NovaMind provides a very powerful synchronization service for your To Do lists and Events. This allows you to use the alarms, meeting invites, synchronization, to do lists and other features available in iCal, synchronizing directly from within NovaMind, using either automatic or manual synchronization of task information. The synchronization can be set up to be either one way, so that NovaMind tasks are pushed to iCal, or to be bi-directional, so that your iCal tasks are also synchronized back to NovaMind. Some iCal synchronization features are available in the Pro edition, and some only in the Platinum edition.

To turn on synchronization with iCal, use the File / Sync With iCal… menu option. You will see a number of options as defined below:

In NovaMind Pro, you will see the following options:

NovaMind 5 Pro iCal Synchronization Options

And in NovaMind Platinum, you will see the following  options:

NovaMind 5 Platinum iCal Synchronization Options

Although there is only one checkbox difference, there is a big difference in the functionality between NovaMind Pro and Platinum.

Here is an explanation of the options:

• Synchronize topics with task information with iCal events (Platinum edition only): When this option is checked, whenever a synchronization is performed, NovaMind will synchronize any tasks you have where they have a start and end date defined in your Mind Map, with iCal Events. iCal Events are the items you see on the main calendar in iCal. If your start and end dates have the time set as 12:00 AM, this is taken to mean that the hours and minutes are not relevant, and the Events created in iCal are therefore marked as All Day events.
• Synchronize topics with checkboxes with iCal To Do items (Pro and Platinum edition): When checked, whenever synchronization is performed, NovaMind will add any topics with checkboxes to iCal as To Do items. The amount of information that is transferred is dependent on whether you are using a NovaMind Pro or Platinum license.
• Add new Event and To Do items to: Choose the calendar that you want to have NovaMind add the events to. It is often a good idea to create a calendar for your project, in order to keep your tasks manageable. If you come into the setup sheet and then decide to add a new calendar for your tasks, close the setup sheet without synchronizing, and then open it up again once you have added the new calendar, and you will be able to select it. As soon as you synchronize your Mind Map, the tasks will be placed on the calendar you had selected at the time, so if you change to a different calendar later, that will only affect new tasks.

  If you completely delete a calendar that NovaMind was trying to synchronize with, NovaMind will inform you next time you try to synchronize, and you will have to come back to the setup panel and choose a different calendar to synchronize with. If this happens, NovaMind will re-sync all the tasks with the new calendar, but if you just change calendars part way through, only the new tasks will be synced with the new calendar, unless you manually remove the old ones from the old calendar.

• Auto-synchronize before save: If you turn this option on, every time you save your file, it will update iCal with any changes you have made in NovaMind. If you don’t have this option turned on, you will have to come back to the setup sheet and use the Sync Now button to update iCal.
• Accept changes made in iCal: If you have this option turned on, then any changes you make to data in iCal will be transferred back into NovaMind. Note that if you add additional information that does not relate to data stored in NovaMind (e.g. alarms), then that will remain stored solely in iCal. Only the data relevant to NovaMind will be transferred back in. If you have this option turned off, then the synchronization is purely one way – from NovaMind to iCal, and any changes you make in NovaMind will always overwrite your iCal information – but with all synchronization, it will only affect data that relates to NovaMind data.

  This option allows for updates to data that is made live while both iCal and NovaMind are running. Normal synchronization takes care of cases where the iCal data was changed while NovaMind was not running, or the particular map was not open, but they still honor your setting, and will only copy in data from iCal if you have this option turned on.

  Note that if you change the title of the To Do item or Event, then the synchronization only transfers back the plain text, so if your topic had other formatting on it, it will be lost, and the formatting will revert back to the formatting defined in the theme you are using. For this reason, we recommend that if you are going to change the name of a task, you change the topic title on the Mind Map and let it synchronize that way rather than the other way around, if you have set custom text attributes.

  The same applies for the topic notes, which are also synchronized with iCal.

• Warn before accepting changes: If you have this option turned on, you will be asked to confirm before any changes made in iCal are accepted into NovaMind.
  

  Synchronization from iCal to NovaMind

  This applies to both the live updates from iCal, and synchronization where the items in iCal may have changed while NovaMind didn’t have that document open, and the synchronization would lead to data being updated from iCal to NovaMind.

General Synchronization mechanism

When you synchronize between NovaMind and iCal, if you have altered a topic in a way that means that it should have an iCal task associated with it (adding a checkbox, or setting a start and end date), then the To Do or Event is automatically created.

If you do something that means that the Event or To Do would no longer be required, for instance removing the checkbox, or unsetting a start or end date, then the iCal Event or To Do is removed automatically – even if you have entered other information such as attendees and alarms on the Event or To Do. Also, obviously, if you delete a topic, its corresponding iCal item will be removed when you next synchronize.

If you cut and paste a topic, or graft it from one place to another, so long as you cut and paste without saving in between, your linkage to your iCal event will be preserved.

If you copy a topic, then the original will maintain its iCal event, and the new topic will get its own one next time you synchronize.

If you add additional information to items in iCal, we do not override that in our synchronization. This can be useful where you want the base tasks in NovaMind, and want to add things such as alarms in iCal. The only time that information would be deleted would be if the iCal item was being deleted as per the rules above.

NovaMind does its best to be self-repairing. If you delete the selected calendar, NovaMind will prompt you to choose a new one, and will re-sync your tasks with the new calendar:

Choosing A New Calendar

If you delete a task or event from iCal while NovaMind is not running, NovaMind will recreate the To Do or Event when it next synchronizes. If you try to access an iCal item from the inspectors and they are not available, NovaMind automatically resets the linkage so that next time you synchronize, it will create a new item in the calendar.

To Do Synchronization

When you synchronize To Do items, if you have a Pro edition license key for NovaMind, then a To Do will be created for any topic with a checkbox, and just the checked state will be synchronized, along with the topic title and notes. If you have a Platinum license key, the priority will also be transferred, and if you have an end date defined for the task, that will be transferred as the due date for the To Do.

When you have a To Do synchronized with a topic in NovaMind, the “View in iCal” button will be enabled on the inspector, but only if that is the only topic you have selected:

Checkbox Inspector With "View in iCal" Enabled

Note that in the To Do items on iCal, the checkboxes are simple checked or unchecked checkboxes, so we only transfer that information – if your checkbox is in an indeterminate state, it will be transferred to iCal as unchecked. This isn’t too much of a problem, but seeing as the data on the iCal calendar is not as rich as the data in NovaMind, we are forced to adapt the data coming in from iCal. This has the side effect that if a task is in the indeterminate state in NovaMind, and you export it, and then change one of the other fields that synchronizes with NovaMind (e.g. the priority, if you are running NovaMind Platinum), and then sync that change back to NovaMind, it will uncheck your checkbox in NovaMind even though you didn’t directly change that field in iCal. This is likely a very rare occurrence, but you have now been warned! And there isn’t anything we can do to work around this.

Event Synchronization

Events will only be added to iCal when both the start and end date are defined, and the start date is not after the end date. The start and end dates, topic title and notes are synchronized with iCal.

If you don’t set the time to anything other than 12:00 AM, then all day events are automatically added to iCal.

When you synchronize your events with iCal, the view in iCal button will be enabled, but only if you just have a single topic selected. When you click it, you will be taken directly to that calendar event in iCal:

Task Inspector with "View in iCal" Enabled

Toolbar Item

There is a toolbar item available, but it’s not on the default toolbar, so if you want to show it, you will need to use the Customize Toolbar option and drag it on.

iCal Sync Toolbar Item

In yet another significant update to the capabilities of NovaMind 5 for Mac preview release, NovaMind has enhanced the capabilities of the task reporting by adding a very powerful printing option, and exports to RTF and MS Word.

You can print your tasks directly from within the NovaMind program. When you choose to print, you will see options as follows:

NovaMind 5 Task Report Printing Options

The header and footer options are almost exactly the same as the main Mind Map printing options, so we won’t go into them in detail here. Notice one item in particular though, and that is the “Print Filter Criteria” option. If you turn this option on, the report will include the exact criteria that were used to generate the report, for example:

Task Report Filter Criteria

The information included in the reports is filtered according to your filtering criteria, and sorted according to any sorting you may have set up using the column headers.

The report only includes the columns you have chosen to include in your view, and the ordering and width is dependent on what you have set up on the task reports panel. Basically, we take the things you are looking at on the screen and reproduce that as best we can in the report. If you see columns with data that is wrapped onto two lines, and you want to prevent that, you would just cancel out of the printing, and widen the column and try again. Seeing as the task column is almost always going to be wider than any other columns, it is set to take up any available space once the other columns have taken up their space.

