Category: one

Thank you to all who commented and made suggestions in the “How to improve Mind-mapping.Org” competition.  I will be acting on many and have commented below.

Meanwhile, here are the winners : Wojciech Korsak, Andrew Wilcox, Paf, Ivan J. Andrade and Waveydavey001.

My decisions were based on the practicality for me to make the changes suggested and, where more than one person made a suggestion, the first one to make it.

I have emailed the winners asking for the nominated name and email address for the licenses.

To help me analyse responses, I made a couple of mind maps (click for larger version):

Social group or forum

Proposer: Wojciech Korsak (and many other commenters’ suggestions can be implemented with a forum)

This is a great idea and will help make many of the other ideas a reality.  With a Mind-mapping.Org forum, you could:

• ask questions about specific software,
• look for advice on data interchange between different mapping software,
• share insights,
• share success stories,
• present case studies,
  • simulation
  • process management
  • creativity
  • TRIZ
  • etc.,
• share experiences,
• share tutorials,
• network with other mappers,
• ask how Mac and Windows versions of the same software compare.

I made a small step in this direction when I introduced Vic’s Picks and allowed comments under entries for each software app, but I think a forum will be a more general-purpose solution.  I shall be looking for good free software.  For me, a key element will be good threading of replies, because that’s where I feel most forum software falls down.

Forum software recommendations, anyone?

Vic’s Picks software names

Proposers: Andrew Wilcox, Joachim

I’d got so used to the fact that I had to press a button to see the details that I forgot what a nuisance it was.  But I like to keep the images clean, so Andrew’s suggestion to have a button that opens all titles (and I’ll add one to close them all, or toggle) is my preference, if I can make it work.

Ease of use

Proposers: Christopher Spence, eadile, ElChivo, miro23

Mind-mapping.Org has grown, Topsy-like, over its five-year life span. And it shows!  Especially on the front page.  As several people have commented, ease-of-use suffers and it’s now time for some re-organization.

It started as a very simple list, then I immediately had many requests for screenshots, then a suggestion that I should make it possible to filter the software shown according to type, OS and date added.   Then I added a blog, some new areas like interoperability of software, the MindMapSearch, on-line software and the library of libraries with its focused search.  And most recently Vic’s Picks.

Front page

Christopher Spence commented that the main page was busy.  I shall rebuild the top of that page around a mind map similar to the one that I made for the post announcing this competition, with links in the image map.

Miro23 suggested improving the layout and design of the master list including the search/filter forms.  I’m not sure how, as I don’t know what the difficulty is at present.  Maybe I’ll add more explanation, but it already has multiple selection combo boxes for map type and OS, as well as date and current / historical selection.

Different lists

Joachim proposed having only one list.  This is what we have and why:

1. The Master List contains everything I know of (bar some waiting on my To Do list).  It is intended to be an authoritative and complete list including (when selected) historical and defunct software for reference.
2. The second list, Vic’s Picks, is for the general user who wants to browse through a gallery of significant mapping software – significant because it is either well-known and popular or offers some special capability.  Each entry in Picks links to the corresponding Master List entry for more screenshots and more information.  This proved a popular arrangement when I introduced it.
3. The Full List is a simple list by product name and publisher name of current products with links to the original sites and is a hang-0ver from the very early design,  but I don’t think it helps to delete it.  I use it myself occasionally.  There is a similar list for historical products.

In my view, going to one list would be a step backwards.  Joachim suggests moving to the Vick’s Picks format for all, though he also likes the blog style.  But in either case there would be much less information available (and only one screenshot which would be very limiting – people love screenshots).  And crucially, there would be nowhere to go to avoid the rarely-encountered mapping software.

Rating

He makes a good suggestion to “include a rating by scope. For example how suitable is the software to be creative, manage projects, learn and study, information management …”  I will think about it, but with nearly 300 current products, I could not find time in this, my hobby (as the original post says), to evaluate them all.  But in the introduction to Vic’s Picks, I wrote that it is “… a place for crowdsourcing: Here you can mark your favourite software and comment about your own experience of it in use” so I believe we’re mostly covered on this suggestion.

Navigation

Joachim also commented on the navigation.  This could be improved and I’ll look for ways around the fact that the site is based around the software database and two WordPress blogs.  I shall have to play with templates to get consistent navigation.

Comment registration

Christopher Spence suggested removing the need to  register to comment.  I changed the setting to not require registration, but test comments I left disappeared, and I received no moderation email so I that’s worse.  I am investigating and will change this again when I have an answer.  Later I may enable Disqus, as he also suggests.

Focus on education

Proposer: syro85

I do not have any special knowledge of educational matters, but do have long experience of using mind maps in business.  So this is a suggestion I would have difficulty following. I wonder why the focus should be there when mapping in the classroom is so extensively covered in education sites elsewhere?

I like to cover all types of mapping and visual information organisation software, and for me learning is a minor use of mind mapping.

