Bring arrow label to the next level

[julienfaure]

If mapping is more to you than just a synthetic representation of knowledge that is easier to memorize, and if you believe that making relationships explicit is a core aspect of the mapping process, you may be astonished that mapping apps give too little importance to arrows.

I think that your Excalidraw plug-in could take a significant step forward by introducing the following feature:

labelling arrows with another (deconstructed part of) drawing.

This would open a new era for mind mapping. A minimal example from my personal experience: I teach physics. The relationship between a system’s velocity and forces is Newton’s law. This relationship is represented by an arrow in the map of "dynamic relationships." I use this deconstructed part in many other drawings since Newton’s law is a central concept. Currently, I have to redraw the arrow by hand and place my deconstructed part over it very often. Moreover, each time I want to reorganize things, it is time-consuming.

I think this feature should not be added to the current arrow tool. In fact, arrows are currently not fully dynamic: moving one of the two connected objects only moves the last arrow point. In Canva (and other similar apps), the whole arrow adapts to nicely follow object movements. I believe this feature deserves a new arrow tool that behaves like in many other mapping apps, along with the "deconstructed label" feature.