We are pleased to announce that although the original offer on the Your Study Coach program has finished, we are now able to offer a replacement offer, with the same benefits for purchasers of NovaMind Pro or Platinum mind mapping software.

This new offer is available when you purchase NovaMind Pro or Platinum, and gives you free access to the Your Study Coach training, which normally sells for US$375.

This offer will be available until 12:00 noon AEST on Saturday 21st August 2010.

To get the free course:

1. Add the Your Study Coach course to your cart at the NovaMind online store,
2. Add your copies of NovaMind Pro or Platinum to your cart,
3. Proceed through checkout as normal.

You will receive login information for the course by email within a couple of days or so.

This excellent video-based training system has been on sale on the NovaMind web site for the last 18 months for US$375, but I have been busy negotiating with the guy in charge of marketing at YourStudyCoach.com on your behalf…I have negotiated to buy you a place in the training when you buy NovaMind, so you get the entire training course at no additional cost to you.

This video course will teach you how to learn, and also very importantly, how to unlearn. The course teaches you:

• How to correctly memorize information
• How to read at greater speeds while still maintaining comprehension
• How to switch on the thinking part of your brain
• How to overcome any learning challenge

The course is designed to be applicable for students, parents, teachers, home school teaching, or anyone who wants to make the best and most efficient use of your brain. There is a video about the curriculum at the NovaMind Online Store.

A lot of the Learning to Learn and Learning to Unlearn tools have been used by individuals and featured in numerous schools, colleges and companies all over the world, for example: BBC, Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, Apple computer and Oprah.

So What’s The Catch?

OK, time for me to confess. Yes, there is a catch. You have to do some work to get the course. When you purchase your copy of NovaMind at the NovaMind Online Store, you have to click a button to add the Your Study Coach course to your shopping cart. That’s it!

What if I already have a NovaMind license key?

I’m glad you asked. Consider this: if you purchase a NovaMind 5 Express license key, it will cost you US$49, and you get a course valued at US$375. Heck, even if you bought a Platinum license key at US$249, you would still be ahead of the game! And if you have no need for it yourself, it would make a great present for a family member, friend, colleague, or your favorite charity.

OK, so how do I get it?

Just go to the NovaMind Online Store, and make your purchase of NovaMind, and remember to click the button to add the course to your cart. When you check out, I’ll buy you your place in the course, and you will receive your login information direct from the folks at YourStudyCoach.com.

How long is this available for?

On the web site, you will see that it is available today, but I have now negotiated for it to be available until midday, Saturday the 14th of August AEST.

Here is the transcript:

Let’s talk about link lines. Link lines are used to link topics and other items like floating topics and shapes together, in order to show secondary relationships between the items.

With Mind Maps, you always have the basic hierarchical structure which supports radiant thinking, but often it is also valuable to be able to show those secondary relationships, for ideas that cross-link to other ideas.

The link lines in NovaMind are more powerful and flexible than those found in any other program, yet they are also very easy to use.

First, let’s create a simple link from one topic to another. Just click on the Link Line option in the Insert tab, now click on the start topic, then the end topic. Congratulations, you have just inserted your first link line. This is a fully automatic shaped link line.

But let’s say we wanted a completely straight line instead of a curve. You can see that the curve has control points to maintain the curve. An automatic curve will always have at least one control point, and may have more.

To make it a straight line, we delete the control points by selecting each one and pressing the delete key. Surprisingly, most Mind Mapping applications either don’t allow you to use straight lines or make it very difficult to achieve.

Sometimes you know the path you would like your link line to take. So let’s look at another way to create them.

Select Insert, Link Line again, and click on the topic where you want to start your link line. Click on each of the points you would like it to go through.    When you click on another topic, shape, or callout, it will know that you have reached your destination and complete the curve.

But sometimes, you just want to draw the curve where you want it to go. You can do this too. Again, start to insert the link line, and this time, just click and drag to draw the line where you want it. Don’t worry if it looks jagged. NovaMind will smooth it out.

