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

We recently introduced advanced outline numbering features to the Pro and Platinum editions of NovaMind 5 for Windows (and also coming to the preview of NovaMind for Mac next week, but this tutorial is about the Windows version).

To access the new features, click on the down arrow on the bottom half of the Numbering button on the Format tab, and select Advanced Settings…

You will see a dialog that looks like this:

Numbering Basics

Before we go on to the advanced numbering, let’s just cover the standard numbering first. Outline numbering always sets the outline numbering for its sub-topics – not itself, and this concept applies to the formatting as well as the settings for the number of levels. So here are the specific settings:

As with all “Default” settings, this will use whatever the setting is in the theme.

There are two situations where you would want to use the Numbering Off setting, and those are: if the theme sets numbering on but you don’t want numbering, or if a parent topic sets numbering on for your sub-topics, but you don’t want your sub-topics to have outline numbering.

The Numbering Depth is the number of levels of sub-topics which will be numbered by this setting.

The Restart Numbering option is useful if your parent topic sets your numbering format, but you want to restart the numbering at 1 for your immediate subtopics. For instance, if your number was 1.1 and your first subtopic was 1.1.1 but you just wanted it to be 1 (and it’s subtopics 1.1 etc), then you would use the Restart Numbering option.

If on a child topic you just increase the number of levels, then the sub-topics will continue the number of levels you have set. For example, if your parent’s parent topic set two levels of numbering, your number would be of the format 1.1. Now, if you set your number of levels to 2 as well, then it would extend the numbering for your subtopics down two more levels, so they would be of the format 1.1.1 and 1.1.1.1, but if you has siblings that didn’t have this setting, they wouldn’t have numbering on their descendant topics.

This gives you a massive amount of flexibility with the numbering, but we have taken it even further by allowing the ultimate flexibility in outline number format.

Advanced Outline Number Formatting

The bit we’re interested in is the child numbering format. When you click on the + button, it will add a row to the formatting for the children. You can add as many rows as you like to set the formatting of the children topics down as many levels as you like.

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:

Let’s just break this down. The top row is a preview of how the formatting will look when used. Below that are the actual formats. 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.

The formatting is updated live on your Mind Map, so you can see the changes immediately as you are editing. Have fun!

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.

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.

Mind Mapping and Innovation expert, Chuck Frey has just written a review of NovaMind 5, in which he says:

This innovative new version makes it easier to create high-impact visual maps than any other program on the market – period.

…

NovaMind 5 gives you an unprecedented amount of creative freedom to create awesome looking mind maps, quickly and easily. It gives you many options, but thanks to excellent user interface design, it never overwhelms you. If you want to create a simple mind map, you can. But if you want to create something that makes people say “Wow!!” that is within your reach as well.

I’m very impressed with how the program seems to anticipate what you’re doing and adjust everything else accordingly. Yet you can still override all of these defaults if you want – or quickly revert to default settings if you get lost in customizing the appearance of your map. It’s the perfect blend of hand-holding for beginner and intermediate users, yet NovaMind contains enough customization options to satisfy even the most discerning power user.

To read the full post, please visit: http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/novamind-5-launched/

NovaMind Software are pleased to announce the following release dates for NovaMind 5:

NovaMind 5 for Windows will be released on 28th April 2010.

NovaMind 5 for Mac will be released on 12th May 2010.

Some people have expressed interest in some of the thinking and design that has gone into NovaMind 5, so I thought I would just talk a bit about what has gone into it, and some of the design decisions that have had to be made along the way. It’s more than I would normally reveal about our internal workings and decision making to get to the product, so I hope you find it interesting.

