FreeMind 0.9.0: The New Features

A great release is to come. We have many exciting new features: WYSIWYG-Editing for nodes and notes, scripting, filter, attributes and many more.

But all these new features still need a lot of testing and documentation. To start this, please have a look at the newest version here and tell us your opinions.

Use this wiki page for documenting the new features.

But: Don't use this version for productive maps. It is not stable enough!

• Further warning: If you create a map with Attributes, it will open as a "New Map" with no data in version 0.8. Your data is not lost, just not readable by 0.8.
• You can try to convert the 0.9.0 - saved map back to 0.8.0 by following steps

1. Make the backup copy of the map
2. Open it with the 0.9.0 again
3. Select all nodes
4. Format-> use plain text
5. Save
6. Open the mind map file in text editor
7. Remove all lines starting with <attribute_registry> and ending with <attribute_registry/>
8. Save the file and try to open it in 0.8.0

If it does not help you should use the 0.9.0.

Attributes

FIXME: An introduction should be given here explaining what attributes are and what they are good for. Why should the user learn how to fiddle around with attributes if he does not know what they are?

Attributes provide different perspectives for ordering/viewing your MindMap. Attributes are tuple name/value pairs that are globally available i.e. can be tagged to any node and assigned specific values. For example, you can create shopping lists, add notional weightings, performance metrics, etc. The real power of attribute comes from writing Groovy scripts that can operate on attribute value or change the behavior of a node. For example, you can summarize the info contained within several nodes for a total cost. Attributes are complemented by Filters.

Real world example: I use Attributes and Filters after taking staff meeting notes. Immediately after a meeting, I assign attributes to nodes as applicable: Attribute 1 is "Name", values are the names of my staff; Attribute 2 is "Priority", values are numbers 1-5. The "Assign Attributes..." dialogue allows me to select all comments from a certain staff member and then assign their name to those nodes at once. If there is an action required, I might assign a priority. Filters allow me to quickly see only nodes from a certain staff member, or specific priority levels, or any combination. --Dnbarg 20:21, 22 Oct 2007 (PDT)

Quick Attribute creation

• Select node.
• Edit Attribute: Alt-F9 or, Rt-click>Edit attributes.
• Type in an Attribute name.
• Then add a value if desired.
• Edit with the Attribute Manager later if necessary.

Using Attribute Manager

• Open the attribute manager with attribute icon on toolbar or, Tools>Attribute Manager.

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Working with Attributes

• Click the "Edit" button in the "All Attributes" row
• Edit attribute names in coming dialog
• Press "Close" to close the dialog after all changes are done

Create Attribute

• Type in your Attribute name, then press add
• Repeat to add multiple attributes

Delete Attribute

• Select the menu option Tools/Attribute Manager, to open the panel Attribute Manager.
• In the line "All Attributes" of this panel, click on the icon in the last column (Edit). This opens a new panel "All Attributes".
• In this panel, select the attribute name, then press "Delete".

   All attributes with the deleted name are removed from the whole map

Rename Attribute

• Select the attribute name to be renamed, type the new name, then press "Rename"
• All attributes with the renamed value are adjusted

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Working with Attribute values

• After adding Attributes, you should see them listed under the "Attributes" column heading
• Click on the "Edit" button in the row of your new Attribute and add the values
• Edit attribute values in coming dialog
• Press "Close" to close the dialog after all changes are done

Create Attribute values

• type the value, then press "Add"
• It's a good idea to add a blank value to the list. It helps when assigning attributes later

Every Attribute can have multiple values

• eg. I use an Attribute called "Staff" and the values are the staff person's name
• eg. I use an Attribute called "Priority" and the values are #'s 1 to 5

Delete Attribute values

• Select the value, then press "Delete"
• All attributes with the deleted value are removed from the whole map

Rename Attribute values

• Select the value to be renamed, type the new value, then press "Rename"
• All attributes with the renamed value are adjusted

Assign Attributes to nodes

assigning only a few nodes

• Choose the node, press Alt-F9 or, Rt-Click the node and choose "Edit Attributes"
• To add more attribute per node, use TAB key (if View>Attributes>Show all attributes is selected), or use the following.
• got to: Tools>"Assign attributes..."
• choose "Selected Nodes" or "Visible Nodes"
• from the drop down list, choose the Attribute you want to assign. (Here it helps when there's a blank value. You can assign an Attribute to all nodes needing it, and then set the value later, on a node by node basis)
• press the "Add" button to assign the Attribute to the node/s
• add more than one attribute to a node if necessary
• delete attributes from multiple nodes with this dialog

Viewing/Hiding Attributes

to see an icon on nodes with attributes

• Tools>Preferences>Appearance>Show icon for attributes

show all attributes

• Alt-s or, View>Attributes>Show all attributes

show no attributes

• Alt-h or, View>Attributes>Show no attributes

show selected attributes

• in the Attribute Manager, select desired Attributes in the "Selected Visible" column
• then, View>Attributes>Show selected Attributes

optimize the width of the Attribute/value table

• Rt-click on the Attribute and choose optimal width

User feedback

Bugs concerning attributes (up to 0.9.0b13)

• The key bindings alt-s and alt-h do not work as expected for showing or hiding attributes.--yushen 02:23, 25 Nov 2006 (PST)
• When Attributes are visible, scrolling with mouse wheel stops when cursor is over the attribute of a node. --Terkor 20:11, 27 Aug 2007 (PDT)

Bugs or features? (questions about attributes to the developers)

