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Mind mapping software
Vurbal:
Last time I tried to map my mind every program I tried hung with a "Re-calculating route..." message. ;D
-Innuendo (December 29, 2013, 10:36 AM)
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I can't even get that far. The origin point keeps moving and eventually the software runs out of memory updating it. :o
Vurbal:
@TaoPhoenix
That's a good point WRT traditional databases vs mind maps. For your typical non-technical person a mind mapping interface would probably be more useful for the types of datasets you're talking about. The alternative would probably be something like an unwieldy spreadsheet. OTOH it's certainly not an optimal solution.
Where mind mapping really shines IMO is more freeform data organization and analysis. I'll have to throw together some examples to explain what I mean by that. I can say that a lot of the power is in navigating data directly (in the mapping software) rather than through a report. Even if you could represent more than 3 dimensions in physical space you would lose the nuances of the complex relationships.
The one use I would have wanted a map program (but couldn't find one ultra simple enough - coding snack!?) was just to capture all the web pages I visit and auto produce a tree with some nodes being annotations in between. It's fun to see the linkages when you go web surfing.
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Thinking back to the website mapping feature I played with in the last pre-Microsoft version of Visio makes me think Dia could do that pretty easily by processing your browser history with a Python script. That's just a barely educated guess since I've only tried out Dia in passing and it was several years ago.
Vurbal:
I ran across another interesting option today called VUE. It's Java-based, open source, and developed by Tufts University. It's mostly education oriented so that's apparently what the default setup is geared toward.
What makes it really intriguing for me, though, is a focus on interacting with web-based repositories.
dr_andus:
I ran across another interesting option today called VUE.
-Vurbal (December 29, 2013, 02:34 PM)
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I think it's worth distinguishing between mind map applications on the one hand (Freeplane etc.), and concept mapping apps on the other (VUE etc.), although there is some overlap. The former are essentially hierarchical outliners (though laid out horizontally), where the process of development is hierarchical, flowing from a single, general central idea to many more specific sub-ideas.
Concept mappers on the other hand don't impose hierarchical thinking, rather, they let you connect any node to any other node in any particular order.
A third category might be programs that let you visualise the connected structure of your ideas that are implicit in your notes database. E.g. the Navigator tool in ConnectedText.
I'm not suggesting that one category of these tools is better than the other. They serve different purposes. The main thing to decide is what status do you want to give to the conceptual tool of hierarchical ranking in the development of your ideas. Sometimes hierarchical thinking is helpful, at other times it's unhelpful. So it's more about choosing the right tool for the right job every time.
Another interesting concept mapper is Cmap Tools (though I prefer to use VUE). There is also Scapple, which integrates with Scrivener. For mind mapping, I use Freeplane, as I like its minimalistic approach, plus it's very easy to assign shortcuts to particular operations.
barney:
One (1) of the things I like about Xmind is demonstrated in the samples that come with it. Takes a bit of brain toil, but I can pretty much create an outline tree, an org chart, a programming/planning chart/map, whatever. I could do a lot of that in The Brain, but that prohibitive price kinda got in the way - Xmind is marginally affordable. (And, apart from the price, do I really want a software that requires weekly videos to learn?)
All in all, XMind pretty much fills my bill. Understandably, it's not for everyone, but then, what software is :-\?
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