Compact and flexible layout system

One of the main foundation blocks of NovaMind 5 is the new layout system which is totally unique, and better than any other Mind Map layout system. The core features of the new layout system are:

• Very compact layout of Mind Maps.
• Extremely flexible automatic layout.
• Ability to move any topic to wherever you want and have the other topics move out of the way automatically.
• Ability to properly support callout topics, placing them so that they and their children topics do not overlap each other or other topics.
• Support for floating topics which allow you to have what look like other Mind Maps on the same canvas, and have them automatically move out of the way then pushed by the main Mind Map.
• Ability to support floating shapes attached to topics, either included or excluded from the topic layout, and placed in layers in front of or behind the Mind Map. This gives you a lot of visual flexibility to enhance your topics with images and notes around the main topic.

All of these capabilities are unique to NovaMind, and having gone through the development process to produce the new layout system, we can see why nobody else has done this before.

14 Major Rewrites

During the course of development of the layout system, we tried a wide range of different algorithms. Each time, we would find some good things about the algorithm, but would find some aspects of what we wanted to achieve with the layout were just not possible. We got 14 of the designs to the prototype testing stage, and each time had to take the lessons we learned and go back to the drawing board to come up with a new algorithm.

14 algorithms later, we finally had what we were looking for. Something with the power and flexibility to both handle our current needs, but also the ability to work with the enhancements we have planned in the future. It drew on the combined research represented in hundreds of research papers, but in the end, the vast majority of the algorithm needed to be designed specifically for our needs. It was a huge and difficult task, but now gives us power and flexibility completely unrivaled by any other Mind Mapping application, and a solid foundation for moving forward.

Topic Layout

When you think of a topic on a Mind Map, perhaps you visualize just a box with some text on it, but it needs to be so much more than that, especially when you consider the things that we will be allowing on the topics:

• The topic text (either automatically colored to contrast with its background or manually colored)
• Adornment icons (enhanced from the NovaMind 4 style)
• Task related information, with options for visible resource names
• Checkboxes
• Icons for indicating attached information like the hyperlinks and attached files
• Plugin data indicator icons
• Arbitrary amounts of space available for plugins to put their data and user interface on the topics
• Plugin supplied status information
• Up to 4 images per topic

With all these things to take into account, it took a lot of thinking through the designs and how all the different things would interact with each other, and how they would be placed for different topic shapes.

Take, for instance, the topic images. We went through at least 6 completely different prototypes that I can recall, refining the capabilities of the topic positioning and user interface to position the images, and to stretch, fit, or scale them in the image area. There are so many things to think about – what axes it should be able to be resized on, how a horizontal image would interact with a vertical one, what to do with images that are naturally smaller than the normal minimum size, etc. In the end, we came up with a solution that is both powerful and easy to use.

Again, with the whole design, the topic design is capable of both supporting the initial requirements of NovaMind 5.0, and the growth as we add capabilities over time.

The Best Plugin System

The Windows version will be shipping with the plugin system, which will come later to the Mac version. This allows a massive amount of flexibility for developers to extend the functionality of NovaMind in new directions. The developers we have been working with already say that it is the most powerful and flexible plugin system they have seen.

The plugins can add their own data to the topics, have their own icons, text indicators, and complete user interface on the topics, as well as adding side panels and ribbon bar items. And it’s all integrated into a very simple system that allows developers to get up to speed very quickly.

Coloring and Design

Most people don’t want to spend hours tweaking their Mind Maps to make them look good. This is why we put a huge amount of time and effort into creating systems that make it trivially easy to create great looking Mind Maps.

Themes

The core of the system is themes. The themes in NovaMind 5 are specifically designed to be complete look and feel designs that set the default settings for the map itself and the topics, callouts, floating topics, and shapes on the map…but they explicitly do not wipe out any custom settings you have applied. All aspects of the design have the capability to be reset to the default formatting, which they will get from the theme that is currently being used. As a theme is a complete design, you can try different themes, safe in the knowledge that you can do so without losing any of your custom formatting, and with the ability to go back to whatever theme you were using before.

Color Sets and Font Sets

To further enhance the design, we have the capability to work with color sets and font sets. These are designed to go well with each other, so you can change to a different look, and have all your color set colors update to colors that go with the new color set design. This allows you to always have great looking Mind Maps with colors and fonts that go well together, without having to think about it.