You can also start by clicking where you want the points, and finish by dragging to the destination, or even just drag part of the line and go back to clicking points.

If you’re part way through creating a link line, and decide not to, you can press the Esc key to cancel the operation.

If you want to alter the curve, you can just drag the control points to where you want them, or select and delete them if you don’t want them.

You can add a control point simply by clicking on the line while it’s selected. To make it even easier than that, you can even click to add and drag to move the control point in a single operation, so you just click and drag to reshape the line. The line will be smoothed to curve through the control point.

You will notice that when you select a control point, it has two handles associated with it, one at each end of a bar. When the shape of the curve at that point is automatically smoothed, the handles will be filled with white. If you really want to make fine changes to the shape of your line, you can grab these handles and shape the line as you like. The handles will be filled with black when you have shaped it manually.

If you want to reset it to be automatically smoothed, just right-click the point and select the Smooth option. If you want to convert the line to be automatic, choose the Automatic link line option.

To format the line, you can use the context menu to access the formatting dialog box, or you can use the Outline settings on the Format tab.

In the format tab you get a live preview of your changes as you mouse over them, so you can make your link line look exactly the way you want it.

There’s a gallery of line terminators that you can choose from, if you want to use one of the standard line terminator options.

But if you want to set the size of your terminators or choose different terminators, you will need to head over to the advanced setting panel.

There are 30 different line terminators that you can choose from, to denote the meaning of the link line, and you can scale the terminators to visually highlight the differences. You can also switch the terminators from one end to the other, if you need to.

By default, the line uses automatic coloring, so if your background is dark, the link line will automatically be colored white.

So now you know all about link lines and how to format them in the shape and style you want.

 

 Podcast Video: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

NovaMind will be releasing an update of the Windows version of their Mind Mapping software next week, including two new languages: German and Spanish, bringing the total number of languages to 4: English, German, Spanish, and Simplified Chinese.

NovaMind for Windows in English, Simplified Chinese, German, and Spanish

Of course you can create your Mind Maps in any language, but it’s also nice to have the user interface in your native language…

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

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

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

Outline Numbering in NovaMind 5 Express

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

Outline Numbering in NovaMind 5 Pro and Platinum

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

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

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

Basic Settings

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

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

Simple Outline Numbering to 2 Levels

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

Excluding a Topic from Numbering

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

Selectively Extending the Numbering Depth

Restart Numbering

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

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

Restarting Outline Numbering

Custom Formatting

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

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

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

Custom Outline Number Formatting

Advanced Formatting Example

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

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

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

“Section 2, part 3 (iv) e.6?

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

Advanced Outline Number Formatting

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

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

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

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

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

The Task Reporting Panel

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

Here is an explanation of the filtering options:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sorting results:

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

Results Sorted by Priority

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

Working with columns:

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

Showing and Hiding Columns

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

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

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

Editing data:

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

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

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

Inline Editing of Task Data

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

Popup Editors for editing Task Data

Editing Start Date in the Reports Panel

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

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

Exporting your data:

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

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

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

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

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

Task Information Inspector

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

Task Information Display

Priority:

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

% Complete:

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

  Start Date Entry

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

Duration:

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

Start and End date:

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

• 

  Date Selector Popup

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

• 

Multiple values:

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

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

Task Inspector with Multiple Selection

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

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

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

NovaMind will shortly be introducing Link Lines to NovaMind 5…but they will be about a million times better (at a rough estimate) than NovaMind 4, or any other Mind Mapping application for that matter.

Link lines are lines that denote secondary relationships between topics. Of course, you have the hierarchical format that really defines what Mind Maps are, but often you need to show secondary relationships in some way.

In NovaMind 5, you will be able to easily create straight line links between one topic and another (or floating topics, or attached shapes, or callouts), but also you will be able to create arbitrary curves.

Here is an example of the straight lines, in this case between some floating topics:

There are two ways of creating curves. You can click on the start topic (or shape or floating topic or callout), and then click at each place you want the curve to go through, finally clicking on the topic you want to finish on, and the curve will be created.