• When adding an attribute to a node which already has the attribute, the attribute will be shown as many times as added. However, when deleting the attribute from node, all instances of the attribute would be deleted.--yushen 02:23, 25 Nov 2006 (PST)

• In version 0.9.0b13, the bug is corrected (i.e. deleting one attribute does not delete all other attributes with the same name). So, the possibility to have several attributes with the same name but different values ought probably to be considered as a feature, not a bug ? For example the attribute "child" could have the values "Peter" and "Mary" attached to a given node "Paul and Jane" to include in the map the information that Paul and Jane have at least 2 children named Peter and Mary (if I understood correctly the notion and usefulness of attributes)? --Miclav 01:56, 9 Sep 2007 (PDT)

• It is not possible to delete an attribute from the List of attributes. If one is created, it lives forever .... It seems that using tool/assign attribute by selecting the attribute in question, and select delete all values, it's possible to remove an attribute of a node. --yushen 21:19, 15 Jan 2007 (PST)

• You can remove or even rename some attributes and attribute values from the map using the attribute manager. Use Tools->Attribute Manager->All Attributes->[edit]->[click on attribute]->[Delete] --DimitriPolivaev 05:12, 9 Sep 2007 (PDT)

• It is not intuitive to go to Tools->Assign Attributes to set attributes on several nodes. I expected to be able to select several nodes (or all) and use Edit->Attributes. It didn't occur to me to look on the Tools menu for Editing. -- JimK
• The workflow in the Assign Attributes dialog is backwards: actions should be from left to right, top to bottom. I suggest moving the buttons to the right side. It's also strange why Add & Delete have one section and Replace has another. From user viewpoint they're all the same. Just need one name/value input box? -- JimK
• The title of the Assign Attributes dialog box has an extra character in "Assign" that should be removed. -- JimK

Wishes concerning attributes

• I love the attribute & filter feature & see great potential ahead. Being able to name & save searches would also be extremely useful.--Felipe 07:34, 26 Apr 2007 (PDT)
• Really wish for a feature to only selectively show the attribute of the node in focus. The current options of "show all attributes", "show the selected attributes" all apply to all the nodes visible. With all nodes showing attributes, it occupy too much space. I wish that it only shows all the attributes for the current node being selected, i.e. in focus. This would be often enough for normal use.--yushen 20:36, 1 Dec 2006 (PST)
• Default attributes of new node: I need to add some attributes to all new nodes. Therefore, I wish that there is mechanism to automatically stuff some default attributes to all the new nodes created after the functionality is enabled. This function may be configured to enable/disable. --yushen 21:19, 15 Jan 2007 (PST)
• Or there is functionality to add a group of selected attributes to a group of selected nodes through one operation. --yushen 21:19, 15 Jan 2007 (PST)

• You explained how to create attribute etc... but after spending "only" 30 minutes on it, what is the real interest in practice of such feature ? What is the use of attributes ? not clear what it can be used for ....--Djerr 17:49, 20 Jan 2007

• Roll-up: It'd be really nice (and quite natural) to be able to roll-up (summarize or otherwise) the values of certain attributes (eg. money, time, resource requirements, etc) from children to parent nodes. --azimmer 16:58, 14 Feb 2007

• See also the discussion page

• Adding "Attribute" is a great idea (for me ;-) !). There's a long time that I'm thinking of using freemind in an Artificial Intelligence way. Using Attribute, simultaneously with groovy, may help me for creating rules. Thanks ! --PLANTING 12 Aug 2007
• A way to copy and paste all the attributes assigned to a node or one of these attributes would be nice. Perhaps a "Copy Attribute" and "Copy All Attributes" in popup menu when you right-click on the attributes of a node. --Terkor 10:06, 30 Aug 2007 (PDT)

• A way to assign different types of data to attributes: AKA Boolean, Integer, Date, Text, etc.
• Refactor/sort nodes by attribute: Dunno if anybody knows the dashboard plugin for mindmanager, but this idea is similar (except better cause it uses custom attributes). basically, any given attribute/group of attributes would be a parent node. And the values of the attribute would be the children. The nodes with those values would branch off from that. Would allow for awesome fluid mindmaps that could show all sorts of relationships between nodes without ruining the linear structure of the map, allowing for scheduling, budgeting, etc. I'm creating some example mindmaps which show how this feature would be incredibly usefull for something like scheduling.
• Sorting function would be great, but I propose it on the node (alphabetical). Having it on the attribute means for me having to update individually each node's attribute, which would take more time than sorting them by hand. I imagine a function sorting alphabetically all subnodes 1st level of the selected node. Franck --Fb5 03:55, 6 Dec 2007 (PST)
  • I'd agree with 'sort nodes by attribute' above. I'm a mindmanager user and being able to easily and interactively prioritise tasks on a node is very useful. In mm I just use the pre-defined priority icons, and sort accordingly. This is useful, but freemind with multi-attributes could offer more powerful sorts.

• A way to add new attributes using just the keyboard. I use keyboard shortcuts quite often with FreeMind and not having the ability to quickly add/change/delete attributes with the keyboard makes them much less useful. --Verifex 15:57, 8 Dec 2007 (PST)
  • What about Alt+F9 for selecting the attribute table and F2 for editing, TAB for adding? DimitriPolivaev
• Some attributes should be single-valued. Right now they all seem to be multi-valued. For example, I want only want attribute named Priority per node. -- JimK
• Hopefully you're going to add Help to dialog boxes? When I'm in Attribute Manager I don't understand all the choices. I should be able to view help about them from within the app rather than going to a Website/wiki. -- JimK
• Clicking on the "Icon for Attributes" could show/hide the attributes.
• Ability to have "Optimal Width" applied on all nodes by default.
• It would be great to have the possibillity to group attributes and give these groups names. These names may be treated as node types. One may assign a node type to a node meaning the node gets automatically all the attributes of this type. With this it would be possible to define for instance a node type like activity with attribute like who, start date, percent complete and so on. An easy way to assign node types to nodes, for instance something like default type for new nodes depending on parent node would be the cherry on top.