Automatic Coloring

About 6 years ago, we introduced the world to rainbow coloring of Mind Maps, and we still get positive comments about it to this day, but we saw many possibilities for enhancing both the rainbow coloring and adding new automatic coloring options. We are particularly happy with the new alternating rainbow coloring with both brightness and saturation settings – this makes it really easy to get a great looking set of colors which contrast well with each other. Also the color sets are very useful, allowing you to repeat a set of colors automatically through the sub-topics.

We also made it so that you can set the automatic children coloring at any level on the Mind Map, which gives you a massive amount of flexibility of coloring. Again, all this is totally unique to NovaMind, and a result of thinking through every part of the design carefully.

…And There’s so Much More!

These are just some of the core enhancements coming in NovaMind 5. It has been a huge job. It took us 7 years to get to where we were with NovaMind 4, but even though we had a reasonably good Mind Mapping program, it was obvious that continuing to bolt bits and pieces on to that foundation, we would run into more and more limitations of the system, and we would not achieve our goal of being simply the best Mind Mapping application available on any platform. We completely started from scratch, taking all the lessons we have learned from the last 7+ years, and our understanding of Mind Mapping, in order to design the best from the ground up.

…But This is Just the Start…

The redevelopment project has been much bigger than any of us expected, and “Murphy’s law” was solidly at work to slow us down, but every step of the way, when there was a decision about whether to do it the quick way or the right way, we chose to do it the right way – the way that would give us the best in usability now, and flexibility for enhancement over time. We have been all about producing something that would be the basis on which we could build the next big thing in Mind Mapping, instead of perpetuating the problems that all other Mind Mapping programs suffer.

This means that now, even though NovaMind 5.0 is kind of like a version 1.0 product in that everything is brand new, it already has absolutely the best layout system, the best theme system, the best coloring system, the best topic layout system, the best plugin architecture, and the most flexible system for future enhancement. The initial release of NovaMind 5 is just the beginning, and everything accelerates from there. We are in an excellent position now with the imminent release of NovaMind 5 and the many enhancements planned following on from there. We’re looking forward to getting the initial version out to you, and continuing to enhance the program from there.

Transcription

Bonjour, je suis Cathy Schneider, Marketing Manager Europe chez NovaMind. Aujourd’hui, je souhaiterais vous présenter quelques nouvelles fonctionnalités de mise en page que vous pourrez retrouver très prochainement dans NovaMind 5

Un des problèmes majeurs avec les cartes heuristiques, ou autrement appelés Mind Maps, est quelles deviennent immenses très rapidement, et tous les logiciels existants ne règlent en rien ce problème.

Nous avons testé l’ensemble des logiciels de Mind Mapping présents sur le marché et vérifié si l’un d’eux offrait une bonne mise en page et évitait ce problème de perte de place. Devinez ce que nous avons découvert ? Oui, c’est exact, AUCUN d’entre-eux n’offrent une mise en page digne de ce nom. Je suis persuadée que si vous utilisez déjà un des ces logiciels vous êtes pénalisés par ce problème.

Alors qu’il devrait en fait s’agir d’un élément fondamental d’une application de Mind Mapping, n’est ce pas ?

Voici à quoi cela ressemble avec les autres logiciel de Mind Mapping (ici, il s’agit d’un produit concurrent, et si vous l’avez déjà utilisé, ou bien même un autre, vous avez expérimenté ce problème) – vous ajoutez des sujets, des sous-sujets et cela déplace considérablement les autres sujets, laissant de large espace inutilisé, comme ici…

Et cela s’accentue dès lors que vous avez plusieurs sujets et sous sujets qui se développent sur plusieurs niveaux, cela pousse l’ensemble et ressemble à ca.

