks or months (provided you have not specified "e" for elapsed) MindView uses the number of working hours per day, week or month set in the Project Calendars Settings dialog (choose Project | Project Calendars on the Gantt Tools tab), to calculate the corresponding number of minutes to store. See "Defining calendars" for more information about these settings.
While durations determine the amount of working time that you allocate to a task, the length of the task bar indicates how long the task will actually take. These are not necessarily the same. For example, because MindView does not schedule work on non-working days, any task bar spanning a week-end is automatically lengthened to take account of this. Similarly, if your working day is specified as having 8 hours, but the relevant section of the calendar restricts work to only 4 hours a day, a task with a duration of one day (8 hours) will actually take two days (4 hours each day) to complete.
The labels shown in the Duration column, for example "2 days", are calculated from the stored number of minutes for each task. For durations initially specified in days, weeks or months MindView uses once more the number of working hours per day, week or month set in the Project Calendars Settings dialog to convert the stored number of minutes back to days, weeks or months. Consequently if you redefine the number of working hours in a day, week or month set in that dialog, the numbers in the Duration column will change, but the underlying number of minutes, and consequently the length of the bars, will remain the same.
Although you might be tempted to enter specific start and end dates for your tasks, it is not recommended unless you understand the implications of doing so. A better practice is to link tasks so that they follow on logically from one another, and let MindView calculate the dates automatically. In MindView and similar project management applications, entering an explicit start date for an automatically scheduled task is equivalent to setting a 'Start No Earlier Than' constraint. Similarly, entering a specific end date is equivalent to setting a 'Finish No Earlier Than' constraint. Although applying constraints in this way is perfectly legitimate if your tasks must indeed obey these constraints, it is best to avoid them wherever possible as they limit the flexibility of your project plan. For more information on the different types of constraints and their effects, see "Using Constraints".
If you want to be able to enter start and end dates freely on your tasks, without MindView applying constraints to them automatically, you can change the mode of these tasks from being automatically scheduled to being manually scheduled. For more information on manual task scheduling, see "Using scheduling task modes".
You can enter a specific start date in different ways:
Move the cursor to the center of the task bar and drag the bar to the new position.
Click the Start entry of the task in the Gantt Outline and type or select a date.
Select the task. On the Task/Timeline panel, select a date in the Start date field.
Select the task and choose View | Task Information on the Gantt Tools tab to open its Task Information dialog. Select a date in the Start field.
You can also open the Task Information dialog by pressing Shift + F2 or by double-clicking the task bar on the Gantt chart.
You can enter an end date in the following ways:
Click the End entry of the task in the Gantt Outline and type or select a date.
Select the task. On the Task/Timeline panel, select a date in the End date field.
Select the task and choose View | Task Information on the Gantt Tools tab to open its Task Information dialog. Select a date in the End field.
If you are using manually scheduled tasks, you can also enter free text in the task Duration fields (for instance "a few days") or Start/End fields (for instance "tomorrow"). For more information about manual task scheduling, see "Using scheduling task modes".
When you enter a specific start or end date for an automatically scheduled task, a constraint icon 
appears next to the task name in the Gantt Outline. Hovering this icon with the mouse displays a tooltip with details about the constraint.
To remove the constraint set by entering an explicit start or end date:
Open the Task Information dialog and remove the check mark from the Constraint date field.
You can group tasks together by creating sub-tasks under a parent task, called a summary task. This allows you to divide your project into logical units, each with its own collection of tasks. The start dates, end dates and durations of summary tasks are calculated automatically from their sub-tasks.
A summary task is indicated on the Gantt chart by a solid bar extending from the beginning of the first sub-task to the end of the last one.
If you add sub-tasks to a task that already has a duration assigned to it, this assigned duration is automatically replaced by the new duration obtained from the sub-tasks. Once a task becomes a summary task, it is no longer possible to specify its start date, end date or duration manually. If you change the timing of a sub-task, the summary task duration is automatically adjusted to reflect the change. If you want to be able to set the start date, end date or duration of your summary tasks freely, independently from the timing of their sub-tasks, you can change the mode of these summary tasks to be manually scheduled. For more information about manual task scheduling, see "Using scheduling task modes".
The duration of a summary task is the number of available working days between its start and its end, regardless of whether work is actually happening on any given day. The figure is calculated from the available working hours between the two dates, as specified on the project calendar, and the 'Hours per day' figure set in the Project Calendars Settings dialog. For more information about calendar settings, see "Defining calendars".
Sub-tasks are sub-branches, and you create them in the Gantt view in the same way as in any other view. The parent task is converted automatically to a summary task when you add its first sub-task.
You can convert an existing task to a sub-task or move it to a different level in the task hierarchy just as in the Outline view:
Select the task you want to move to a different location by clicking it with the left mouse button.
While keeping the left mouse button pressed, drag the task to the required location.
The mouse pointer changes to a different shape to show you where the task will be inserted when you let go of the mouse button.
In the example below, dropping the "3.c" task at the task position shown in red by the Move icon 
will make it a sub-task of the task "3.a".
Dragging the "3.c" task to the left until the Move icon reaches the left dot will keep it at the same hierarchical level (i.e. as sub-task of "3. Analyze" task) and insert it between the "3.a" and "3.b" tasks.
You can also click the Indent icon 
of the Gantt Tools tab (or press the keys Alt + Shift + right arrow) to move the selected task or tasks to the next level down in the hierarchy, so that they become sub-tasks of the preceding task in the Gantt Outline.
Conversely, you can click the Outdent icon 
(or press the keys Alt + Shift + left arrow) to move the selected task or tasks to the next level up in the hierarchy.
The root of the mind map, the first task in the Gantt Outline, is a summary task extending across the whole of the project plan. The end of this summary task bar indicates the current end date of the project.
You can expand and collapse summary tasks just as in the main Outline view. See "Using the Outline view" for details. Collapsing summary tasks is a useful way of making large project plans easier to view.
The tasks of your project plan can have many other properties. You can for instance:
Define the task as a milestone.
Set a deadline on the task.
Give the task a priority.
Specify a percentage completion for the task.
Hide the task bar in the Gantt chart.
Make the task inactive.
All these operations are described in detail in "Enhancing a project plan".