Filter

Create filters to view and print the data more effectively

Clicking on the little funnel to the left of the zoom size toggles on and off the Filter Toolbar. By default (i.e. in absence of any personal filter defined, see below) the values that can be selected in the List box of the Filter Toolbar are:

• No Filtering
• Currently Selected Nodes

To create a filter for one Attribute:

• to the right of the filter status, click "Edit"
• in the drop down menu at the top left, select your attribute
• the expression drop changes to "Exists"
• press "Add", then "OK" at the bottom
• all nodes with the selected Attribute will be shown, and the branches that don't contain these nodes will be hidden.
• To display, on the contrary, all branches that do not contain nodes with the given attribute, click on Edit, then, in panel Filter Composer, click on buttons "Not" then "Apply". This adds, in the List box of the Filter Toolbar, the two additional filters "attribute_XXX Exists" and "Not attribute_XXX Exists" (where attribute_XXX stands for the current attribute).

To create a filter for an Attribute and one of its values:

• after step two above select the second drop down where "exists" is showing
• choose "Is equal to". Your values should now be available in the third drop down
• press "Add", then OK

use multiple filters at once

create two filter sets by the method above select the filter sets you want

• Shift-click for multiple, continuous sets
• Ctrl-click for non-contiguous selection

press the "and" button on the right => a new set is created which combines your selected sets

User feedback

Another feature which can be useful: name for the filter. If you combine simple filters, it can be difficult to read what is it doing: For example: (Responsable is equal to Erwan and Type is equal to "draw") can be renamed as "Erwan Drawing", and could be more simple to manage.

Another thing: It could be useful to see/mask attributes when clicking on the attribute icon.

filter on an icon

• add an icon to a node by highlighting the node, click on the icon on the left or Rt-click>Icons
• in the filtering "edit" dialog, choose "Icon" in the drop-down list at the top left, the second drop-down grays out, and the third contains the list of currently used icons
• click "Add"

Persistent Map Filters

In Beta 13 persistent filters are added. And filters can now be saved. --Terkor 18:02, 2 Sep 2007 (PDT)

user feedback

• I find that it freezes up a lot when using folding and unfolding while applying filters. It is, however, a really powerful feature. To complete its power would it be possible to have a way to copy only selected or filtered nodes? Sometimes you want to select these nodes and put them in another application, but when I filter, select all and then copy-paste, I get lots of other nodes included.

• Worked well for me. Especially like the filter on icon - no muss, no fuss.

• Great feature. Filtering on an icon: For example if you have "OK" icons on some nodes and want to see all other nodes (= not OK) use filter "contains icon OK" and define filter "Not contains icon OK" using button "Not"

• This great new feature has a little BUG. Situation: I have two maps opened and use the filter "Currently Selected Nodes" on one of them and switch between the maps. When I switch back to the filtered map I don't get the view that I had before I switched away. Instead I get the node filtered that was selected when I switched. (Terkor)

• Filtering and Reminders are a very nice combination. Filtering on icons allows to distinguish between nodes that have a Reminder "whose time has not jet come" and nodes that have a Reminder "whose time has come". But: in the filter composer these two different states are represented with the same icon (a clock). You always have to guess which icon represents which Reminder state. --Terkor 19:40, 30 Jul 2007 (PDT)

• It would be helpful to be able to give the composed filters names. --Terkor 19:45, 30 Jul 2007 (PDT)

• When filtering is activated there is a drop-down menu left to the "Edit" button. There you can find all the filters that were used that FreeMind session. It would be very effective if I could not only chose one of those filters but chose more than one. And then being able to chose in what order they are applied (for example by moving the filters up and down). Of course I can also get the desired filtering by using the Filter Composer. But with the described option I would be more flexible in quickly combining the filters. And being able to apply some "simple" filters in an order would make things more clear in some situations. --Terkor 06:50, 31 Jul 2007 (PDT)

• A refresh view button would be nice. Or even better: auto refresh (maybe as an option) when a node is changed. Explanation: When I mark a node (representing a task) as done and I use a filter that shows me all the undone tasks and hides the done tasks, the node is not filtered as long as I switch filter off and on again. Could be more handy. --Terkor 06:09, 3 Dec 2007 (PST)

• If I filter "Currently Selected Nodes", in all the now empty space of the map there appear the ovals of the hidden nodes that allow to move them around, when you move your mouse to that places where they are when filter is not applied. --Terkor 06:42, 15 Dec 2007 (PST)

• If "Selection Bubble" is "on" and a filter is applied, also hidden nodes can be "selected" when you for example move the focus using the arrow-keys. --Terkor 06:42, 15 Dec 2007 (PST)

• Is there a way to assign attributes when you assign an icon to a node? For example I have lists of phone calls / emails that I have to send. I usually assign a phone or envelope icon to that node. I would like to assign an attribute or ActionType so that I can sort by them later (i.e. see a list of phone calls or emails that I have to make).

• It would be very helpful to have an option to filter out entries without children. This would be very valuable e.g. in situations where in a big map, several nodes have a "Tasks" subnode, and one wants to look at all tasks currently pending.

