Your Study Coach + NovaMind new special offer |
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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:
You will receive login information for the course by email within a couple of days or so. |
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NovaMind Mind Mapping News and Information
Posts Tagged ‘Mind Mapping’
NovaMind Special Offer: Your Study Coach for Free! |
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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:
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 y 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. |
How to use Link Lines in NovaMind 5 for Windows Mind Maps |
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Link LinesWatch this video to learn how to use link lines to show secondary relationships between topics on your Mind Maps in NovaMind 5. The link lines are more powerful and flexible than those of any other Mind Mapping Software. 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. |
NovaMind for Windows in English, German, Spanish, Simplified Chinese |
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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… |
Advanced Outline Numbering in NovaMind for Mac preview |
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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
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 NumberingNormally 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 FormattingThe 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 ExampleThe 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:
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. |
Task Reports in NovaMind 5 for Mac preview |
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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:
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 Settings in NovaMind 5 for Mac preview |
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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:
% Complete:
Duration:
Start and End date:
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. |
Link Lines coming soon to NovaMind 5 for Windows |
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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. |
NovaMind 5 Preview for Mac adds Download Manager |
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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. 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. |
NovaMind 5 for Mac Preview adds Media Browser |
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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:
Please see below for an image gallery showing some of the new features.
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NovaMind 5 Preview for Mac gets Themes and more… |
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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. ThemesThemes 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 ThemeUse 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
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NovaMind 5 for Mac preview update: Zooming and new Selection options |
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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:
“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 EnhancementsA number of other enhancements and bug fixes were rolled into this release:
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. |
NovaMind 5 for Mac Preview Update: Attachments |
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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:
this will be repeated for each attachment, and then at the bottom:
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: 2. The file is copied to a temporary folder ready for viewing / editing.
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 withNovaMind 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 FilesTo 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 attachmentClick 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. Adding Attachments by Drag and DropYou 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. |
NovaMind 5 for Mac Preview Update: Hyperlinks |
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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. 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: 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 HyperlinksWhen 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 DropYou 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. |
NovaMind 5 for Mac Preview Update – Printing, the NovaMind way. |
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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 PrintingThe 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 RightThere 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 MapsWe 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 FootersThere 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 ImagesYou 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 PrintingOn 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. PersistenceYou 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 ReleaseThere are numerous other updates in this release – here are some of the important ones:
How to Get the New ReleaseIf 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. |
NovaMind 5 for Windows tutorial: Importing, Exporting, Printing |
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![]() Importing, Exporting, and PrintingThis 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. |
NovaMind 5 for Windows tutorial: User Interface |
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![]() User InterfaceWatch 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. |
NovaMind 5 for Windows tutorial: Mind Map Layout |
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![]() Mind Map LayoutWatch 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. 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. |
NovaMind 5 for Windows tutorial: Themes, Color sets and Font sets |
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![]() Themes, Color sets and Font setsThis 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. |
NovaMind 5 for Windows Tutorial – Text Editing Tips and Tricks |
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![]() Text Editing Tips and TricksThis 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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