NovaMind News

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.

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.

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Merlin 2.6 with web publishing capabilities.

With the Web Sharing module, you can publish your project file over the web either as a live HTML document so you can collaborate with other users over the web or as a static HTML page that you can share with the team.

This feature opens the door for all users who wish to use Merlin but can’t because they are tied to an operating system other than Mac OS X. By publishing your Merlin project file using Merlin application and its Web Module add on, you can allow any user to access the project and collaborate with you on it only using their web browser.

Here is a project that has been shared using Web Sharing – as you can see, it has just about all the features of Merlin available to the whole team on the web.

The update from earlier versions of Merlin 2 is free, but a separate license is required for the web sharing capabilities. The web sharing licenses can be purchased from the NovaMind online store.

Merlin 2.6 also has a wide range of bug fixes, and enhancements to things like Microsoft Project import, and application of styles.