• Would it be possible to be able to add free text to the map to allow for titles and possibly a Key?

• Filter toolbar should be a standard toolbar. Should be able to show/hide filter toolbar from the View menu. (I am not displaying the main toolbar, but may need the Filter toolbar from time to time)

WYSIWYG-Editing for nodes and notes

Yet to be documented

HTML paste tip

Paste of HTML content creates one node. Use Edit -> Split to split it in many nodes.

User Feedback

Love this feature, especially the way that the notes export to javascript enabled html. Couple of observations.

• The popup notes in the Javascript export don't seem to work in IE (care factor 0?).

• It would be good to be able to view the note in the main mindmap window, maybe as a popup.

• It would also be helpful if there was some sort of visual indicator of the existence of a popup note in the exported html - at present the note just magically appears as a rollover.

• Don't know if it is due to this feature, but "edit long node" now introduced an extra line feed if the enter key is used (confirm on enter turned off).

--RichardForster 18:04, 19 Sep 2006 (PDT)

I'd like to have the option to collapse the WYSIWYG editing area to free up more screen real-estate.

--Marko 21:45, 23 Sep 2006 (PDT)

• The WYSIWYG screen estate seems a good place to do all 'richer' content editing: e.g. if freemind would let me edit the multiline text nodes there, and, manage the attributes, i'd find that very usefull.

--Neanderlander 22:01, 24 Sep 2006 (PDT)

• Some way to change the width of nodes would be great, so free form text can be flowed into thinner columns. Also a way to insert <br> easily without resorting to the html view.

--pedron 1:02pm, 10 October 2006 (EST)

• In version 0.8 the note attached to a node was very discrete in the sense that it would only show when the mouse is on that node. This new version has many editing features but it's "in your face" (so to speak) until you physically minimize it. I wish there was a way to configure it so that it would act like the previous version while keeping it's editing extras. Or at least have the option of toggling editing toolbar...

--Cichutki75 8:09pm, 19 October 2006 (GMT)

• In version 0.9 max node width function does not work properly. At least not all nodes for the map created in version 0.8 keep the set width. I did not discover the rule. Some keep some don't.

--CautiousChaos 02:22, 12 Nov 2006 (EST)

• The editing panel is intrusive when it is not needed. A hotkey to open/close it would be helpful. Clicking on the note icon resulting in the panel appearing could also be very helpful.
• It seems that word-wrapping does not work in plain-text mode for nodes, making the node to be of single line extending far too long. I had to change the mode of each node to make it word-wrapping. Only using rich-text mode, the wrapping would work. I wish that word-wrapping would still work as in 0.80. --yushen 15:03, 5 Dec 2006 (PST)
• It seems that in editing long node, the splitting function would only work with word on different line, while in 0.80, the function works even for words on the same line. --yushen 15:03, 5 Dec 2006 (PST)

--Djerr 17:42, 20 Jan 2007

• Using a 0.8 map with notes in 0.9 beta version show all notes as pop up but they can not be modified with the format tool or even edited in the layout page. I have to delete the note and create a new one under the 0.9 version.

I usually write short nodes but very long notes in order to have a "clear" map. 2 special comments on notes :

• For long notes, the time the pop up is shown is too short. Would it be possible to define a time on how long you want this pop up to be shown ? Or even better: to show them as long as the cursor is pointing on the node (or perhaps the note icon).
• I could find very useful (especially for my long notes) to be able in the format menu to change not only italic or bold or font size etc.. but also COLORS, to be able to see very fast the most important points

---

• I don't understand the purpose of freemind's notes feature. It seems to be an incomplete feature. On the one hand, it could be used as popup notes for a node on the freemind map. On the other hand, it could be used to provide the details for a topic expressed by the node. I think both should be possibilities, but currently only the first really seems possible.
• I want to use freemind to develop an outline into a full-blown paper. To do that, I would start using freemind to create an outline of the paper. Each node in the mindmap would be an entry in the outline with the node level equating to the outline level. Then, when I start fleshing out the paper, I would use the notes feature to fill-in paragraphs of information for each node. The problem is that there is no good way of outputting the paper -- the notes become popups rather than entries in the paper.
• Is there a way to export a mindmap from freemind in such a way that it could later be imported?

--DavidMasterson 22:00, 23 May 2007

• I don't like this feature in the current implementation. This is because i use this tool to connect IDEAS and usually i use formatting things only in the end. A paragraph, a sentence, a list, a word list this are things that i want to have in a hierarchical structure, not as a rich text. In 0.8.0 the copy/paste feature converted a paragraph/list to an hierarchical tree of nodes. That was a better aproach then to get a simple html node. The split feature doesn't replace this functionality better. I hope and trust that you will find a way to add rich text nodes without so much interference with the old style of working. Maybe a paste option with paste as nodes, paste as html will resolve this issue?

