Ex1 - Your first model

2-5 Minutes

• 1. Drag a green box (useful agent) from the Toolbox palette onto the canvas.

  2. Enter a name for the useful agent.

  3. Try moving the agent around the canvas by dragging it while holding down the left mouse button. The mouse pointer will change to a 'hand' when it is roughly in the middle of the agent.

  4. Now drag a red box (harmful agent) from the palette. Alternately, just position your mouse somewhere on the canvas and type Ctrl+H on the keyboard. This is one of many short cuts which speed up the modelling process.

  5. Take a look at the Insert menu. This is another way to add agents to the canvas.

  6. Now we are going to create an effect from the useful agent (green) to the harmful agent (red). Place your mouse just inside the border of the useful agent, hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse over the harmful agent. You will see an effect line connect the two. When you release a mouse button, a dialog box will appear. Enter a name for the harmful agent in the description field. Your cursor should already be in that field by default. Don't worry about all the other options in the dialog box, we'll come to those later. For now, just click on OK or press the return key on the keyboard.

  7. Congratulations, you have just modelled a harmful side effect of a useful function.

Now go on to make some changes:

• 1. You can edit the text of the boxes. Just select a box with the mouse. The resize handles will appear. Now click again on the text to edit it. Another way of entering text edit mode is to press F2 while the box is selected.

  2. Now drag one of the box around the canvas. The effect line will follow.

  3. Southbeach is a modelling tool which provides a visual language for innovation, problem solving, change and alignment. Each box and line has a right mouse menu. Move your mouse over an agent, and press the right mouse button. A context menu will appear. Try some of the options.

  4. Do the same for the effect line. Position your mouse accurately anywhere on the line, and press the right mouse button. A similar menu will appear. Again, try some of the options. (Note - if you don't get your mouse accurately on the line it will be on the canvas background which has its own right mouse menu.

  5. Try the right mouse on the canvas. Here you set properties for the model, and defaults for modelling.

  6. You can get to the Model Properties dialog box via the canvas right mouse menu, or by double clicking on the tab. Because this was a new model, its name will currently be 'noname1'. Double click on the tab. A dialog box will appear. Give the model a name in the description field. If you like, type some notes to explain your model. Then select OK.

  7. Now try saving your model file. Use the File menu. By default the file will be given the name of the model. But you can change the name if you wish. Each model file can actually contain several model tabs. Each model tab is a separate model, held in the same file. Each model has a description and notes, separate from the file name. This allows you to store several related models in the same file. Southbeach files have the extension .sbm. When you click on them in folders or on the desktop, they will launch Southbeach Modeller if it is correctly installed.

  8. Congratulations, you have created and saved your first model. It should be visible in the Explorer Models panel on the left, if you put it in the southbeach folder created for you when you installed the software.

  9. There is a lot more to Southbeach. Now move to exercise 2