NovaMind News

The face of Mind Mapping with NovaMind has just changed dramatically once again. Now you get to choose from a wide range of connection styles which allow you vast amounts of creative freedom with the way your Mind Maps are drawn.

To give you an idea of the flexibility of the new Mind Map drawing, here is an example of what you can create:

NovaMind Mind Map Connection Lines

There have been user interface changes to allow you access to the new features, so we have put together a video showing you the how to use the new functions in both the Windows and Mac versions of NovaMind:

 

 How to use the new Mind Map connection lines in NovaMind: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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NovaMind are pleased to introduce a new export to Microsoft Word DOCX format. The video below gives you the details.

This is a very full featured and powerful export feature of NovaMind. Of course you’ve always been able to select the Mind Map title and copy and paste the text into Word, but you didn’t get it the Word outline format and you didn’t get all the images or hyperlinks.

With the new export feature, all that has changed.

When you export a Mind Map to Word, the Mind Map title becomes the title of the document, and each branch is mapped to a Word heading according to its level. This allows you to generate tables of contents and work in outline mode if you want to.

All of the text is added to the document using the Word default fonts unless you have explicitly set a font or color in NovaMind. If you have only set the style of some of the text, the rest of the text will take the Word default formatting for the attributes of the text you haven’t changed, and for the rest of the text. This means that the Word templates and styles are easily applied and update the text in the same way as if you had made those changes in the text within Word.

The text comes across using the standard Word formatting except where we explicitly set it to something else.

And if we apply a specific style to the document in Word, then it applies that style to the text of the document.

You can also work with the NovaMind themes without affecting this - only the text styles that you have changed to be something different than the theme settings will have those specific settings applied in the Word document. This allows you to use the full power of the Word themes for your Word document.

Also, the hyperlinks on your NovaMind document are translated into the MS Word equivalent - either hyperlinks or bookmarks and links if the link is to another branch.

The images are exported, including any reflections you have put on the images. This also includes attached graphics and adornments.

Also the branch notes are exported, including any embedded graphics.

All of these features are designed to give you the absolute best experience when you export your NovaMind document to MS Word.

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Microsoft Project Import and Export

For some time, the Windows edition of NovaMind Platinum has had the ability to add project related information like start and finish dates, percentage complete, priorities, and assign resources to the branches on the Mind Maps.

Unlike the Mac version of NovaMind which can be imported directly into Merlin, the Windows edition did not have any way of getting the information over into a project management package.

Now that has all changed with the introduction of both import and export of Microsoft Project XML files. This means that you can carry out the project inception phases in NovaMind, brainstorming your ideas and working out the project’s scope and objectives, then export into Microsoft Project format for detailed project management.

The Microsoft Project file format has become the de facto standard for project management applications, so no matter which project management software you use, it is almost certain that you will be able to use the MS Project format.

During the project, if you need to bring someone new on to the project or brainstorm solutions to particular problems in the project, you can either import the whole project file into NovaMind, or export a portion of the project plan from your project management package and open it in NovaMind, and work with it in NovaMind. Using the Mind Map format makes it easy to see the interrelationships between objectives and requirements and tasks within the scope of the project, which makes it a powerful tool for both understanding where all the different pieces of the project fit together, and also for designing solutions to project related issues.

The Microsoft Project import and export functionality is available immediately as a free update for NovaMind Platinum for Windows users, and will be integrated into the NovaMind Platinum Mac product shortly.

Mind Manager Import

The Pro and Platinum editions of NovaMind for Windows also now have the capability of importing Mind Manager files. We have a lot of users who have a number of old Mind Maps that they want to convert to NovaMind format and work with in NovaMind, and people who receive Mind Manager files from colleagues, so we have built this capability into the Windows version of NovaMind Pro and Platinum.

Mind Manager import and export has been in the Mac version of NovaMind for several years, but the techniques we are using in the Windows product gives a better result, so we are going to be porting the new Windows import capability over to the Mac, and it will be available shortly.

To get the latest version, just do a check for updates in NovaMind and download the latest version.

This video will teach you the NovaMind user interface and Mind Mapping terminology.

Here is the Windows version:

And the Mac version:

 

 Flash Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Flash Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

NovaMind is pleased to announce the first of a new series of tutorial videos on NovaMind for Windows. This first video shows you all the basics of creating your first mind map in NovaMind.

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Flash Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

NovaMind Platinum for Windows was awarded a 5 star rating in the review on innovation tools. In the review, Chuck Frey highlights a number of the features of NovaMind, including:

• The improved “fluent” ribbon toolbar
• Live preview of map formatting
• Feedback when moving branches
• Show/hide map elements
• The Suggesterator
• Map orientation settings
• Color mode wheel
• and the built in Presentation mode 

In conclusion, Chuck says “I don’t know how Gideon King and his development team do it – they continue to push the envelope in terms of new features and functionality that no one has thought of before. This program is a pleasure to use, and I really like the Suggesterator.”

I am pleased to announce the release of NovaMind Express for Windows.

This completes the transition from the single product on each platform to having three Mind Mapping programs for Windows and three for Mac. This allows us to better suit the diverse needs of our users.