--Terkor 16:25, 21 June 2007

• Great Feature, but it could be more handy if the (by far) most often used formating-features like Bold and Italic could be used without opening the editor. Just mark the words or characters you want bold (or italic), click the Bold (or Italic) icon (or use Ctrl-B /Ctrl-I) - and that's it.
• It is not "logical" that you open the editor with "Alt-Enter" and close it with "Ctrl-Enter". It should both be the same.
• "Split" should have a shortcut. Suggestion: Alt-Enter or Ctrl-Enter. (See previous paragraph.)
• When I open the editor whilst I am editing a node, the editor should know the actual position of the cursor and if some text is already marked.
• Double clicking the note icon should open / close the note editor. (Generally icons should be more clickable like the link icon. (Double) clicking on the clock icon of notes with a Reminder should open the calendar. And right-clicking an icon should open the "Select Icon" box.)
• The popups displaying the note content don't match size if a note is very short. Does not look nice. (The same for popups that show the "Created", "Modified", and "Reminder" times - too wide.
• Choosing colors should definitely have an icon in the tool bar of the editors. So it takes six (!) clicks to change the color of a word. (Opening the editor not counted.)
• The editor for notes and the one for nodes behave differently, when it comes to use the Enter-key. The node-editor just enters a new line (as one would expect) when I press Enter. The note editor enters a new line and a blank line. Here I have to use Shift-Enter to get just a new line. Why the difference?
• The note editor by default adds a blank line before the text and after text. I see no reason for that. (The node editor does not do that either.) Just takes away precious space.
• In order to save space, please place the toolbar of the note editor next to the menu of the editor. As it is now, there is much unused space. The editor should look more slim.
• Like the note-editor of FreeMind 0.8, the note-editor of version 0.9 should automatically close when not needed. (Or at least there should be an option to pick this behavior.)
• The little arrows on the splitting line that allow to hide/show the note editor should be wider (not higher), they are very hard to click quickly. Perhaps put each of them in a clickable wider boxlike area.
• "Note" in the menu "Insert" is gone. Should be there, that's where people look for it, and it seams a logical place for it (also for a "Remove Note"-function). And "Add Note" / "Remove Note" should be in the context-menu, when I right-click a node.
• How about a function that turns a node into a note and vice versa?
• The popups of long notes should be scrollable.

--Pascal 11:33, 20 Nov 2007

• It would be great to have spell checking in notes editor
• In version 0.9.0 beta 14, bold, italic and underline buttons have no icons (if you click where they should be, it does the job, but you don't see the buttons).

--puckja 13:51, 3 Jan. 2008

• Great feature! Now I can add formated text/graphics in the note panel (SimpleHTML). Cut & Paste from webpage and even MS Word 2003 with figures and math equations works great.
• More user friendly functions such as FONT property in toolbar or shortcut, HIGHLIGHTING capability, insert HYBERLINK (it can be added with direct HTML coding), configurable property for the inserted graphic(size/alignment, etc.) would be great. (It is already very good! Thanks!)

--puckja 16:09, 3 Jan. 2008

• It seems that all the figures inserted in the note are not "locally saved." It may a a SERIOUS BUG! If the figures are cut & paste from Internet, then they will not be available if machine is offline. If the figures are C & P from local file (such as MS Word), then the source files are still at your personal Win TEMP directory, which means that they will be deleted some time in the future while you think it is saved. Other software such as PersonalBrain will save the file and change the HTML src location after you saved the "brain", but Freemind seems to leave it unattended.  :(

Scripting via Groovy

Groovy scripts may be attached to individual nodes in the map. When "evaluate" is selected via the menu or keypress (Alt-F8), all nodes in the map are searched (depth-first) for one or more attributes named "script". If such an attribute is found, the value of the attached attribute is passed to the Groovy engine to execute.

Only nodes are evaluated, which attribute keys start with "script". However, there is nothing preventing a script on one node from acting on other nodes via normal operations (e.g. node.getChildren or similar) as far as I can tell from the code.

Assignment vs. Operation

If the value of the script attribute starts with the equals sign ("="), then the node text will be replaced by the RESULT of the script evaluation. Be careful not to overwrite your nodes! See the example for using the "node.getText()" in an assignment script.

If the value of the script attribute does not begin with the equals sign, then the script will run and may affect the map, but the expression result is not assigned to the node text.

Available Operations

When the Groovy binding is created, two variables are set:

• "c" is set to the MindMapController
• "node" is set to the MindMapNode being evaluated

You will have to examine the FreeMind source code for operations on the interfaces. See the examples for a few operations such as setting the node text, node color and background color.

Examples

I have only played with the engine for five minutes, and spent about the same amount of time on the Groovy home page. The following examples work for me:

Prepend the node text with an integer representing the node depth. Note that the script starts with '=' so the result is assigned back to the node text. <groovy>=node.getNodeLevel() + " " + node.getText()</groovy>

Set the text color of a node: <groovy>node.setColor(java.awt.Color.RED)</groovy>

Set the background color of a node: <groovy>node.setBackgroundColor(java.awt.Color.BLUE)</groovy>

Project Manager: Don't do this; use methods of the controller c instead. If you manipulate the node model directly, you'll miss the undo and flow control capabilities of FreeMind. Please, consult methods from the interface MindMapActions only.

Advanced Examples

All advanced examples have been moved to the Example scripts

About Groovy

For people unfamiliar with Groovy scripting, it's home page, an introduction, a review on slashdot.

How to get started

1. Create an attribute for a node. The attribute must be named "script"
2. Create the Groovy script and set as the value of the attribute
3. Press Alt-F8 or select "Evaluate" from the Tools menu.

Wish for Groovy script editing

1. Need good editor for writing such script for the attribute. The current attribute manager is not suitable to write long script.

--yushen 15:41, 15 Jan 2007 (PST)

Scripting the application, not the documents

When I first read about Groovy in Freemind, I was irritated by the fact that the Groovy scripts are part of the Map (as script attribute) and not the application.

To my opinion it would make more sense to allow Groovy scripts to be plugged into the application and work on either Map.

An example of how this could work can be found here: [1]

In a similar way each script could be bound to a menu item in a user menu or a button, and be provided with the current 'context', maybe containing a model of an open Map when activated. This way it would be possible to create complete maps on-the-fly without having to create the Map and the root node with a script attribute first(!).