Task Report Exports

You can export your task data to several formats by using the popup menu in the bottom left of the task reports window:

Task Report Export Formats

CSV Export:

You can export the data from your report to CSV (comma separated values). Only the data that is shown in the results table will be exported, and only the columns that you have showing at the time. The export will also honor your sort order.

CSV files can be read by many programs, including in particular spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel.

Note that the specification for CSV files is very loose, and it doesn’t even have a standardized way of representing dates, so we just export the data as it appears on your screen. Most programs that import CSV files have options for interpreting things like percentages and dates, if they need to turn them into their raw data types to work with them.

RTF and Word Export

The RTF and Word export give you a table with the information, showing the columns you have selected, and with the data sorted according to your selected sort column (if you have sorted it). It also includes all the filtering criteria, just like what you get when you print it out.

NovaMind 5 has sophisticated outline numbering capabilities, unmatched in any other Mind Mapping product, which allow you to number topics in a variety of different ways.

To access the outline numbering settings, use the Children Outline Numbering inspector in the Data inspector group.

If you are using NovaMind Express, the outline numbering inspector will look like this:

Outline Numbering in NovaMind 5 Express

And if you are using NovaMind Pro or Platinum, the inspector will look like this:

Outline Numbering in NovaMind 5 Pro and Platinum

The difference is because there are more advanced outline numbering options available in the Pro and Platinum editions, which allow you different formatting options for the numbering, like using letters and Roman numerals, different separators between the numbers at different levels, and prefixes and suffixes, which can be set individually at each level.

Outline numbering is applicable for the children of the selected topic or topics, and setting the outline numbering on a parent topic can affect the sub-topics to multiple levels, and can be overridden at any level below, to give unparalleled power and flexibility in the outline numbering system.

There are two parts to the outline numbering settings – the first is where you want the outline numbering shown, and the second is the formatting of the outline numbers that are shown.

Basic Settings

• Default: this uses the default outline numbering, which may be on or off at any particular level, based on the theme, and your settings on parent topics. In most situations, the only time you would change the setting away from being the default would be if you want to explicitly turn on or off the children numbering.
• All Sub-Topics: this turns on numbering for all levels below the selected topic. Please be aware that this option can result in very long and unwieldy outline numbers like 1.5.12.6.8.23 if you have a deep hierarchy and don’t use the Restart Numbering option at all.
• Numbering Off: this will force there to be no outline numbering on the children of the topic. This option is particularly useful if you have a deep hierarchy of outline numbers and for a specific topic, you don’t want the children to have outline numbers, but for most of the topics you do want them.
• X Levels: this turns numbering on for the specified number of levels from the selected topic. Note that the hierarchy is extended by this setting, so if you want the numbering to restart instead, you would have to also turn on the Restart Numbering option.

Let’s first take a simple example of where you want to set the outline numbering to go down to two levels from the Mind Map title. You would select the title, and select for numbering to go down to two levels.

Simple Outline Numbering to 2 Levels

Now if you decided that you wanted to have these outline numbers on all but the subtopics of topic 2, then you could leave the first setting as is, select topic 2 and turn numbering off for that topic like this:

Excluding a Topic from Numbering

By contrast, if you wanted to have outline numbers on the first level only, except that on subtopic 2, you wanted an additional level, you would select the Mind Map title and set the outline numbering to  1 level, and then select subtopic 2 and set the outline numbering to 1 level:

Selectively Extending the Numbering Depth

Restart Numbering

Normally the outline numbering builds up at each level – 1, 1.1, 1.1.1 etc., but sometimes you want to just start the children numbering for a particular topic back to just a single number, and that’s where the Restart Numbering option comes in.

In our example, let’s set the outline numbering to all levels from the title. Then on topic 2, we’ll turn on the Restart Numbering option like this:

Restarting Outline Numbering

Custom Formatting

The table at the bottom is for adding custom formatting to as many levels as you need. The first row sets the formatting for the first level, and the second row for the second level of subtopics etc.

So for instance if we wanted to change the formatting to be lower case letters for the first level and Roman numerals for the second level, we would add two rows on the same topic where we set the outline numbering (in our example, the Mind Map title).

To add a row, click the “+” button at the top right of the table, and the second column is where you set the numbering format. To delete rows from the formatting table, select the row and press the Delete key.

Custom Outline Number Formatting

Advanced Formatting Example

The formatting options for the advanced outline numbering are more powerful than those of any other Mind Mapping software, and give you massive flexibility.

For ordinary formatting, you would not use a prefix or suffix, but would just be changing the number format and possibly separator, depending on your needs, but let’s do some “Extreme Number Formatting“!

Let’s say we wanted to have the outline numbers formatted so they said something like

“Section 2, part 3 (iv) e.6?

(where 2, 3, iv, e, and 6 are the numbers at different levels). You would do this by setting the numbering up as follows:

Advanced Outline Number Formatting

Let’s just break this down. Each format has four components:

1. Prefix: This text comes before your outline number at that level. Note that there is no space between the prefix and the number, so you will need to add a space after it. In our case, we did want a space, so we added the word “Section ” (with a space after it) for the first row.
2. Number Format: This gives you options for the type of number – numbers, upper or lower case letters or Roman numerals.
3. Suffix: what you want to come after the number – again, if you want spaces before or after the suffix, you will need to type them.
4. Separator: this is the punctuation you want between this number and the next level down, and it is only shown if there is a next level below that topic.

Just a couple of notes about the formatting above: on the second and third level, we didn’t want to have a separator, so we chose the (no separator) option from the menu. On the third level, we wanted to have a space between the previous numbering and our open parenthesis, so we typed ” (“. The fourth level required a space before the letter, so we just typed a space in the prefix, and the last formatting level is just standard formatting with no prefix or suffix.

There are many new features in the task reporting features of NovaMind 5, such as live update of data, exporting to CSV files, live inline editing of task information, and sorting of results. This is available in the Platinum edition of NovaMind 5.

You can access the task reports using the Task Reports button on the Task Settings inspector, or from the Window menu item.

The Task Reporting Panel

All the items on the report panel are updated live, so you can leave the panel showing while you edit your Mind Map, and the filtering, sorting, and data values will be updated live.

Here is an explanation of the filtering options:

• Complete: When checked, the report will be filtered based on the option beside it. Filtering by complete=Yes will show you any tasks which are at 100% complete. Filtering by complete=No will show you any tasks that have a percentage complete for the task (0% or more), but are less than 100% done.
• Overdue: When filtering by Overdue=Yes, you will see all the topics where there is an end date defined for the task, and the end date is after the date and time right now, and either there is no task % complete information for the topic, or the % complete is less than 100%.

  When filtering by Overdue=No, you will see all the topics where there is an end date defined for the tast, and the end date is less than or equal to the current date and time, and either there is no task % complete information for the topic, or the % complete is less than 100%.

• In Progress: When filtering by In Progress=Yes, you will see all the tasks that have a percentage complete of 0% or more, but less than 100%. Note the 0% – a task is not said to be in progress when you have no percentage complete, but where the percentage complete is set to zero, it is thought to be in progress because you have registered that you have started the task even though nothing concrete has been accomplished yet.

  When filtering by In Progress=No, you will see all the tasks that have no percentage complete, or the percentage complete is 100%. As per the above explanation, tasks with 0% complete will not be shown when filtering to show tasks that are not in progress.

• Min Priority: When filtering by minimum priority, all tasks with a priority greater than or equal to the specified priority will be shown in the report.
• Max Priority: When filtering by maximum priority, all tasks with a priority less than or equal to the specified priority will be shown in the report.
• Due to start in: When filtering by the tasks due to start in a certain number of days, only the tasks that are due to start after the date and time right now, and the specified number of days away will be shown in the report.
• Selected Resources: You can either choose to show the tasks no matter who is assigned to them, or you can select as many resources as you want to filter the results. When filtering by selected resources, only the tasks which have been assigned to the selected resources will be included in the report.

You can filter on as many of the different attributes as you like, all at the same time. Your filter settings are remembered in your preferences for all the left side filters, so you don’t need to set them all up again next time you start NovaMind, or work on a different Mind map.

Sorting results:

You can sort the results by clicking on any of the headers of the table to sort on that field. Note that we have implemented a special three state sorting where clicking on the table title will switch between sorting ascending on that column, sorting descending on that column, or not sorting at all. When you don’t sort at all, the results will be in the natural order of the Mind Map – i.e. the order that they would be numbered if they had outline numbers showing.