Have a mobile-friendly style as well

Proposer: Waveydavey001

This is desirable, but would be an enormous task for me.  The site is so graphics intensive that optimising the CSS for a very small screen would be tough.  I will contemplate how it might be done, but later.

Thanks

My thanks to everyone who came up with ideas for improvement and helped me understand what they found most useful.  Not everyone could be a winner, but I hope that those who did win an iMindMap Ultimate licence find it useful.

I’ll be working on these suggestions in the coming weeks.

Vic

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Cayra is a neat little concept and mind mapper and in my view is greatly undervalued, probably because Cayra.net is now an advertising site, and the software is no longer supported. But copies can be downloaded from Cnet and other download sites and it is very usable.

It has some of the qualities of mind mapping software: Organic lines and colour; but at the same time, the connections it can make allow it to be used to make concept maps with cross links and linking phrases.  It even lets you have multiple maps on the same page, and has a good ergonomic design to handle this, providing for ‘parking’ separate maps at the foot of the screen.  Nodes can have pictures and hyperlinks, links to files, and dates/times for project management tasks.

Be prepared to spend a few minutes understanding how it works, because it is not quite like other mappers, but it is well worth the time, because it has a flexibility that other mappers do not.

Its most unexpected feature is that it uses the self-centering mechanism like Topicscape or Brain.  Click a node and that moves to the centre and its branches expand.  This can be switched off, and if you then save the file, it will operate in ‘Fixed mode’ from then on.

It comes with a help map, but also has comprehensive built-in help.

Price: Free

More about Cayra on Mind-mapping.org

Vic

Have you checked Our Faves yet?
Subscribe to the RSS feed for news of regular
posts & follow me on Twitter for in-between
items about visual tools you never knew existed.

If you’re on Twitter and tweet about mapping topics,
tweet me — I’d love to know and follow you.

I did see a comment on Twitter that Cayra doesn’t work in Windows 7.  I haven’t tried it on that, but it works on Vista.   Cayra has an update function built in, and the place it checks for updates no longer exists, so I wonder if that gives the impression of Cayra not working.  I just set my firewall not to give Cayra Internet access.  Vic.

Google

Freeplane first appeared in Mind-Mapping.Org last year but recently they announced that they were on a stable, live release: 1.1.1

They list the most important new features as these:

There is also a portable version that can be run from a thumb-drive.

I updated this post with an image of the full Freeplane window to show the interface!  Click the image to see it larger.

Vic

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Just a word of warning, if you use McAfee’s SiteAdvisor, you may get a message about this being a dangerous download.  I did, so sent  [Updated: SiteAdvisor no longer giving the warning.]  I uploaded the installer to virustotal.com for a check, and all 41 of the A-V engines there, including McAfee, said it was clean (you can check the report here).

Google

I wrote about Mindjet’s inclusion of me as a Trusted Voice in my last post and my abstention, but as I thought about it, I noticed some odd omissions from their list – one of them very odd.

(Click the image above to go to the Mindjet page)

I edit MindMapSearch – a search engine that focuses on people and sites that provide good information about visual thinking (and keeps the “made for advertising” sites out of the search results).  I have done that for years.  So I think I have a pretty good finger on the pulse of  those who have a “voice and leadership in the mapping community”.   Mindjet have included people on the list all of whom I believe to be good and trustworthy, but imagine my surprise at not finding these names there:

Tony Buzan (@tonybuzan), Gideon King (@gideonking), Roy Grubb (@roygrubb), Wallace Tait (@visualmapper), Paul Foreman (@mindmapdrawer), Eric Blue (@ericblue), ActivityOwner (@activityowner), Michael Tipper (@michaeltipper),  Andrew Mason (@masontech).  All are active and promote mind mapping generally or some specific angle on mapping.

The first three are associated with other mind mapping software so perhaps we can treat “doesn’t in any way reflect the individuals’ allegiance to Mindjet over another mapping solution” with some skepticism.

But just a minute, “highlight those in the mapping community that are dedicated and recognized for championing the concept and values of mind mapping” and “leadership in the mapping community” does not include Tony Buzan?

I don’t know who might and might not feel it appropriate to have a MindJet badge on their blog or website, and its up to them, but it’s hard to understand how the list was drawn up.

Vic

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I just had an invitation from Mindjet to be badged as one of 14 blogs they consider to be “Trusted Voices”.

I’d like to have the advanced information offered, and access to the Mindjet blog.  It can only improve my information source and ability to spread the pro-mapping word.

But I like to think that Mind-Mapping.Org is already everyone’s trusted voice.  Surely association with Mindjet puts a doubt in the mind of anyone using Mind-Mapping.Org or reading my blog posts and tweets?

I like MindManager and use it a lot, but when I say that now, it carries more weight than if I had a Mindjet T.V. badge on my site.  And I like plenty of other mapping software as well and feel free to say that.

There’s nothing wrong with sites that on-sell MindManager doing this, and most of the others who may accept it (I don’t know who yet) are probably blogging about mind mapping itself more than the software.  No “holier-than-thou” feelings here!

Thoughts?

Vic

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