This is from user's point of view more like scripted plug-ins and filters in Gimp or Steinberg-like music software, and not so much like the VBA thing stored inside office documents.

--Det 07:28, 16 Mar 2007 (PDT)

Tips of editing script

1. Before there is good editor for script, I use a template node to define long script then use copy and paste to duplicate the script.

--yushen 15:41, 15 Jan 2007 (PST)

TaskJuggler Integration

TaskJuggler is a opensource project management tool for linux. It covers the complete spectrum of project management tasks from the first idea to the completion of the project. It assists you during project scoping, resource assignment, cost and revenue planing, risk and communication management.

Idea

The idea is to have special task and resource nodes on the mindmap. These node's attributes contain information needed for generating taskjuggler include files through xslt transformation. You can find more info about these attribs in TaskJuggler documentation

Tasks are defined as subnodes of TASKS node, similarly resources are defined as subnodes of RESOURCES, accounts as subnodes of ACCOUNTS node.

Project file (TJP)

We generate only includes with FreeMind, so we must write simple TaskJuggler main project file:

project simple "Simple Project" "1.0" 2005-06-06 - 2005-06-26

include "example.accounts.tji"
include "example.resources.tji"
include "example.tasks.tji"

taskreport "Gantt Chart" {
  headline "Project Gantt Chart"
  columns hierarchindex, name, start, end, effort, duration, cost, revenue, chart
  timeformat "%a %Y-%m-%d"
  loadunit days
  hideresource 1
}

htmlaccountreport "accountsreport.html"{
  timeformat "%d-%M-%y"
  accumulate
  columns index, name, weekly
}

Include Files (TJI)

Mindmap with defined TASKS, RESOURCES and ACCOUNTS nodes can look like this:

We can export include files which we have defined in our project file directly from FreeMind mindmap:
- example.resources.tji - from RESOURCES node (File->Export->Resources from RESOURCES node to TJI file..)
- example.tasks.tji - from TASKS node (File->Export->Task from TASKS node to TJI file..)
- example.accounts.tji - from ACCOUNTS node (File->Export->Accounts from ACCOUNTS node to TJI file..)

In TaskJuggler our project will look like this:

Download

Here you can download full example without accounts feature and here with accounts.

Account support

Becouse accounts functionality isn't in CVS yet. You need use this binary or get Freemind from CVS (CVS tag: fm_060405_integration) and aply this patch.

The rest of the new features

Icons

User icons

User icons can be added. PNG files of the icons have to be added to the folder <user_home>/.freemind/icons. All *.png files in <user_home>/.freemind/icons are handled as user icons. Size is not limited to 16 px x 16 px.

User feedback:

• FreeMind adds "icon_" to the user-given name of a user icon. The name should just be the user given name - without ".png" of course.
• When adding user icons, they appear in a random order within the side bar and mixed with the Freemind built-in icons. Is there a way to control this order ?
• My new icons appeared at the end of the standard ones and appeared to be in alphabetical order by filename. GREAT feature. I was able to take screen captures of the icons for Access objects and some of the Office program icons and use them in a mind map documenting a project my computer literacy students do at the end of the semester. This is far superior to having to use a limited set of standard icons which aren't particularly meaningful.

Selecting, Substituting and Deleting Icons

• Using Shift+Click on icon bar substitutes the current icons by the new one.
• Icon bar Icon Selection Dialog: click on icon with control key hold: removes the first matching icon, with alt key removes the last one. Icon Selection Dialog: Shift+Enter or Alt+Enter can be used as well.
• Icon hot keys available in Select Icon Dialog. They can be set in Preferences > Keystrokes. --Terkor 13:26, 3 Sep 2007 (PDT)

User feedback:

• Substituting icons with Shift+Enter in the Icon Selection Dialog (as announced in the changes for Beta 9) does not work. Just inserts the selected icon.

Latex Plugin

With the new Latex Plugin (Insert > Latex) you can now add mathematical formulas to your nodes. Select a node and chose Insert > Latex. Under the node a default text in a box is added. When you click on that box a simple editor opens to enter the Latex code. Close the editor and your formula is displayed underneath the node.

Erase the formula by clicking Latex again when the node is selected. --Terkor 06:31, 3 Sep 2007 (PDT)

User feedback:

• Great, adds a whole new field of use to FreeMind!
• Tip: Can also be used to just add a text to node instead of a mathematical formula. If you just add text without any commands, you get italic text in the box. Everything put between \mbox{ and } appears as normal text. (The code is contained in the default formula that is added every time you add a new Latex box to a node.)
• Exporting the formulas does not work for at least for some filters.
• LaTeX formulas do not scale with the rest of the map but have always the same size. Please make them scalable if possible.--Christofb 12:19, 30 Oct 2007 (PDT)

Nice feature. It would be nice if the graphical representation of the formula could appear with the higher quality associated with LaTeX. Is it possible to improve via anti aliasing or exporting/printing via postscript?

Linking to nodes in another mm-file

You may create a link to a node in another map by appending #node_name to the map path

User feedback:

• Bug: This very useful feature seems to work for the current instance of the target map only. Once the target map is closed and reopened the link points to the root node in the target map, even though the link text is still correct. Closing the source map and reopening it works fine. - Tested based on FM 0.8.0 maps with the Windows version of FM.--Uli 02:51, 13 Feb 2007 (PST)

(•) Solution:

• create a (temporary) local link to the intended target node from any other node within the target MindMap (MM) (ALT+L)

 => i.e. the target-node must be the 'refered' node in this case meaning that it must be the second of the two nodes composing said
(temporary) local link.
   -> Digression: A local link is created by first left clicking on the source node and, while holding down the CTRL-button, then 
      left clicking on the target node. The link is created in the source node (a green arrow appears).