Results Sorted by Priority

Just a special note about the duration sorting: the sorting on the duration column works based on the actual length of time, so if you have a duration of 8 days and another duration of 1 week, the duration of 1 week would come before 8 days when sorting in ascending order.

Working with columns:

You can show and hide columns from your report by right clicking on the table to see the context menu like this:

Showing and Hiding Columns

Select one of the menu items to hide the column if it was showing, or to show it if it was hidden.

You can reorder the columns just by dragging them into the order you want them in.

You can resize the columns as desired. Note that the only column that will wrap its contents is the Topic / Task column.

Editing data:

With the exception of the actual name of the task, all the other columns are editable.

This means that you have full editing of the task information for all the displayed information.

For some data, like the priority and percentage complete, editing is in place:

Inline Editing of Task Data

For the more complex data, we need special popup editors to edit the information:

Popup Editors for editing Task Data

Editing Start Date in the Reports Panel

The same editing and value rules apply here as apply if you are editing the values in the inspector.

Note that if you have filtered your results and your edited data means that your topic no longer complies with the filter conditions, the edit will be applied, and the topic will disappear from the results. For example, if you were filtering on tasks that were complete, and you changed the percentage complete to be 95%, then it would no longer be displayed in your report.

Exporting your data:

You can export the data from your report to CSV (comma separated values). Only the data that is shown in the results table will be exported, and only the columns that you have showing at the time. The export will also honor your sort order.

CSV files can be read by many programs, including in particular spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel.

Note that the specification for CSV files is very loose, and it doesn’t even have a standardized way of representing dates, so we just export the data as it appears on your screen. Most programs that import CSV files have options for interpreting things like percentages and dates, if they need to turn them into their raw data types to work with them.

NovaMind 5 for Mac introduces many enhancements in handling of resources, including two way integration with Address Book.

Resources refer to people, equipment, facilities, or anything you may use for tasks, but in most cases, they refer to people. Resources are available in the Platinum edition of NovaMind.

To use resources on your Mind Map, you must create a pool of resources which you can assign to topics.

You can create resources in a number of different ways:

1. Click on the “+” button at the bottom of the inspector. A new empty row will be created, and you can edit the name and initials for the resource, or
2. Click on the address book button at the bottom of the inspector. A people picker will show, populated with all the people and groups you have in your address book, like this (only less blurry ):
   

   The People Picker

   You can use the search at the top to filter the records you see, and select as many of the people or groups as you would like to add, and then use the “Add Selected Groups” or “Add Selected People” to add the people you want. If you select multiple groups and some people are in more than one group, they will still only be added to your resources once, or

3. You can also drag resources directly from the Address Book application on to the resources inspector. In order to do this, you need to have the Address Book application running and visible and have NovaMind as the active application, and drag from the Address Book to the resources inspector without switching to the Address Book application (because the inspectors are set up to hide on application deactivation).
4. You can drag VCards in either from the file system or more commonly from mail messages. Note that there is no checking for uniqueness of VCard entries, or their linkage to any existing Address Book entries. Therefore, if you are likely to want to do a number of things with that resource, you would in most cases drag the VCard to Address Book, and then drag the person from the Address Book to NovaMind, to create a unique reference to the resource.

Once you have your resources there, if you have created them from Address Book addresses, you will see an address book icon beside them. If you click on the icon, the person’s record will be opened up in Address Book.

Resources, with Address Book icon

Note that when you add people from your address book, the initials are generated automatically, and there may be duplicates if you have forenames and surnames starting with the same letters. You can edit what is displayed in NovaMind without affecting your address book record, or breaking the link to the address book. Initials can be longer than two letters if you like, but the intention is that they are kept short.

You can sort your resources by name or initials, in ascending or descending order, by clicking on the table headers.

Resources are created on a document wide basis, so you can use them on multiple maps in the same document without having to create the resources again.

You can assign your resources in a number of different ways:

1. Select one or more topics, and use the check boxes to assign them to the selected topics, or
2. Select one or more resources in the inspector, and drag them to the topic you want to assign them to, or
3. Find the people (or groups) you want to assign in your Address Book application, and drag them on to the topic you want to assign them to. Note that if any of the people you drag on to the topic did not already exist in your resources, then they will both be added to your resources, and immediately assigned to the topic. If they already existed in your resources, they will just be assigned to the topic you dropped them on. If you have edited their name or initials in NovaMind, these settings will be preserved. This makes for a very powerful way to create resources and assign them directly from your address book.

When you have resources assigned to topics, you will see their initials displayed below the topic, along with any other task related information, prefixed by the letter R.

Task Resource Information on the Topics

If you do not have initials defined for a resource, the full resource name will be shown on the topic. We recommend using initials to reduce the space required.

When you mouse over the resources section of the information panel, you will see the full names of the resources as a tooltip like this:

Resources Tooltip

If you have multiple topics selected, and some of the resources are assigned to only some of the selected topics, then the checkbox will show in the indeterminate state:

Multiple Selection and Resources

In this case, Aileen and Galor are assigned to only one of the two selected topics. Checking or unchecking the boxes will affect all the selected topics.

Note that you are likely to often want to work with both task and resource settings at the same time, in which case, you would  select one of them and then Command+Click the other one in the inspector so you can see them both at once:

Selecting Multiple Inspector Panels

You can delete resources by selecting them in the resources inspector, and clicking the “-” button at the bottom of the inspector.

If you are removing resources which are assigned to any topics, you will be prompted for confirmation like this:

Deleting a Resource that is Assigned

So you can see exactly which topics that resource is assigned to. If you confirm deletion, they will be both unassigned and completely removed from your resource list.

Task information has just been added to the preview of NovaMind 5 for Mac. This article shows you what it does and teaches you how to use it.

You can put detailed information about tasks on the topics using the Task Settings of the Data inspector. This is available in the Platinum edition of NovaMind.

Task Information Inspector

The settings on the Task Settings panel affect what is shown on the Mind Map – for instance, the settings above would show like this:

Task Information Display

Priority:

• To set the priority, either adjust the slider, or enter the priority number in the text field, or in the text field you can use the up and down arrows. You can have priorities between 1 and 9.
• To make it easier to notice the differences, the different priorities are shown in different colors.
• To remove the priority indicator, move the slider all the way to the left, or enter 0 (or nothing) in the text field.

% Complete:

• The percentage complete is shown as a pie chart on the topic, with the green portion being the amount already complete, and the red portion being the amount still not complete. Percentage complete can be between 0 and 100.
• To set the percentage complete, you can either use the slider or enter a value in the text field. In the text field, you can also use the up and down arrow keys to increase or decrease the value.
• When you move your mouse over the pie chart on the Mind Map, you will see a tooltip showing you the exact percentage complete, so you can easily see the information even if you don’t have the topic selected.
• 

  Start Date Entry

• To remove the % complete indicator, either move the slider all the way to the left, or type in the number -1 in the text field, or enter a blank value in the text field (0% complete shows at an all red pie chart).

Duration:

• There are two parts to the duration: the amount and the unit. You can set the amount by either typing the amount or using the up or down arrows in the text field. Set the units using the popup button.
• At the right end of the row is a calculator. This is enabled if you have a start and end date defined, and when you click it, it will use the difference between the start and end date as the duration of the task. The duration may not be the difference between the start and end dates in all cases, for instance, where you have a task that has a start date and finish date a fortnight apart, but only 6 days of that time are actually spent on the work, you may want to record the work duration as 6 days instead of 14. When the duration is calculated, the system tries to work out the most appropriate units for the amount of time. If you want to use different units, you will have to change it manually.
• The duration is displayed as part of the information panel just below the left of the topic, after the letter D. If you are using a non-English language, and D does not mean “Duration” to you, you can see the full localized duration wording in the tooltip at that point.

Start and End date:

• The checkboxes beside the start and end date can be checked to indicate whether you want to record the start and/or end date for the topic. The start date is shown on your topic beside the letter S and the end beside the letter E.
• When you check the checkbox, today’s date will be entered into the field, with the time at 12:00 AM. The time 12:00am is used to denote there being no specific time associated with the setting, and the display on the topic will not include minutes or seconds. If you have any other time on the topic, then the time will be shown on the topic like this:

• 

  Date Selector Popup

• The order of the date components is automatically localized according to your system preferences. The date format to show the date on your topic is using the Short format as defined in your system preferences. If you mouse over a date displayed on a topic, you will see a tooltip with the full date in the Full date format style, like this:

• 

Multiple values:

It is very important when you are dealing with project data that you know about the applicability and accuracy of the information you are seeing on the user interface. If you have multiple topics selected, it is clearly impossible for us to show a slider or text field or date picker with two values at the same time, so we have always shown value for the last selected topic, but now we make it absolutely clear on the user interface that you have multiple values selected.