Vous ajoutez un nouveau sujet, qui ne pourra en aucun être positionné prés d’un autre avec tout un ensemble de sous sujet qui ne pourront de toute façon pas s’entre mêler mais qui vous font gaspiller un espace considérable sur votre Mind Map

Chez NovaMind, nous nous sommes dit que nous ne pouvions laisser cette imperfection et nous avons décidé de vous proposer quelque chose de bien mieux que ca

Voici quelques unes des nouvelles fonctions de mise en page disponibles dans NovaMind 5

Cette vidéo est réalisé en utilisant une version Alpha de NovaMind 5, il se peut donc que ce vous voyez aujourd’hui diffère quelque peut avec la version qui sera commercialisée. Mais en regardant cette vidéo aujourd’hui, découvrez l’innovation et prenez connaissance des avantages de la toute nouvelle mise en page de NovaMind 5.

Il y a 4 types principaux d’objets dans vos Mind Maps :

• les sujets
• les bulles d’annotations
• les sujets flottants
• et les formes

Aujourd’hui, nous allons nous intéresser uniquement aux sujets. Pour NovaMind 5, nous avons travaillé sur l’un des principes majeurs, à savoir, garder l’ensemble de vos mind maps le plus compact possible et éviter une perte d’espace totalement inutilisable.

Vous pouvez noter, qu’avec NovaMind 5 si vous ajoutez des sous-sujets ici, les sujets eux-mêmes se positionnent de façon à ce que les lignes de connections s’effleurent sans jamais se toucher, seul l’espace nécessaire à séparer visuellement les sujets entre eux est utiliser.

Mais que se passe-t-il lorsque l’on écrit dans le sujet du dessous ?

Comme vous pouvez le voir, lorsque l’on modifie le sujet, l’écart se referme et lorsque l’on écrit, le sujet est déplacé de façon à utiliser le minimum d’espace nécessaire.

Cela est encore plus évident lorsque vous utilisez un sujet de forme ovale.

Si vous réduisez le sujet, les autres s’adaptent ensemble de façon à rester les plus compacts possibles.

Maintenant, si vous redimensionnez votre sujet, l’ensemble s’écarte automatiquement. Les autres logiciels de Mind Mapping ne vous permettent même pas de redimensionner vos sujets comme vous le souhaitez. NovaMind 5 le peut et vous donne la possibilité de les redimensionner élégamment.

Désormais, vos Mind Maps gardent automatiquement la dimension minimum et la plus compact possible sans que vous n’ayez à vous en préoccuper.

Maintenant, intéressons nous à un autre de vos besoins précédemment plébiscité ; avoir la possibilité de disposer vos sujets de haut en bas dans une arborescence. Voici comment nous y avons répondu…

Avant cela, je me permets de vous rappeler que nous utilisons une version Alpha pour cette vidéo et que l’aspect actuel sera certainement modifié avant la commercialisation, mais cela vous permet d’avoir un 1er aperçu sur cette fonctionnalité.

Vous pouvez désormais aller de la droite vers la gauche comme ceci…

Vers le haut…

Mais nous voulions faire plus que cela et vous donner encore plus de flexibilité dans la mise en page, nous avons donc ajouté la possibilité de choisir également l’angle d’inclinaison que vous souhaitez. Regardons cela dans une autre Mind Map…

Bien sur, cela rend la mise en page de NovaMind 5 bien supérieur à n’importe quel autre logiciel de mind mapping actuellement disponible.

Nous avons souhaité allez encore plus loin, et ne pas avoir cette flexibilité de mise en page disponible uniquement depuis le sujet central de la Mind Map, mais également possible à partir de chacun des sujets, vous pouvez désormais faire ceci…

Dorénavant, vous avez une flexibilité encore inégalée par aucun autre programme de mind mapping, cela vous permet toutes les mises en page de mind maps, exactement comme vous les souhaitez.

Pour les deux mises en page les plus traditionnelles, à savoir horizontales et verticales, NovaMind 5 vous offre la mise en page la plus compact du marché. Nous vous offrons également la flexibilité de modifier vos sujets et sous sujets automatiquement sous l’angle voulu et de garder ainsi vos mind maps les plus compactes possible même inclinées.

…mais nous ne nous arrêtons pas la.