The other way of creating a curved link line is to drag a curve from the start to finish like this:

First, you drag the curve, which looks like this:

And as soon as you have finished, the program automatically smooths it like this:

But you are not limited to just creating a curve. You have full editing capabilities. When you select the curve, you will see editing points like this:

You can drag the points around to alter the shape of the curve, or remove points, or add points as required. For those who really like to fine tune the curve, you can even access Bezier path editing points, giving the ultimate control. The path automatically resizes itself when either end is moved.

You also have control over the drawing aspects of the link line: it supports automatic coloring, theme colors, 25 different dash patterns, and 30 different types of line terminators, which can be attached to the start and end of the line.

All in all, a very flexible and powerful system. This will be available in the Windows version of NovaMind 5 within the next couple of weeks, and will be added to the Mac version a little later on.

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

NovaMind 5 Download Manager

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

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

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

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

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

Using with the image groups expanded

Using with the image groups as a popup menu

Showing images in combo view with categories and keywords

Background Textures

Setting up Flickr Searches

Filtering by Category

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

Themes

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

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

Selecting a Theme

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Updates and Enhancements

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

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

Zooming:

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

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

“Rubber Band” selection:

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

Other Enhancements

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click the icon to show the hyperlinks panel like this:

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

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

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

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

What happens when you click an attachment link:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Choosing the application to open the file with

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

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

Extracting Files

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

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

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

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

Editing an attachment

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

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

Adding Attachments by Drag and Drop

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

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

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

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

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

NovaMind 5 can have multiple hyperlinks on a single topic.

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

A panel like this will be displayed:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

File Hyperlinks

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

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

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

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

Creating Links by Drag and Drop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mind Map Printing

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

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

Pagination Done Right

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

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

Helping You Print Legible Mind Maps

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

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

Headers and Footers

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

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

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

Header and Footer Images

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

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

Outline Printing

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

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

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

Persistence

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

Other Updates in This Release

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

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

How to Get the New Release

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

Importing, Exporting, and Printing

This video teaches you some important considerations about importing as well as about export and printing.

 

Here is the transcript:

You can access the import, export and printing options through the NovaMind menu by clicking on the round icon at the top left of the NovaMind window.

In the imports section you will find the option to import from a number of formats such as NovaMind 3 and 4, Mind Manager 7 and 8, XMind, FreeMind, Plain Text, and OPML. The actual import and export options you see will depend on whether you have a NovaMind Express, Pro, or Platinum license.

The import of the other Mind Mapping formats allows you to easily migrate your Mind Maps over from your old programs to NovaMind.

The plain text import gives you an easy way of getting raw text into NovaMind, and the OPML format gives you the ability to import hierarchical data from outlining programs.

The Microsoft Project import allows you to easily visualize your project data.

The import from old versions of NovaMind, and some other Mind Mapping formats bring in the raw information but not most of the formatting. This is because if you imported all the formatting, then it would be overriding the theme and color settings, and you would not be able to easily get the benefits of the new visual settings of NovaMind 5. You would not get the automatic text coloring, the automatic fonts, or the ability to respond to color set changes or theme changes properly, because everything would be a custom color, shape, and font.

Also if we tried to position all the topics where they were in NovaMind 3 and 4, then you would end up with a Mind Map that was very hard to work with because everything would be manually positioned from the outset, and would therefore mean that you were not getting the benefit of the automatic layout system at all, and even if we did try to use those positions, it may well look different to what you had in the old version anyway due to the different features in NovaMind 5.

NovaMind 5 is a completely new program from the ground up, and includes very powerful new tools for laying out Mind Maps, so you will be able to very quickly edit them to be much nicer than they were in older versions of NovaMind.

It is for these reasons that we chose to keep the imports of formatted files to the basics, so you can benefit from the powerful new features in NovaMind 5.