This is done by putting a special prompt at the top of the inspector, and a colored background behind the specific items where there are multiple values, like this:

Task Inspector with Multiple Selection

So at the top, you see the key to tell you that that shape means that there are multiple values in the selected topics. Both the selected topics have the same priority and start date, but different % complete, duration, and end dates.

The controls are still active for the items where there are multiple selections, and when you change a value for one of the settings, it will set that value for all the selected topics.

Notice also that there is a dependency for editing the end date on there being an end date specified for both the selected topics, so for the dates, if you have a date specified for all the topics, but they are different dates, then you would see the checkbox checked, and the date would be editable.

The latest release of the preview of NovaMind 5 has just had

Checkboxes are used to denote tasks where you just need a quick view of whether something is not done, partially done, or completed. Checkboxes are available in the Pro and Platinum editions of NovaMind.

Checkboxes can be added to your topics using the checkboxes pane of the Data inspector.

The Checkbox Inspector in NovaMind 5

Automatic checkboxes are automatic in two respects: they have their checked state automatically calculated based on the checked state of all of their children checkboxes, and when you manually change the checked state of an automatic checkbox, it will change the state of its automatic checkbox children topics.

Automatic checkboxes are square, so you can easily recognize them on your Mind Map.

When using automatic checkboxes a parent topic and all its children topics all have automatic checkboxes, altering the checked state of the parent will set the value of all the children to the same value as the parent, no matter what state they had before. Altering the state of the children will have the following effects:

All children unchecked: parent will be unchecked

All children checked: parent will be checked

Any other combination: parent will be in the indeterminate state

Manual checkboxes are round, and as their name suggests, they are completely independent and can be checked or unchecked at will, without affecting anything else.

When using a combination of automatic and manual checkboxes, the checked state of the manual checkboxes will still affect the state of any automatic parent checkboxes, but are themselves not affected by parent checked states, and will not affect the state of any children checkboxes.

This also has the side effect that if you have an automatic parent with at least some manual children, it can restrict the states you can get the automatic parent into. For instance, if you have an automatic parent with one automatic child and one manual unchecked child, and you click on the parent, it will check or uncheck its automatic child, but will not affect the manual checkbox, and therefore when it works out its own value, it will cycle between unchecked and indeterminate. Also, if all the children are manual, you can never directly change the state of an automatic parent – the state would always be calculated from its children.

Recommended usage: in almost all cases, the automatic checkboxes will do what you want, so unless you have a specific need for the manual ones, stick to the automatic ones.

To check or uncheck the checkboxes, or set them to be indeterminate, you can either use the radio buttons in the inspector, or just click on the checkbox in the topic itself. If you have multiple topics selected and they have different checked states, the inspector will have none of the radio buttons selected, but you can still select a value to change all the selected topics to that state.

In the latest pre-release of NovaMind 5 for Mac, a new download management system was added, allowing the program to schedule multiple downloads to run concurrently, with error recovery in case of failed downloads.

NovaMind 5 Download Manager

The download system automatically notifies interested parties of the completion of the downloads, as well as managing the scheduling to avoid communication bottlenecks, and automatically disappears when all the downloads have completed.

This system is already being used by the Media Library Manager, and will help with the installation process of other components such as the Suggesterator and various other plugins when they become available.

Along with the release of the Media Browser, NovaMind also introduced a media library manager. The purpose of the media library manager is to allow the installation and maintenance of multiple media libraries within NovaMind. When you initially access the media browser, there are no media libraries installed, and the media browser appears like this:

Media Library before loading any library packages

Clicking on the Library Manager button allows you to see the available media libraries like this:

Initial display of Media Library Manager

In this screen shot, there is just one library installed, but in time, more libraries will be added. You can click on the Install button to download and install the new library, and the media browser will automatically be updated.

When updates to existing libraries are released, you will be automatically notified the next time you start NovaMind with a message like this:

Library Update Available

And you can update your installation direct from the media manager.

When new libraries become available, you will be notified about them automatically like this:

New Media Library Available

…and again, the new library can be installed using the Media Library Manager.

The media library manager makes it easy to see what you have installed, when new or updated libraries are available, and automates the whole process of installing the new media libraries.

In another significant update to the preview of NovaMind 5 for Mac, a new Media Browser system has just been added. The media browser has a multitude of features including:

• Easy access to images, adornments, and background textures.
• Ability to set up favorite images, adornments and background textures for quick access.
• Automatic creation and maintenance of a list of recently used images for quick access to those images again. If an image is used again, it is put back at the top of the list.
• Ability to view the images as a collection of images with tooltips telling you the categories and keywords used for each image.
• Ability to view the images in a combo view showing the image with its category and keyword information beside it.
• Automatic actions based on the type of image you are dropping on to the Mind Map, and where you are dropping it.
• Ability to drag and drop multiple adornments at once.
• Filter the image list by multiple categories.
• Instantly search for images by keyword prefix.
• Incremental loading and unloading of images for quick access and low memory requirements.
• Easy access to iPhoto libraries from within NovaMind.
• Access to Flickr® images and ability to set up Flickr searches.
• Ability to drag and drop extra folders into the library for easy access to images in other locations.
• Currently experimental access to Lightroom and Aperture image libraries.
• Currently experimental access to images acquired through Image Capture interfaces (e.g. from iPhones and cameras).
• Easy access to your browser’s bookmarks for Safari, Firefox, OmniWeb, and any other browsers supporting the XBEL standard.
• Ability to access any of the libraries directly by menu command.
• Toolbar access to the media library.
• Ability to move through All Images, Favorites, and Recently Used images using either a table view for visibility or popup button for space saving.
• Significantly higher resolution adornments shown at a bigger size than previous versions of NovaMind, giving a much better experience when zooming in or printing.

Please see below for an image gallery showing some of the new features.

Using with the image groups expanded

Using with the image groups as a popup menu

Showing images in combo view with categories and keywords

Background Textures

Setting up Flickr Searches

Filtering by Category

As part of the latest update for NovaMind 5 for Mac public preview, a set of new toolbar options have been added, like this:

The first item on the toolbar is a menu allowing you to add topics, callouts, floating topics, and shapes to the Mind Map. Here is more detail on the menu, and some of the other main items:

The second item on the toolbar is a topic you can drag on to place either as a floating topic, or attached anywhere on your Mind Map. Then there is access to the theme selector, color set selector and editor, and font set selector and editor. Then there are items for adding hyperlinks and attachments to your Mind Map (attachments are not available in the express version of NovaMind).

Also in the toolbar are options for displaying and hiding the notes, outline view, and inspectors.

NovaMind 5 for Mac is currently in preview release, and although it has most of the functionality of the final application, it has not yet been debugged or had any performance tuning done on it. The preview can be downloaded from the NovaMind web site.

Font sets make it easy to create Mind Maps that are consistent and use the same fonts for the same type of element throughout the Mind Map. As with color sets and themes, the settings are used as the default values, but can be overridden at any point on the Mind Map. Changing the font set updates the fonts on the entire Mind Map, wherever the existing topics are using standard fonts.

It is strongly recommended that you use fonts from the font set in your Mind Maps so that you can change to different font sets in a consistent manner should you wish to update the look of your Mind Map.

Note that the names of the fonts is for reference only, and different themes may use the fonts for different purposes, however, if you are creating a theme, it is strongly suggested that you stick with the named uses of the fonts, for the sake of consistency when applying different fonts.

Note also that the font information stored is purely the font face, and the theme defines the size and styling (bold, italic, underline etc.) that is used.

As with color sets, there is a collection of standard font sets, and (if you have NovaMind Pro or Platinum) you can create your own font sets and save them for later use. The default font set is drawn directly from the theme, and will therefore change when you change themes. The font set used in the theme should be chosen so that it goes well with the styling of the Mind Map that is applied along with the theme.

To work with font sets, choose the Format / Change Font Set… menu option, and you will see a list of fonts sets like this:

Note that the Express edition of NovaMind does not have the ability to use your own custom font sets, so the editing column will not be shown, and the button to add new custom font sets will not appear.