NovaMind Express is an excellent tool for students and beginning Mind Mappers, and offers a very powerful set of tools to create Mind Maps, with a simple to use interface.

Try it out today and experience the power and flexibility of Mind Mapping at its best.

Full information is available at:

http://www.novamind.com/Express

and you can purchase NovaMind Express from the NovaMind online store.

We are pleased to announce that NovaMind Platinum for Windows has now been released, and is available for immediate download from http://www.nova-mind.com/Downloads.

The Platinum edition includes all the features of NovaMind 4 Pro for Windows plus task information recording for start and end times, percentage complete, priorities, and resource assignments, as well as a presentation function and screenwriting functionality.

Please ensure you also download the Platinum graphics library which you will find linked on the download page. This graphics library only works with NovaMind Platinum, and includes images over 4 times the resolution of the Pro graphics and also over 900 extra images.

Gideon

The release of NovaMind 4 Platinum draws closer with the release of the first beta of this edition of NovaMind.

The Platinum edition includes all the features of NovaMind 4 Pro for Windows plus task information recording for start and end times, percentage complete, priorities, and resource assignments, as well as a presentation function and screenwriting functionality.

NovaMind software currently has job openings for people to join our Windows development team. Please see our NovaMind jobs page for full details on this job opening.

We are pleased to announce that NovaMind 4 Pro for Windows has entered beta testing.

NovaMind 4 Pro for Windows represents a major rewrite of much of the Windows version of NovaMind, with a much improved user interface, better usability and many new features. We look forward to completing the beta testing and releasing the production version in the next few weeks.

Gideon King
NovaMind Software

The time has come - after all the months of work totally rewriting the internals of NovaMind for Windows, it is now out there in the wild. This is now a really solid platform for us to move forward with NovaMind 4 and beyond. The team have done a fantastic job of keeping going when they were deep in the internals not seeing any visible signs of progress for long periods of time as they completed the low level work on which the whole application is based.

Now that we have that done and out of the way, it’s really exciting to have the version 4 development up to full force.

If you’re using NovaMind for Windows, you can get the update by checking for updates. if you don’t have it already you can head over to our downloads page.

After a very successful stage 1 beta test, which identified about 30 issues, our Windows development team have quickly resolved most of the issues, and we are now into the second phase of beta testing. It’s great to see such rapid progress, and hopefully this bodes well for an early release of the new version.

Well I haven’t been able to talk much publicly about our plans and developments on the Windows platform, because of the possibility of raising expectations too early, but we have been putting a massive amount of programming effort into a total rewrite of the internals of the Windows version of NovaMind. This has proved to be a far larger task than originally anticipated.

This really is a huge leap forward in our underlying technology which will provide immediate benefits for our customers by way of performance enhancements and our ability to address any issues more quickly and effectively.

It will also allow us to both adopt other new technologies more quickly, and update the capabilities and user interface of the program much more quickly.

Last week, I had a chance to go through a pre-beta test version of the program, and basically everything is functionally complete at this stage, and there is mainly just tidy-up work to be done.

NovaMind 3.3 will be a free upgrade for our existing NovaMind 3 license holders.

I’ll keep you updated as we get into the beta phase and get closer to release.

It’s very exciting to be able to finally see a large portion of what we have been working on for the last 6 months so close to being publicly available.

Regards

Gideon

It took me by surprise how many people are purchasing 64 bit versions of Windows Vista, but from the number of requests we have received from people using the 64 bit version, it became clear that this had to be a priority for us.

As those of you who are on our MindMap Connection newsletter list know, we are towards the end of a major re-engineering of the entire internals of the Windows version of NovaMind, which will bring significant speed, reliability, and maintainability enhancements to NovaMind, but we took a bit of time out to get the current version working on 64 bit Windows to satisfy the immediate demand. Now it’s back full force on the development of NovaMind 3.3.

If you have NovaMind installed already, you can do a Check for Update and download the upgrade installer, or if you haven’t downloaded it yet, you can get it from our Downloads page.

Chuck Frey, founder of Innovation Tools, author of The Mind Mapping Software Blog, author of “Power Tools & Strategies for Mind Mapping Software” and author of the "Mind Mapping Software Survey" is one of the best known and respected experts on Mind Mapping software.

He recently did a review of NovaMind for Windows, and said "NovaMind for Windows v3.2 offers polished, next-generation interface and impressive functionality", and awarded NovaMind .

You can read the full review at
http://www.innovationtools.com/Tools/SoftwareDetails.asp?a=255 

Following on from the massive updates to the Windows version late last year, we have released several updates with the following new features:

• Japanese, Traditional Chinese, Dutch and French versions
• Drag and drop of text and links, improved text and branch selection
• New, intuitive grafting of branches
• Support for custom screen resolutions and system fonts, and improved Windows Vista support
• Added a built in NovaMind Tutor where you can go through our online tutorials directly within NovaMind, and check off each tutorial as you complete it.
• Keyboard shortcuts for Mind Map switching when you have multiple Mind Maps in a single document (Control-Tab, Control-Shift-Tab)
• Various other minor enhancements and bug fixes.

To download the latest version (3.2.7) of NovaMind for Windows, either use the NovaMind "check for update" feature, or click here to download.