The export options allow you to export to formats such as PNG images, Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Mind Manager 7 & 8, plain text, OPML, and Microsoft Project. This allows you a wide range of options for sharing your Mind Maps with other people and using your data in different ways.

The printing options allow you to select from any of the printer settings defined by your printer driver, and to fit in the specified number of pages, and print a number of copies. The print preview allows you to see exactly how it will appear on the paper before you commit to printing it, thus saving some trees.

 

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User Interface

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

 

Here is the transcript:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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Mind Map Layout

Watch this video to learn how to arrange the topics on your Mind Map using NovaMind’s unique and powerful layout system..

 

Here is the transcript:

The layout system in NovaMind is one of the very powerful and unique things about the program. No other Mind Mapping programs have capabilities even closely resembling what we offer, so I’ll just go through it in a bit of detail so you can get the most out of it.

You can alter the layout of the Mind Map by selecting a topic that you want to lay out the subtopics of, and choosing a layout option. Quite often you will want to use the radial layout for the first level topics and linear layout for the subtopics, but it’s up to you.

You can change the layout settings on any topic. This means that you can have the subtopics laid out at any angle, either radial or linear, and change it for each topic if you so desire.
NovaMind will automatically keep the Mind Map in the most compact form possible, only moving topics the minimum amount to avoid them colliding with each other. But if you want to have more room between a topic and its subtopics, you can use the advanced settings and set the children offset (which is the distance from the topic to its subtopics) and also the repel distance between the siblings.

You set the angle that the subtopics are layout at using the angle control. If you click on one of the quadrants, it will rotate the axes to be either vertical or horizontal in that direction, but if you want it to be laid out at another angle, just drag it to be the angle that you want.

Normally the layout of the descendant topics is automatically the same as what you have set for the parent topics, but you can take control at any level and change the settings. If you want to revert to getting the inherited setting, just click on the “Reset to Default” either in the dialog box or layout popup menu.

Sometimes, you will want to visually group topics and push other topics out of the way to give this visual separation. This is normally accomplished by inserting a boundary, and adjusting its shape as required. Here’s a little trick for you – you can actually insert a boundary by using the boundary shape setting on the format tab. Then you can use the advanced settings to set the margin.

In most cases, the automatic layout of the topics should be everything you require, but occasionally you may want to move a topic to a specific location. To do this, just mouse over the topic and you will see both the graft and move controls. To move the topic to another place, drag it using the move icon with the four arrows on it, and to put it back into its automatically laid out position, use the Reset Location option. If you want to move all the subtopics of a topic back to their default locations, use the Arrange Sub-topics option.

Note that sometimes, there may have been offsets applied to other topics in order to keep the ones you that moved where you moved them to. If this happens, and you reset the moved topic, it will leave the other ones that had to have the offset applied where they were. In this case, you might either want to reset the other affected topics, or just select the parent and use the Arrange Sub-topics option.

As you build your Mind Map, you are bound to need to graft topics from one place on the Mind Map to another. To do this, drag the topic by its graft handle. If you have multiple topics selected, they will all be grafted in the graft operation. The indicator will show where the topics will be attached when you drop them, so you can easily see what the effect will be.

If you’re part way through a drag operation and you decide you need to cancel it, just press the Escape key.

If you want to create a copy of the topics, you can hold the Ctrl key down while you drag the topics.

If you have a topic that you want to become a floating topic, just drag it away from the rest of the Mind Map, and then you can Move it to where you want to position it.

If you have a floating topic that you want to become part of the Mind Map, then use the graft operation to drag it and attach it to the Mind Map.

You can also drag topics from the Mind Map to the outline view or vice versa. There is more information about this in the video about the outline view.

You should be aware that if you are using the radial layout, there are topics on the left and the right of the parent topic, and if you just move a topic, it will still be laid out as if it was on the side it was attached to, so if you want to swap it to the other side, you will need to graft it from one side to the other. This gives you a lot of flexibility in the way the subtopics are laid out in relation to their parents.