The first column shows an arrow indicator to show the selected font set. The second column shows a (-) button for items that you can hide and an (X) icon for items that you can delete. The standard built in font sets can only be hidden, but not deleted, whereas your custom font sets can be deleted but not just hidden. The default theme can not be removed at all, and can change when you select a new theme. The third column shows a pencil icon for font sets you can edit (your custom font sets). The fourth column shows the name of the font set.

To the right of the table is a preview of the selected font set, so you can see exactly what will happen to the fonts when you apply the font set.

If you have hidden some of the standard font sets, there will be a button to show them again.

To select a font set, you can use the keyboard: arrow keys to select the desired font set, and Return to apply it (or cancel to close the sheet without changing the font set), or you can use the mouse – just double-click on the one you want to use. When you apply a color set to the Mind Map, it is updated, and the font set information is written into the NovaMind file, so if you open the file on another computer which doesn’t have that font set, you will still be able to use it.

To add a new font set, click the (+) button at the bottom of the table. NOTE: when you click the button, it will use the selected font set as a starting point for your new one. This makes it easy to create variations of existing color sets that better suit your needs.

The dialog for editing an existing font set, or adding a new one is the same, and looks like this:

When you click the Set… button beside one of the fonts, it will associate the font panel with that particular topic, so that any changes you make to the selected font in the font panel will change the preview of the creatures.

A Note About Font Matching

If a file is created on one machine, and opened on another, or if fonts have been removed or disabled from your computer, you could run into situations where a font used in the file could not be found when you open the file. This is even more likely if you are opening a file on Mac that was created on Windows, or vice versa.

Unfortunately there is no mechanism to find a font that resembles a description of a font, or any other way of having a standardized fallback mechanism, so we have written our own.

If the font was set on a Mac, we attempt to find a matching font by using 7 different algorithms based on exact and likeness matching of font names, ensuring that if we do find a matching font, it’s the closest match possible on that system.

If there is still no match, then we start with one of the standard fonts, and apply all the characteristics that we were able to deduce from the original font information, and use the converted font.

If the original file was created on Windows, the font information will relate to Windows fonts. The Windows font information is not nearly as rich as Mac font information, so we go through a series of matching algorithms based on the information we do have available, and do our best to return the same font, if it is available on the Mac, or at least the closest match we can find.

Color sets make it easy to create Mind Maps that are consistent and look great. A color set is a collection of colors designed to go well together, and cover the different types of elements that you have in your Mind Maps.

Each theme has its own default color set, that is designed to look good with the layout of the theme, but if you want to select a different color set, it will change all the topics and other elements that are using the default colors to use the new colors from the color set you select.

It is strongly recommended that wherever possible, you stick with the standard colors from the color set, so that if you want to change the look of your entire Mind Map coloring, all you need to do is to select a different color set. When you use colors from the color set, it is stored as a reference to that position in the color set, so if you change to a different color set, the color used will be from the same location in the newly selected color set.

To work with the color sets, use the Format / Change Color Set… menu option. It will display a window looking like this:

Note that the Express edition of NovaMind does not have the ability to use your own custom color sets, so the editing column will not be shown, and the button to add new custom color sets will not appear.

The first column shows an arrow indicator to show the selected color set. The second column shows a (-) button for items that you can hide and an (X) icon for items that you can delete. The standard built in color sets can only be hidden, but not deleted, whereas your custom color sets can be deleted but not just hidden. The default theme can not be removed at all, and can change when you select a new theme. The third column shows a pencil icon for color sets you can edit (your custom color sets).

The other columns show the base colors and the name of the color set. The order of the color sets is the default one first, then the standard ones, then your custom color sets.

To the right of the table is a preview of the selected color set with all the variations of the colors that will be used when you apply the color set.

If you have hidden some of the standard color sets, there will be a button to show them again.

To select a color set, you can use the keyboard: arrow keys to select the desired color set, and Return to apply it (or cancel to close the sheet without changing the color set), or you can use the mouse – just double-click on the one you want to use. When you apply a color set to the Mind Map, it is updated, and the color set information is written into the file, so if you open the file on another computer which doesn’t have that color set, you will still be able to use it.

To add a new color set, click the (+) button at the bottom of the table. NOTE: when you click the button, it will use the selected color set as a starting point for your new one. This makes it easy to use the best points of a color set you like, and tweak it to suit your needs.

The dialog for editing an existing color set, or adding a new one is the same, and looks like this:

The instructions on the screen explain the normal uses of the different colors. Just a few tips: all the color wells are themed color wells, so if you want to use any colors in the currently selected color set, you can click in the lower right corner of the well and select a color or variation from the existing color set. Also, if you see some colors on existing color sets you want to use, you can use move the panel out of the way to see all the rest of the color sets, and select from the existing colors using the color picker from the color panel.

NovaMind 5 for Mac took another significant step forward today with the release of an update which includes support for themes, as well as many bug fixes and other enhancements.

Themes

Themes give you control of the overall look of your Mind Map in a single simple setting. This allows you to very easily create great looking, consistent Mind Maps. You can easily experiment with different looks for your Mind Maps.

When you apply a theme to your Mind Map, it will introduce a new default color set and font set, as well as setting the styles of the topics, callouts, floating topics, connections etc, but only where you have not explicitly overwritten the standard styles with your own custom settings. In other words, if you have changed something, then that change will be honored.

Selecting a Theme

Use the Format / Change Theme… menu item. You will be shown a list of the available themes like this:

There are a number of built in themes, which you can select from, and if you have saved themes of your own, these will also appear in this list. What you see is a sample Mind Map styled using the theme, and the default color set for that theme.

To use one of the themes, click on it to select it, or use your arrow keys. When you select a theme, it will be highlighted, and you can click the OK button to use it, or you can just double-click on a theme to use it.

Standard built in themes have a (-) button at the top left, and if you click on this, you will be able to hide it from view. If you have hidden themes, you can show them again by using the button which will appear, allowing you to show hidden themes. Custom themes have an (X) button on them, so you can delete themes you no longer want. Deleting your custom themes removes them completely from the system. You will be asked to confirm hiding or deleting themes.

You can use the slider knob to view the themes bigger or smaller.

When your theme is applied to your Mind Map, it changes any default settings, but will not affect your custom settings. For instance, if you have chosen a different color set, then it will not change the colors of your Mind Map when you change the theme, but if you were to then revert to the default color set, then it would use the color set from your chosen theme. Similarly, if you have changed topic shapes, colors, fonts etc, these will be left the way you have set them, but if you revert to the default, then they will be changed to the theme’s settings.

You can have different themes on different Mind Maps within your document.

Other Updates and Enhancements

• You can now pan using the spacebar while not editing a topic, and drag the canvas around.
• The help documentation has been updated.
• Fixed a problem with dragging an image on after grafting a topic, when a previous image drag operation had been done.
• Added an ellipsis to the display of long URLs and file names in attachments and hyperlinks.
• Fixed a problem where images would be lost when grafting.
• Totally rewrote the rounded elbow connector code – much better result.
• Fixed a problem with updating to a new theme with different text size settings.
• Fixed a problem with drawing of selection highlights.
• Fixed a problem loading themes when children default style settings are empty.
• Fixed a problem exporting Mind Maps with glossy overlays to image formats.
• Fixed a problem with theme lookups for non-topic nodes.
• Fixed a problem with using links and attachments on OSX 10.5.
• Fixed a memory management bug and issue where visuals were recreated after being removed.
• Fixed a problem with export of images.
• Fixed an issue with theme lookups.
• Fixed an issue with the layout controls and selections.
• Fixed an issue where having the caps lock on would stop the insertion of topics using Return.
• Added panning using spacebar.
• Fixed a crasher bug that was triggered when adding new mind maps to an existing document.
• Made the mouse moved processing significantly more efficient.
• Fixed a problem where the cursor would not update correctly for the resize handles.
• Assorted other bug fixes.

We are pleased to announce another update to the NovaMind 5 for Mac preview (v0.0.8), adding some significant, industry leading new features.

Zooming:

The new zooming features in NovaMind 5 include the following features:

• Menu (and hotkey) zooming in and out
• Scroll wheel zooming while holding the Option key
• Inertial zooming when holding the Option key and swiping in or out using a Magic Mouse or other momentum enabled device
• Pinch zooming, if your device has that capability (e.g. MacBook)
• Zoom to Map option
• Zoom to Selection option
• A zoom menu in the scrollbar, with a custom zoom option, which replaces the popup menu with a text field for you to enter the desired zoom amount. When using the zoom text field, you can use the up and down arrow keys to zoom in our out, and just press Return to finish and switch back to the popup menu display. The popup menu shows the current zoom amount on it.

