Freeplane

Freeplane is a fork of FreeMind, lead by Dimitry Polivaev.

Freeplane uses SourceForge for file downloads.

Freeplane uses GitHub as a code repository and for forums and tickets; it no longer uses SourceForge for these purposes.

System requirements:

• Freeplane-1.11.4 from 28 May 2023 requires Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 11 (released on 25 September 2018) or later through 17, according to freeplane.exe launcher and per freeplaneGui.lj4.xml source code file.
• The last version supporting JRE 1.8.0 was Freeplane 1.9.x series: Freeplane 1.9.14.

Announcements of the Freeplane fork in FreeMind forums:

• Freemind-developer: Vision of the second project, 2008-03-01, sourceforge.net
• Open Discussion: FreeMind fork, 2008-11-16, sourceforge.net

Visuals:

• Subjectively, as per Dan Polansky, Freeplane 1.9.14 looks, let's say, not so nice: the icons, the white background color in menus, everything says something's wrong. This is so not only in comparison to FreeMind, but also, say, Notepad++.

Download statistics:

• As 9 June 2023, Freeplane is downloaded about 14,000 times a week[1], whereas FreeMind is downloaded about 6,000 times a week[2]; in April, Freeplane was downloaded about 8,000 times a week.
• As 9 June 2023, FreeMind's last final release is from 12 April 2014, nearly a decade ago. Freeplane most recent release is from 28 May 2023.

Release classification:

• Freeplane does not use the ranks of alpha, beta and release candidate (RC). FreeMind did use alpha, beta and RC ranks, as late as of FreeMind 1.1.0 Beta2 from 2016, when FreeMind development activity ceased.
• Freeplane has a freeplane preview file section:
  • freeplane/files/freeplane preview
• Thus, there is the rank preview, which must be something like beta and release candidate, but not differentiated.
• As per the "freeplane preview" file section:
  • "This directory contains the latest preview versions of Freeplane created for testing purposes almost every week."
  • "The data format of the maps saved and read by preview versions can be changed without any notice."
• There is Release cycle page in Freeplane documentation, in "attic"; this does talk of alpha, beta and RC. This is probably no longer followed, as per the file section and as per this being in the attic.

Spelling:

• Freeplane is spelled with lowercase "p", whereas FreeMind is spelled with uppercasee "M".

Discussion:

• freeplane/discussions, github.com -- since March 2022
• Trial: Using Discussion Forums and Tickets at GitHub replacing SourceForge, 10 Mar 2022, sourceforge.net

File format:

• Freeplane file format is extended beyond that of FreeMind to support additional features.
• Documentation:
  • Current Freeplane File Format, docs.freeplane.org -- in the attic
  • New Freeplane File Format (Proposal), docs.freeplane.org -- in the attic; this seems to be a proposal that was never implemented
• File format stability: hard to assess; there is no *.xsd file in the source code tree to specify the file format. By contrast, FreeMind has a .xsd file describing the file format that seems to have been kept up to date, linked from File format page.

See also

• Statistics
• Releases

Links

• Freeplane homepage, docs.freeplane.org
• Freeplane project page, sourceforge.net
• freeplane, github.com
• freeplaneGui.lj4.xml, github.com -- indicates the required JRE version