Somewhere around the fifteenth wire, every breadboard build crosses a line: you stop seeing the circuit and start seeing spaghetti. The cure is the same in simulation as on the bench, except the simulator's version works: know your nodes, name the ones that matter, and label the board itself.

A node is a fact, not a drawing

Electrically, a node is everything that is connected together: a breadboard column, the wires leaving it, the pins plugged into it. The app labels them Node 0, Node 1, and so on, with Ground as the 0 V reference, and assigns each one a stable colour used everywhere that node appears: its scope channel swatch, its trace, and its highlight on the board. One concept, one colour, three places.

Open View → Node highlighting and pick On hover: touching any wire, hole, pin, or supply terminal lights up every visible point of the same node and outlines its scope channel. This works with the simulation stopped, because it reads wiring topology rather than voltages, which makes it the debugging tool for the most common wiring error in existence: two things you believed were connected, and are not. Hover one of them; if the other does not light, there is your bug, no probes required.

Show all nodes draws every node's name and colour at once. It is loud, it is the map view, and it is included in a PNG export while enabled, which turns "screenshot of my board" into "wiring diagram of my board" for handing to a student or a forum.

Name the nets that matter

The scope's channel list has a rename pencil next to each node. Use it early: the first thing we do on any circuit with more than two interesting points is rename them to what they mean, cap, out, trigger, and let Node 4 keep the boring name. Renames follow the net everywhere: channel list, node highlight labels, the works. Since the July polish release this is free for every plan, and it is the single highest-value habit for scope work, because "the yellow trace is Node 6" is a sentence nobody should have to say aloud in a classroom.

Labels and annotations: writing on the board

Two different tools, both under the Annotate button at the top of the palette (or by selecting a part):

• Component labels belong to a part and move with it. Toggle a part's label to stay visible permanently ("R divider top", "the 555"), or leave labels on hover only. View → All labels shows every one at once.
• Annotations are free-standing text placed anywhere on the canvas: a title block, "section B: power", a note to your future self about why the diode faces that way.

Both are included in exports, PNG and PDF alike, and they scale and pan with the board. A titled, annotated board with named nets exports as something close to lab documentation, which is the difference between remembering a build and reconstructing it.

A five-minute legibility pass, worked

Take any circuit from this week (the 555 monostable is a good candidate) and:

1. Rename its three interesting nodes: trigger, cap, out.
2. Give the timing resistor and capacitor persistent labels with their values.
3. Add one annotation: "T = 1.1·R·C ≈ 1.1 s".
4. Switch on Show all nodes, export a PNG, switch it off.

The export is now a teaching figure: every column identified, the formula on the board, the parts named. Total cost: five minutes and zero external tools.

Node behaviour and the highlighting modes are documented in the instrument guide at docs.devoltapp.com/user/oscilloscope-and-analysis. Tomorrow: SPICE netlists, the oldest circuit format there is, imported free onto a breadboard.