“Rubber Band” selection:

This is where you click on the canvas and drag to select multiple topics at once. Normally this would wipe out your previous selection and leave you with just the new topics you have selected. But we have gone a couple of steps further – firstly, you can hold down the Shift key and it will add your new selection to your existing selection. Secondly, you can hold the Shift and Option keys down to keep both your existing selections and the new ones, except where they overlap (an XOR selection). And where we have really gone the extra step is that you don’t have to press the keys before you start dragging – you can press them during the drag and instantly see the effect on your selections.

Other Enhancements

A number of other enhancements and bug fixes were rolled into this release:

• Updated the help documentation.
• Fixed a problem that caused a crash when trying to show the context menu.
• Fixed another crasher bug that exhibited itself when doing lookups of theme values.
• Fixed a problem where collapsed topics were not ignored as they should have been for a number of operations.
• Made hidden topics be automatically removed from the selection.
• Fixed a problem where zooming would show very large resize handles.
• Fixed some problems with positioning and hiding of controls.
• Fixed some issues with controls zooming in and out.
• Set the controls to show as soon as a topic is resized.
• Set the controls to hide if possible when height or width is unlocked.

For those of you already using the preview, you can download it using the check for updates feature. If you are not on the list, and want to try the preview, you can sign up on the NovaMind home page.

Attachments are files that are embedded in your document. They become part of the NovaMind document, and are independent of their original source file. They can be opened for viewing and editing, and changes are stored within the NovaMind file, and do not affect the original document. Attached files can be extracted, if you need to work with them independently again.

Since attached files are part of the NovaMind document, they increase the size of the NovaMind document, so attaching large files will lead to having large NovaMind files. When you send a file with attachments to another person or open on another computer, all the attached files are still there for you to work with.

You can have as many attachments on a topic as you like.

The addition of attachments is only available in the Pro and Platinum editions of NovaMind.

To add your first attachment, you can use the Insert / Attachment menu item. You will be asked to select the file to attach, and it will be added. You will see a paperclip icon indicating that you have attached files on your topic like this:

Click the icon to show the hyperlinks panel like this:

On this panel, you see the following, from left to right:

• a hyperlink that will open the file in its default application
• a popup menu that will allow you to select which application to open the file in
• the X delete button to remove the attachment from your file
• the arrow to extract the file for use outside of NovaMind
• the pencil icon to edit the attachment information

this will be repeated for each attachment, and then at the bottom:

• an arrow to extract all the attachments on the topic for use outside NovaMind
• a + button to add another attachment from within the panel.

What happens when you click an attachment link:

1. The program will ask you for confirmation that you want to open the link, if you have not already told it that you don’t want to be warned about this again:

If you don’t want to be bothered by this security alert again, check the “Don’t show this message again” checkbox. Note that while this preference is saved, it is separate from the preference for hyperlinks, so to get rid of both alerts, you will have to check the box once for attachments and once for hyperlinks.

2. The file is copied to a temporary folder ready for viewing / editing.
3. The file is opened in the default application for you to edit.
4. NovaMind monitors the file to see if you make changes to it. When you return to NovaMind after editing files outside NovaMind, you will be presented with a dialog like this if you have edited any files:

For each file you have been editing outside NovaMind, it will tell you the NovaMind document name and the file name. You have two checkboxes for each item:

• Copy into NovaMind: if you leave this checked, the altered file will be copied back into your NovaMind document so you have the latest version in NovaMind. If you leave this unchecked, then your changes will not update the NovaMind document.
• Don’t ask again: this can be useful if you are switching between NovaMind and other applications repeatedly and don’t want to be bothered with the dialog. Note that this will automatically continue to take the action of your first selection. Therefore, if you want your changes to always be copied back into NovaMind without asking you, then you would leave the Copy Into NovaMind checked while also checking Don’t Ask Again. If you uncheck Copy Into NovaMind and check Don’t Ask Again, then your changes will not be copied back into NovaMind.

Note: If you have told the system not to copy your files in and not to ask you about it again, you may decide that you do want to have the changed copied in after all. In this case, just click on the link again to open it. This will not overwrite your changed version, but will instead open up the changed version while at the same time disabling the “Don’t ask again” option, so you have a chance to embed the file again if you want to. Note that this option is only available while the NovaMind document is still open. If you have closed your NovaMind document while the file is still open and being edited, and you have not got NovaMind to embed the updated version, then in order to embed the updated document, you would have to save it and attach it as a new attachment.

The normal workflow is: open the attachment, edit it and save the changes, close the attachment file in the other application, and return to NovaMind, using the option to copy updated file back into NovaMind.

A note about file uniquing: if you attach exactly the same file to two topics, then the file will only be copied into the file once, and if you edit it from one of those topics, the file will be updated, so if you open it from any of the topics you have it linked to, you will get the latest version. Note, however, that if you attach the file to one topic, change it and save a new version (even with the same name), and attach that to another topic, it will be treated as a separate file (uniquing is done based on a checksum based on the file contents).

Choosing the application to open the file with

NovaMind will automatically select the default application to open the file with, and its icon will be displayed on the popup menu button. If you click the hyperlink  text for the file, this is the application that will be used to open it. But sometimes, you want to open a file with a different application, so NovaMind finds all the applications that can open this type of file.

Click on the popup menu button to see the applications that can open that file, and click on the one that you want to use to open it.

Extracting Files

To extract a file, click on the arrow icon beside the file. If you click on the arrow icon at the bottom of the attachments dialog, it will extract all the attachments on that topic.

You will be asked to select a destination folder where you want to copy the file to. If a file with the same name already exists at that location, you will be asked whether to overwrite the file:

After extraction, the Finder will be shown with your extracted file(s) selected.

The process of extracting a file makes a completely independent copy of the file. Any changes you make to the extracted file will not affect the file still attached to the NovaMind document.

Editing an attachment

Click on the pencil icon to edit the attachment. You will be able to edit the display name. If you want to use a different file, you will have to add a new attachment for it.

Click the OK button when you have the display name as you would like it.

Adding Attachments by Drag and Drop

You can drag and drop a file on to a topic to attach it to the topic. When you drag a file onto a topic, you will see a dialog like this:

This is because a file could either be linked to as a hyperlink, or embedded in the NovaMind document as an attached file. To attach it, choose the Attach File option.

A special note about image files: when you drag an image on, it is normally added as an image on the topic. If you instead want to link to it or attach it, press the ? Command key while you drop it.

A special note about PDF files: PDF files can either be thought of as documents or as images. In most cases, you will probably want them treated as files, so the default behavior is the same as dragging on other files, but if you want it treated as an image and put on the topic as an image, press the ? Command key while dropping the PDF on the topic.

An update for the NovaMind 5 for Mac preview has just been released, with a number of new capabilities. One of these is the ability to add hyperlinks to topics.

NovaMind 5 can have multiple hyperlinks on a single topic.

To add the first hyperlink, you can use the Insert / Hyperlink menu item.

A panel like this will be displayed:

Type in the URL that you would like to link to, or select a file or folder on your computer using the Select File… button. If you would like the link displayed as something other than the URL, then type the display text in the Display As field like this:

Click the OK button to save your settings. The panel will show the link like this:

Now to visit the web site, you would just click on the hyperlink. When you first open hyperlinks, a warning dialog will be shown like this:

This is just to help with security. If you do not wish to see the dialog again for hyperlinks, check the “Don’t show this message again” checkbox. Note that this panel is also shown for opening attached files, but has a different preference setting, so if you don’t want it shown there either, then you would have to disable it there too. Once you have disabled it, the setting is saved in your preferences so as to not bother you about it again.

If you mouse over the hyperlink it will show you the actual destination URL:

The other buttons on this panel are:
- The X button deletes the hyperlink.
- The pencil button allows you to edit the hyperlink.
- The + button allows you to add another hyperlink from within the panel.

When you click away from the panel or to another application, the panel will close and you will be left with a hyperlink indicator that shows that you have hyperlinks on the topic:

To show the panel again, click on the icon. You can have multiple hyperlinks on a single topic. The newest hyperlink is shown at the top of the list, since it is probably the one you are most likely to want to access.