• Now highlight the 'refering'/source node, i.e. the other of the two nodes in this (temporary) local link (the one with the green arrow) and press CTRL+k (edit link)

 => the freemind node name of the 'refered' node (i.e. our desired target node) appears (eg. #Freemind_Link_676133257)

• Copy (or better still, cut) this node name [ctrl+c/ctrl+x].

• In the Source MM create an external link to the target MM (eg. c:\mindmaps\TASKS.mm),

 => Digression: An external link is created thus: CTRL+k (manually enter path) or SHIFT+CTRL+k (choose path). A red arrow appears.

• highlight the node with the newly created external link and append the copied/cut freemind node name to it using CTRL+k (edit link).

 => The result could look like this: c:\mindmaps\TASKS#Freemind_Link_676133257

• Finally, delete the local link if you may so wish (this step is only relevant, if you'd only copied and not cut the node name above).

Edit Styles, Patterns, Automatic Layout Patterns

Change Format Dialog

New "Change Format" dialog box that lets you edit node and edge attributes at once. (Format > Change format...)

User feedback:

• The very powerful and useful dialog box needs a shortcut, and an entry in the context menu when you right-click on a node.
• A preview-area would be helpful.

Manage Patterns

There is now a manager for the physical styles. (Format > Physical Styles > Manage Patterns..)

User feedback:

• It is so helpfull!!!!!
• Would it be possible to also show (and even change) the shortcuts of the patterns in the pattern manager?

Edit Automatic Layout Patterns

It is now possible to edit Automatic Layout Patterns. (Tools > Preferences ... > Automatic layout pat...) Click there on a pattern and the new "Change Format" box appears (here called "Change Pattern").

User feedback:

• Great! Could you please make the area "Automatic Layout Styles" a bit wider. There is no reason to keep it so tiny.

• I find the automatic layout a bit limited; after four levels, the layout remains the same, but I oftentimes use five, six or seven levels. Only feature I'd like to see added to the program is to set an auto format for a larger (custom-defined?) amount of levels.

Find And Replace

FreeMind has now a Find & Replace dialog. It combines the old "Show Map History..." (which is not there any more) with a classical Find & Replace dialog.

Found nodes can be sorted by Date, Text, Icons, Created, Modified, and Notes.

You can choose: Export Selected Nodes, Replace All, Replace Selected, Goto, and Select.

When no search text is entered all nodes of the map are shown in a sorted list.

User Feedback

• Characters like äöü" are not displayed correctly (the HTML-versions are displayed).
• Could it be possible to hide columns that I don't need to see?
• Thank You for the "replace" addition. How difficult would it be to have a "find" on all opened maps ?
• Is it possible to extend the "find" in all opened maps ? When searching for a text pattern, it will save to open individually each maps and execute a find. --Fb5 02:16, 15 Nov 2007 (PST)
• Would very helpful if nodes themselves could not only be sorted alphabetically, but also by Icons. And maybe by Date, Created, Modified, and Notes.

Display Selection as Bubble

In the menu View there is now the option to display the selected nodes inside a bubble: "Display Selection as Rectangle on/off". You can also pick this new option in Preferences > Defaults, where you can also choose the color of the bubble. "Display Selection as Rectangle on/off" is now (Beta 13) by default "on". --DimitriPolivaev 14:50, 9 Sep 2007 (PDT) --Terkor 16:57, 9 Sep 2007 (PDT)

User Feedback

• Like it very much.

Tabs

There are now Tabs (like in Firefox) representing the opened maps. Properties > Appearance > Look And Feel > Use Tabs lets you choose if you want to use tabs. --Terkor 10:36, 26 Aug 2007 (PDT)

User Feedback

• Could it be possible that the tabs only appear (option) when more than one map is opened?
  • I'd like this too. Screen space can be important. --Kenrob 04:14, 5 Oct 2007 (PDT)
• Could it be possible to show and hide tabs in View?
• Could it be possible to rearrange the order of the tabs (by dragging and dropping them)?
  • drag&drop, automatic hide when only one, close one/all via context menu etc. would be very usefull (i.e. like it is possible in firefox) --flusi100 08:00, 24 Feb 2008
• Would be nice to close the maps by using their tabs (context menu with "Close" when right-clicking on tab, or middle-click on tab).
  • Agreed - this would be useful. --Kenrob 04:14, 5 Oct 2007 (PDT)
• Now with tabs and Save All it would just be the next logical step that (as an option) all the tabs would open when FreeMind starts, that were open when FreeMind was closed.

Move Back and Move Forward

There are now Move Back and Move Forward buttons in the Toolbar (also available in the Navigate menu and by using Alt-Left and Alt-Right). FreeMind stores a chronology of the selected nodes. Using Back and Forward you can navigate back and forth to those nodes - even if they are in an other opened map. --Terkor 19:31, 26 Aug 2007 (PDT)

User Feedback

• Very Helpful!
• Could there be a way to get back to the latest selection by one click.
• How about a popup list of the previous and next selected nodes (like in IE or FF)?
• Useful when navigating in large maps--Fb5 02:13, 15 Nov 2007 (PST)

Export Filters

Open Office Export now for the ODT format.