If you don’t want to see the subtopics, you can collapse them away so they are hidden. You will see a small Plus icon to show that there are collapsed subtopics. Click it to expand the subtopics.

 

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Themes, Color sets and Font sets

This video teaches you how to work with the themes to control the overall look of the Mind Maps, color sets and font sets, to keep the Mind Maps looking great.

 

Here is the transcript:

When you add anything to a Mind Map, the colors, fonts, and styling of the object are defined by the theme you are using at the time. If you don’t edit the formatting, then when you change to a different theme, then everything will be formatted according to the new theme you have selected. If you have changed any formatting to be different to what is used in the theme, then your custom formatting will be honored.

Color sets are sets of colors that are designed to go well together. You can use Color Sets to define the colors of your topics, when they use standard colors from the color sets. So if you have chosen the color from the second row, seventh from the left in one color set, it will get the color from the same position in the newly selected color set. In this way, the same level of contrast is preserved, and the colors will go well together.

If you have selected other colors than the theme, and they are still color set colors, they will be changed to the corresponding colors in the new color set, but if you have chosen custom colors, then they will be kept static when you change to a different color set.

The color set is defined as a set of 10 colors, and from these colors are derived another 50 colors as variations of the base colors, so that you have a wide range of colors that go well together, to fit the requirements of the Mind Map.

We recommend sticking to the themed colors wherever possible, so that if you want to change the look of the Mind Map later, you can very easily do so just by using a different color set.

For consistency, the themes also refer to the text by named fonts (e.g. Title or Callout), and these are the fonts that are used by default when creating items that use that specified font from the theme. Just as with colors, you can choose other themed fonts or custom fonts, and if you use themed fonts, and then change the theme font set, then it will use the font defined for the new font set. Note that the font set does only define the font face, whereas the theme itself defines the point size and other attributes.

 

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Text Editing Tips and Tricks

This video teaches you special tips and tricks that help you get the most out of editing the text on your NovaMind in NovaMind 5, including how to work with automatic coloring of text.

 

Here is the transcript:

Let’s talk bout text editing

Click to select a topic and just start typing to replace the text on a topic. You can easily see which topic you are editing because it has a red border around it. If you want to insert text part way along a topic, you can click a selected topic, and you will be put into editing mode with the cursor at the point you clicked. If you want to edit just using the keyboard, and want to edit the existing text, select the topic and press F2, and then use the arrow keys to position the cursor where you want and edit from there.

You can also double click to select a word, or triple click to select a whole paragraph.

When you have finished editing the topic, just press Enter to finish editing.

If you are editing and want to insert a new paragraph, press Ctrl+Enter, and if you want to just insert a newline within the same paragraph, press Shift+Enter.

The text formatting options are available on the home tab of the ribbon bar, but also if you have text selected, a formatting palette is available just above the text, to make it easier to access the formatting options wherever you are.

With most themes, the default coloring for text is “Automatic”. Automatic text sets its color automatically to the foreground or background color from the selected color set, and chooses the color which gives the greatest visual contrast to the background that it is drawn over.

For instance, if the foreground and background colors in the color set are black and white, which is usually the case, then if you have a topic that is filled with a dark color, the text will automatically be drawn white, and if your topic is filled with a light color, then your text color will automatically be black.

But of course, you have the option to select any other color you want. If you are using a specified color and want to change any text to be automatic coloring, just select it and you will see the automatic coloring option there in the color selection panel for you to choose.

There is the ability to add as many hyperlinks to any topic as you like, and that is the recommended way of using hyperlinks, but if you want to add a hyperlink within the text of your topic, you can do this too. Just select the text you want to have hyperlinked, and use the hyperlink button on the home tab of the ribbon bar, and enter the URL of the place you want to link to.

Often you will need to add more information than you would have just with the keywords on the topics, and this is done using the topic notes. You enter the notes by selecting a single topic on the Mind Map and displaying the notes sidebar panel. The same editing options are available in the notes as for the topic text.

 

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