File Hyperlinks

When you add a hyperlink and use the Select File… button, you will be able to select a file to link to, and it will be added like this:

When you add a file hyperlink, it is initially a fully qualified path, but if you want, you can also use relative paths. A relative path will not start with a / , and starts from the folder where the document is saved. It can refer to the current folder with a single period (.) and the parent folder using two periods (..). So for instance, if this file shown above was in the same folder as my Mind Map, I could refer to it just as 1-all-scaled.tiff or as ./1-all-scaled.tiff

Note that if you add a relative link and you have not saved your document at all, then although it will show the link, it will just be plain text and not clickable, since it doesn’t know what the link is relative to. It will become active when you first save the file.

File hyperlinks do not get updated automatically when you move a file to a different folder, or open the Mind Map on a different computer, so if the files end up in different locations, you will need to update the links.

Creating Links by Drag and Drop

You can drag and drop URLs from just about any browser. Just drag the icon beside the URL onto the topic on your Mind Map.

You can drag folders from the Finder onto a topic to create a link to that folder.

You can create links to a file by dragging it on to the topic.

A special note about files: when you drag a file onto a topic, you will see a dialog like this:

This is because a file could either be linked to as a hyperlink, or embedded in the NovaMind document as an attached file. To add it as a hyperlink, click the Hyperlink to File option.

A special note about image files: when you drag an image on, it is normally added as an image on the topic. If you instead want to link to it or attach it, press the ? Command key while you drop it.

A special note about PDF files: PDF files can either be thought of as documents or as images. In most cases, you will probably want them treated as files, so the default behavior is the same as dragging on other files, but if you want it treated as an image and put on the topic as an image, press the ? Command key while dropping the PDF on the topic.

Another significant update to the preview rolls off the production line, the third release in 2 weeks…

This time, we introduce the best and most flexible printing system available for any Mind Mapping application, as well as numerous other enhancements throughout the application.

Mind Map Printing

The new Mind Map printing capabilities of NovaMind 5 put it in a league of its own, with many capabilities that you won’t find in any other Mind Mapping application anywhere. When you choose to print, you will see a panel like this:

Down the right side, you can see that there are options for printing with the background (off by default because it can take a lot of ink), printing with crop marks so that you can cut multiple pages accurately to join them for making posters, and printing with a border around the entire Mind Map. There is also the option to print without the topic text, for if you want to use it for handouts where people fill in the blanks as you go through your presentation. All of these settings are updated live on the preview to the left.

Pagination Done Right

There are settings for the number of pages wide and high, and the pagination preview shows you exactly how your Mind Map will be split amongst the pages, and the main preview shows each page as it will be printed.

This shows you exactly how it will print when you send it to your printer. We take into account the printable area for your printer, so it doesn’t go off the edge of the page, and the scaling and pagination is automatically updated when you change settings for headers, footers, borders, or crop marks – anything that will affect how your Mind Map prints out.

Helping You Print Legible Mind Maps

We also have the unique feature where we examine the text of all the visible topics that are going to be printed, and work out the minimum size, and then when you scale the Mind Map to fit on the required number of pages, it may well scale down the Mind Map, and of course the text is scaled with it. To help you only print legible sized Mind Maps, we display the minimum point size of the text on your Mind Map, when scaled for printing on the number of pages you specify.

If the size is less than 12pt, we put a yellow background behind the text as a gentle warning, and if less than 10pt, we change it to an orange background to encourage you to not go any smaller, but if you go less than 8pt, we change the color to red as a warning that the output will not be legible, and you should print it on more (or larger) pages.

Headers and Footers

There are two types of headers and footers: you can have them page based – i.e. they get repeated on every page, or you can have them document based, where they are printed at the specified location once for the document. For instance, if you were printing all three headers on a document that spanned three pages wide, the left one would be at the left of page 1, the center one would be in the middle of page 2, and the right one would be right justified on page 3.  You can have up to three headers and three footers defined, and you can have the headers document based and footers page based, or any combination you like.

You can insert tokens into the headers and footers, and these are replaced with the relevant information on both the preview and printout, so you know exactly what you are getting. The date formats are taken directly from your system preferences. When you finish editing a header or footer field, the print preview is instantly updated to show exactly how it will appear. You can copy and paste, drag and drop the tokens just like the text.

Click the Set… button beside the font field to set the font for the headers (or footers, if you are on the footers tab).

Header and Footer Images

You can also use an image (for example a company logo) to enhance the printout – again, left, centered, or right side, and it will follow your settings for document based or page based headers/footers.

Note that the image is scaled to be a maximum height of 120 pixels to avoid overpowering the rest of the page, and if you are using document based headers, it will affect the Mind Map printable area for all pages even though it may well appear only on one page. This is so the Mind Map sizes are consistent for later assembly into posters etc, and also making allowance for headers and footers that may span more than one page.

Outline Printing

On the Content tab, you will see that you can select the option of printing the outline instead of the Mind Map. When you switch to printing the outline, you will see that you have the option to print with alternating background to make it easier to follow the outline, and also to include the topic notes inline with the outline. If you turn this option on, you will see a small notes icon in the text where the outline item’s notes start.

We paginate the document for you so as to keep an entire topic and its notes together wherever possible. If it does need to be split, we use a whole page (or as many pages as necessary) for the topic where required, and then return to normal pagination afterwards.

The same header and footer settings are used for the outline as for the Mind Map, so you have the same flexibility. Seeing as the outline view is only paginated vertically, the document header will always print on the first page, and the document footer on the last page.

Persistence

You can save a set of settings as a default, and if you want to use it, just click the Load Default button. Also, your entire print setup is stored in the document and restored when you come to print again.

Other Updates in This Release

There are numerous other updates in this release – here are some of the important ones:

• Added the ability to save and load color sets.
• Fixed a problem with the inheritance of callout styles.
• Fixed a number of issues with imports and text editing.
• Fixed a problem with exports to MS Word not including topic notes.
• Fixed a problem which caused notes to not be saved.
• Fixed a problem with deleting maps from documents.
• Fixed a bug in notes editing.
• Fixed a problem where exported Mind Maps were not laid out properly.
• Updated the importer and exporter system with multiple fixes
• Fixed a crasher bug that would happen when saving after deleting a topic from the middle of a set of children topics.
• Fixed a redraw issue with shadows and reflections.
• Fixed a problem with the error reporter application, which was causing it to crash.
• Fixed a redraw issue when changing children coloring modes.
• Fixed an issue with layout when you change angles and some descendants were not having their layout invalidated.
• Fixed a problem where you could delete the last item in a color set, and it would crash the program.
• Fixed a problem with loading of Mind Maps without valid metadata.
• Fixed a crasher bug when closing a document.
• Fixed a crasher bug that happened when you have a line topic without the stroke being drawn, and with a reflection.
• Fixed a crasher bug when dragging a thumb in the advanced colorwell to the left of the end.

How to Get the New Release

If you already have it installed, use the Check for Updates feature in the version you already have. If you don’t already have the preview, you can sign up for it here.

Hi, this is to keep our customers up to date with the latest information about NovaMind 5 for Mac, as of 13th May.

You can download the current preview release of NovaMind 5 for Mac here: http://www.novamind.com/techpreview

Yesterday was the day we said we were going to release the Mac version of NovaMind 5. It was fully our intention to deliver a fully commercial ready release on that date, just as we did with the Windows version 2 weeks ago. Unfortunately a number of circumstances prevented us from reaching this goal. As you will know if you have been our customer for some time, this is *not* how we normally operate. We are normally surprising and delighting our customers with the amazing new technology that we bring to the market, but right now, it appears that we are playing catch up to our promises. Rewriting the entire application from the ground up was a huge task – far bigger than we ever imagined.

Shortly after making the announcement of the May 12 release date, we encountered a show stopper bug with our use of the Apple technology. We tried to resolve this through the normal developer mailing lists which are usually able to help, but after trying everything suggested there, we went the route of paid support through Apple, and after 64 emails being exchanged there, we had made little progress, and were connected directly with the developer at Apple responsible for that technology, and he did all sorts of tests, and suggested all sorts of things for us to try out, and finally after 58 exchanges of emails, the problems were resolved (there had been 5 separate issues that were masking each other). All this cost us 9 weeks of development time. This was the single worst bug I have encountered in my 20+ years of development and leading development teams, and I would like to sincerely thank both our own development team and Apple for their tireless efforts to resolve the issue.

Through a massive effort on the part of our development team, we have been able to make up about 3 of the 9 weeks lost, in spite of a number of other issues that cropped up along the way.

What is now available?