Nous vous proposons la fonction ultime. Il est absolument remarquable d’avoir cette flexibilité de mise en page, mais nous souhaitons souvent déplacer un sujet et le positionner a un endroit bien précis. Et que se passe-t-il ? Les différents sujets se chevauchent, et nous devons déplacer tous les autres sujets un a un.

Maintenant, vous pouvez positionner vos sujets ou bon vous semble, le logiciel garde le contrôle et adieu les chevauchements intempestifs.

Si maintenant je bouge mon sujet ici, les autres sujets quant à eux restent ou nous le souhaitions.

Si vous mettez un sujet au dessus d’un autre, il sera automatique déplacé.

Si vous ajoutez un sujet qui en pousse d’autres, ils seront automatiquement déplacés mais garderons leur liens avec les sujets-parents. Vous n’avez plus à vous soucier des chevauchements inopportuns.

Voici une des raisons pour laquelle nous sommes vraiment impatients de vous proposer NovaMind 5!

 

 NovaMind 5 topic layout (French): Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Bruce Eisner of the Mindware blog joins the likes of Chuck Frey and many others in his praise for the upcoming NovaMind 5. He says

I believe that NovaMind in its new Version 5 is will now be ranked in the top tier of software programs in the mind mapping genre .. and it may be heading for the Number 1 position.

The MindWare blog is a highly respected source, and has been blogging about software for Self-Improvement, Personal Development and Success since 2004.

Bruce is mentions in particluar, the layout engine: “NovaMind’s map layout engine has been completely rewritten in version 5 to maintain a compact map layout. [The program is] … quite efficient, maintaining a clean map layout while preventing topic overlaps and eliminating much wasted space. If one topic threatens to intrude on another, the first topic moves out of the way just enough to accommodate it…Most mind mapping programs limit where you can place topics. Some enable you to drag and drop them within certain prescribed limits, while others are more rigid and don’t enable you to move topics around the workspace at all. In contrast, you can move topics wherever you want in NovaMind 5, and the program will honor where you place them.”

To ready the entire article and other posts, head on over to the Mindware blog

NovaMind Software has just released a new video at http://www.novamind.com/features/nm5.php highlighting the problems with Mind Map layout present in all other Mind Mapping software currently available on the market, and the solution NovaMind has developed for the “space explosion” problem. One of the major problems with Mind Maps is that they get huge, pretty quickly. And all the software that’s out there at the moment makes it worse.

Gideon King, founder of NovaMind, says “I have tested just about every piece of Mind Mapping software out there to see if anyone had a good layout system to avoid the space explosion problem…NONE of them have a decent layout system. I’m sure that if you’ve used any of the Mind Mapping software currently out there, you have suffered from this [space explosion] problem.”

He goes on to suggest that the layout of the Mind Map should really be the fundamental building block of any Mind Mapping application.

In the video, he demonstrates the magnitude of the issues in other Mind Mapping applications, and then shows how NovaMind 5 has been designed to keep the Mind Maps compact at all times. This is true even when editing topics in such a way as they bump into other topics. The other topics are only moved by the minimum amount required to ensure that the topics don’t collide.

He then goes on to demonstrate several other features of NovaMind 5 that are not available in any other Mind Mapping application, like the ability to alter the angle at which the topics are stacked, both for the Mind Map title, and at any level of the Mind Map, and the ability to move topics to wherever the user desires. This is coupled with a system that honors the position that other topics are in, except where they overlap, and even then, only moves them by the minimum amount necessary to avoid collision, and honors as far as possible, the relative positions of the topics.

Mr King says “These layout capabilities are just one part of NovaMind 5, which is already generating a huge amount of interest in the market. The layout system is one of the core foundations of the product, and is clearly superior to anything else available. It lets you get on with your brainstorming and task management, secure in the knowledge that NovaMind is keeping your topics in the best possible position for your needs. It’s the perfect combination of power, flexibility, and ease of use.”