In the big scheme of things, we are 95% of the way there. Here is the status on the key features that are there, many of which are new and unique to NovaMind:

• New layout system: almost complete – known issues with manually moved topics not staying where they have been put, an issue with switching from radial to linear and back, topics not reordering on a move drag, no way for excluding shapes from layout or putting them in front or behind the map. The layout system makes it a breeze to create Mind Maps that are compact and nicely laid out, whether you use the automatic layout capabilities or choose to move topics where you want them.
• New grafting system with the ability to graft single or multiple topics, and either move or copy graft (hold down the option key to graft a copy), and to drag off to make floating topics or graft floating topics back into the tree. 100% complete.
• Flexible pane window system, 95% complete – we still have a formatting bar that we are working on, but with the system as it stands, you can resize the notes and outline portion, double click on the divider to snap a pane shut or restore it to how you had it before. You have the option to have outline view on the left or right, and have the notes either in the same panel as the outline view, or at the bottom of the screen. If you have the outline and notes in the same pane, you can split the space or show only the outline or only the notes. All this gives you view flexibility that you will not find in any other Mind Mapping application, and if you want a clean and clear workspace, you can hide the toolbar and the panels with either two or three mouse clicks.
• Drag and drop grafting between the outline view and the Mind Map, 100% complete, although at the moment if you want to drag from one document to another, you’ll need to hold down the option key to do a copy operation rather than a move.
• Smart cut, copy, and paste and grafting, where it will copy and paste a sub-selection if you have defined one, instead of just blindly copying the whole subtree. This is a very useful feature that is unique to NovaMind. 100% complete.
• Smart selection using the arrow keys, where it selects based on proximity as well as hierarchy. 100% complete.
• Underlying theme system and hierarchical inheritance: 98% complete – we have one possible issue to check out, and one small tweak we may want to make, based on customer feedback. This is a huge, but mostly invisible system that makes the styling “just work” the way you would expect, while giving you the control to override wherever you want to. This is another unique advantage of NovaMind.
• Fully live update outline view, with all the outlining functions like move up, down, left, right, indent, outdent, group, ungroup, copy, paste, graft. 100% complete. This also includes the use of the actual fonts you use on your Mind Map, while stripping out the coloring (so that you don’t end up with white text on a white background), and switching to a single point size (configurable in preferences). You can also change the look of the outline view, reorder the columns or remove columns you don’t want (right click for context menu to do this). All this is unique to NovaMind.
• Automatic text coloring: 98% complete – it all works, but won’t take into account a situation where you have a background image between your text and the background yet. The automatic text coloring makes text color yet another thing that you just don’t need to worry about when you are creating your Mind Maps, and is a unique feature of NovaMind.
• Themed fonts and color sets – the actual usage of them in the Mind Map is complete, but there is no way currently to select a different color set (ditto for themes). The integration with the system and the colorwells and color panel is complete. Themed colors give you a very powerful and flexible way to keep your Mind Maps looking great with colors that go well together, and for you to experiment with different color combinations across your entire Mind Map.
• Multiple images on a topic, resizing, moving, copying (hold down the option key to copy), image modes and opacity (see context menu for these options), topic size locking and unlocking, and internal topic layout. 100% complete. This gives you an incredibly powerful range of options for making your topics look great, and is totally unique to NovaMind.
• Topic shapes – a huge selection including your own custom shapes where you can define each of the four quadrants of the topics independently. For all but the flexi-topics, this is 95% complete – just a couple of minor bugs to resolve. Flexi-topics will be added later on (big, big job to get the layout system to play nicely with it). No other Mind Mapping application has this level of sophistication in topic shapes.
• Children coloring modes – yet another powerful and unique way to automatically have your topics colored. There is a small redraw issue currently (just resize the window very slightly to force a redraw) – we will fix this soon. Inherited colors 100% complete. Fixed colors from the theme, 100% complete, color sets 95% complete (want to just make it look a bit nicer and allow you to save and load color sets). Rainbow coloring with angle, brightness, saturation, alternating colors: 100% complete. Interpolated colors: 90% complete – we want to rewrite this to make it a bit easier to use so that you can click on a place on the ring to add a color stop (instead of having to drag on a color from the color well), and so you can select thumbs and have them linked to the color panel so you can change the color of an existing thumb, and therefore experiment more easily with different colors, and also we want to be able to save and load the color combinations.
• Line settings: 100% complete.
• Fill settings: 100% complete – the simple and advanced gradient settings give you the ability to make your topics look interesting and unique, and it something that you will only find in NovaMind. Tip: if you don’t have any topics selected, the fill settings will change the canvas fill color (or even set a gradient fill).
• Effects: shadows 100% complete, reflections 90% complete (doesn’t reflect the text on the topic yet), glassy look 100% complete. Again, you won’t find these options in any other Mind Mapping software.
• Background texture: 100% complete – again, if you have no topics selected, it will change the canvas texture image.
• Text settings: 100% complete, including automatic coloring, single and double underline and strikethrough, and underline and strikethrough colors, text background color, and kerning settings – the most flexible text options you’ll find in any Mind Mapping software.
• Inspector system: 100% complete, and we’ll just be adding panels and tabs as required.

What’s the plan from here?

We have a number of things that need to be there before we can release it as version 5.0, and a number of bugs will no doubt crop up now that we are going to a wider audience. Our plan is to release updates regularly until the commercial release is ready, and our goal is to have everything that could stop you using this as a day to day Mind Mapping application fixed within the next 3 weeks. We are looking for feedback, and crash reports, but considering the number of people who will be putting NovaMind through its paces, we will read all of them, but probably won’t have time to reply to them all – you may just find that the next update fixes the problem.

Here are some of the key things that we plan to add before we call this a true 5.0 release:

• Outline numbering
• Imports / Exports (we had this working, but encountered a deployment issue we will have to talk to the technology supplier about)
• Checkboxes
• Hyperlinks
• Attachments
• Theme selection
• Colorset selection
• Font set selection
• Boundaries
• Media library
• Select children/descendants etc.
• Find
• Spell check of the entire document
• Task information
• Shape handling – front/back

There will be one or two other things too, but I just want to stress that this list of features is not where it stops, and in particular, we are planning to add link lines, and plan to bring the screenwriting plugin to NovaMind 5, and have some amazing things coming for the presenter.

If you’re on a Mac, then I suggest you download the program and try it out for yourself. As part of the download process, you’ll be asked for your email address so we can add you to the preview mailing list. This will be used solely for the purposes of giving you quick updates as we release new versions, so you can see at a glance what issues have been addressed. This will be a quite busy mailing list until release, but I’ll keep the emails short and to the point, just listing the new features, enhancements, and bug fixes.

User Interface

Watch this video to find out how to use the user interface of NovaMind 5 for Windows effectively. Learn to use the ribbon bar, side panels, zoom features and some shortcuts to make your life a whole lot easier.

 

Here is the transcript:

In this video, I’d like to give you some tips about getting the most out of the user interface in NovaMind 5.

NovaMind 5 uses the Microsoft Fluent user interface concepts, but has some unique features to make it easier to use for Mind Mapping.

One of the things you often want when you are Mind Mapping is to be able to see the absolute largest area of the Mind Map as possible at a time. To facilitate this, we have translucent scrollbars that only become opaque when you mouse over them, and a sidebar that you can close so that it doesn’t take up any room.

You can also double-click one of the tabs of the ribbon bar and the ribbon bar will be hidden, but you will still be able to use it by clicking on a tab, and selecting the item you want, and then it will be hidden again. To show it again permanently, just double-click a tab.

The ribbon bar tabs are broken up into command groups. At the bottom right of a number of the groups on the ribbon bar tabs, you will see a small square icon. This is called a dialog box launcher, and allows you access to advanced formatting options in a dialog box. If you are doing a lot of work using the options on the dialog, you might want to keep it open so you have it available as a floating formatting panel.

The NovaMind menu is accessed by clicking the round NovaMind icon in the top left corner of the window, and contains a lot of options for importing and exporting to different file formats.

Just to the right of the NovaMind menu button are some handy shortcuts for saving the files, and undo and redo. Undo can also be accessed using Ctrl+Z and redo using Ctrl+Y.

At the lower left corner of the window is a row of icons to access the different panels like the outline view and topic notes etc.

If you have plugins installed which have sidebar panels associated with them, they will also be accessible on this bar, and if they add ribbon bar tabs, they will be available in the ribbon bar.

Also at the bottom right is the zoom slider and zoom amount selection, but you can also zoom in or out directly on the Mind Map if you have a scroll wheel on your mouse. Just hold the Ctrl key down while you use the mouse wheel to zoom in or out. This also has the advantage that the zooming will be centered around your mouse position.

To pan the Mind Map, right click and drag, or use the scroll bars.

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download