The video, and more information about NovaMind 5 is available at http://www.novamind.com/features/nm5.php

About Mind Mapping

Mind Maps are diagrams that work the way people think — they organize the information in the same way our brains organize information. They make it easy to understand, remember, and communicate complex information.

Our brains like thinking in pictures. The smooth curves and colorful pictures used in Mind Mapping create powerful images for your brain to remember.

Mind Maps cater to both logical left brain thinking and pictorial right brain thinking at the same time, which makes them a very good way of storing and recalling information, presenting things to other people, and brainstorming new ideas.

About NovaMind

NovaMind is used by businesses, in education, and for personal effectiveness, for tasks such as note taking, managing to-do lists, brainstorming, research, problem solving, decision making, presentation preparation and delivery, project planning, knowledge management, writing, and many other uses. NovaMind has been the top Mind Mapping program available on Mac computers for the last 7 years, and has been available for Windows for over 3 years. It is rapidly gaining recognition for its many unique and innovative features and ease of use. NovaMind makes Mind Mapping intuitive and fun.

For more information about NovaMind, please visit www.novamind.com or e-mail Gideon King at gideon(at)novamind.com.

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

PowerPoint Export

NovaMind for Mac received a significant update today with the ability to export Mind Maps directly from NovaMind to PowerPoint.

This capability opens up new sharing opportunities where there is a need to brainstorm ideas using Mind Mapping techniques, and yet to share the information using more “traditional” presentation software.

Although NovaMind for Mac used to have similar functionality, it did not work with the latest version of PowerPoint, and so we took the opportunity to completely rewrite the PowerPoint export in such a way that it no longer requires PowerPoint to be installed on your computer for the export to work.

The files produced are the new PPTX files used by PowerPoint 2007 for Windows and PowerPoint 2008 for Mac.

Here is a video of the export procedure and results:

Standard text styles are used wherever possible to make sure that when you apply a theme to your presentation in PowerPoint, the styles are applied consistently throughout the presentation.

Images on the branches are transferred to the presentation, and the branch notes become speaker notes.

This makes the transition from your NovaMind Mind Map to your PowerPoint presentation almost instantaneous.

PowerPoint export is available immediately as a free update to NovaMind 4 Platinum and NovaMind 4 Pro, and requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to function.

MS Project Export and Import

For some time, the Mac 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, and then import the project information into Merlin project manager for Mac.

While this is a really good solution, we realize that many of you are using other project management software. 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.

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.

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 4 Platinum for Mac users, and requires Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) to function.

A lot of project managers are turning to Mind Mapping for their project planning needs.

There is detailed information on project planning using mind maps available on the NovaMind web site. The project planning page has just been updated with new mind maps to help explain the planning process.

Although standard project management packages such as MS Project and Merlin give you good tools to manage your projects, but they really have a strong tendency to get people focusing on the minute task levels of projects far too early in the inception phases of a project.

Others find it difficult to follow things like Gantt charts and the spreadsheet-like rows and columns of task data.

Often this leads to losing sight of the main objectives of the project, or getting so stuck in the details that you forget some important tasks or objectives. Or the attention of key people can wander off topic.

Using brainstorming techniques, you can put together a Mind Map of the project that shows everyone where they fit in, why each part of the project is important, and how it relates to the overall goals and objectives.

This makes it easy to make sure that there is nothing forgotten in the early planning and scoping exercises, as well as being a great tool for presenting to stakeholders in the project. If you are trying to get funding for a project, it makes it much easier when the project plan is drawn out as a Mind Map. Everyone can see what the objectives are for the project, how they are going to be achieved, the tasks that are required to achieve the tasks, as well as the resources that are required.

There are a number of articles on the NovaMind web site about project planning as well as other forms of planning using mind mapping techniques.

These techniques have saved millions of dollars in project costs, as well as helped win contracts, and ease the workload of project managers around the world.

This video explains what is in each of the different editions of NovaMind Mind Mapping software: Express, Pro and Platinum, and helps you choose which one is the right one for your mind mapping needs.

 

For a complete feature comparison, please see the NovaMind features page.

 

 

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