Besides the two export filters for TaskJuggler there are three new filters for exporting:

• As Java Appelt
• As Flash
• As TWiki --Terkor 19:06, 27 Aug 2007 (PDT)

User feedback

• Embedded links on images and then exported to flash do not work.
  • Video of Bug
• HTML links and then exported to flash do not work either. Please see:
  • http://www.efectokiwano.net/mm/

--VincentD 02:30, 9 Nov 2006 (PST)

• Export to Flash does not support Rich Formatted nodes.
• When a map that contains a hyperlink is exported to HTML there is obviously an error in that exported hyperlink. --Terkor 20:34, 2 Sep 2007 (PDT)
• In exporting to Flash, I have to enter URLs as http:www.yahoo.com, instead of http://www.yahoo.com, for the link to work.

--Berti 12:04, 13 Feb 2008 (PST)

• I tried an export to txt tab separated this worked in 0.8 fine if I rename the .mm to xml and try to view it I get an error it seems the html tags are going to break it. I also tested the xsl form this side Tabulator separated text ? FreeMind

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Import_and_export_to_other_applications

Wishes concerning Export Filters

--AlexandreDC 08:47, 13 Mar 2008 (CET)

• It would be useful to indicate some XSLT templates to produce HTML exports: we could thus choose whether and how to display attributes for example.

General Bugs

• If I close the calendar not with "cancel" but by just closing the calendar window, I can't reopen the calendar. I have to restart FM to be able to open the Time Management dialog again. --Terkor 06:27, 15 Dec 2007 (PST)
• I updated to java runtime enviroment 1.6 and was not able to save any mindmap any longer. Message was "Map ist write protected" --bebach 13 Nov 2007
• Sometimes I use freemind just as a simple extended clipbord. In openoffce 2.0 writer I get the message, the clipbord format does not exist. In thunderbird I always have to paste without format to see anything. It is painful. It seems to me that I was not able to switch freemind to the plain text option. I am looking again the documentation. --bebach 8 Nov 2007
• Using the PDF export feature results in an error message "null compatible with Global antialiasing enable key". That was no problem in Version 0.8
• I can't save a new mind map under MS Vista. Modify and save of an existing mind map works.
• After pasting a node at a new position, keystrokes get stuck. The moviment is possible only changing the focus with mouse. After changing the focus, keystrokes (up,down,left,right) works normally.--Leslie 05:16, 17 Apr 2007 (PDT)
• Ok, the new version is very nice... but there is still the Problem with printing. Sometimes the print is to small or to great or a part is cut off. Its difficult to configure the printer for good mindmap printings--Bkmzde 00:31, 16 Feb 2007 (PST)
• Bug ? : MindManager Import doesn't include "Html Notes" hooked to the nodes. In 0.8, the note is "translate" in a text note.
• The context-menu that appears when you right-click while editing a node does not work. (It only contains "Copy" - which does not work.) Perhaps adding "Cut", "Paste", "Split" (at cursor-position), "Edit Long Node..." (with the editor remembering the cursor position and if some text is already marked). And perhaps some formating: "Bold", "Italic", "Font...", "Paragraph..."
• Display error 1: Solved in Beta 12. --Terkor 10:37, 26 Aug 2007 (PDT)
• Display error 2: Zoom is now (Beta 14) working perfectly, as far as I can see. Good work! --Terkor 14:41, 21 Oct 2007 (PDT)
  • OK, there is a little bug: use Format > Bubble. You will see that on most zoom levels text in the bubble is not centered correctly. On both sides of the map text is placed too much on the left side. --Terkor 11:33, 22 Nov 2007 (PST)
• Display error 3: Solved in Beta 13. --Terkor 17:44, 2 Sep 2007 (PDT)
• Display error 4: If edge style "Sharp" is used with a child of the root and edge widths is more than 1 the edge does not connect to the root properly (with widths 4 or 8 the effect is very obvious, and if "Sharp Bezier" is chosen). Displayed only correctly when the line is perfectly horizontal.
• Display error 5: Solved in Beta 16. --Terkor 10:49, 6 Mar 2008 (PST)
• File Locking appears buggy: When you open a file with File Locking enabled in Preferences, the first open generates the error that 'file locking' failed. Subsequently, all attempts to open a file result in 'File is already being edited by (Username). Opening as Read-Only.' FreeMind does not appear to be willing to release this lock, except by turning off Experimental File Locking and turning it back on, so the entire feature appears to be broken. Specs: Windows XP SP2 machine, .mm file is on local drive which is also shared.--Perholm 22:43, 13 Sep 2007 (PDT)
• Auto-Save Confirmed Buggy: I WOULD SUGGEST THAT THIS BUG IS AN EMERGENCY, AS DATA-LOSS CAN/WILL HAPPEN IF THE FEATURE IS RELIED UPON. Auto-Save at present does not work properly and should not be relied upon. Bug analysis: It appears that the timer used to control auto-save is only activated once at program launch, and when the auto-save interval has passed the timer does not reset for another auto-save interval, but instead NEVER generates an event again. Test: Set auto-save to 20000 milliseconds. Open an existing MindMap, and make a change within 20 seconds. If you check the .freemind directory, a single auto-save will be generated after 20 seconds, and no further auto-saves will EVER happen. If you again open a MindMap, and DO NOT make a change within 20 seconds, no auto-save will ever happen of any changes including the initial change. I would therefore conclude that the timer used for the auto-save interval is being programmed incorrectly, and does not launch another auto-save interval.--Perholm 22:56, 13 Sep 2007 (PDT)
• The JRE 1.6 update 2 bug from javaw.exe on using the function of Open/Save File, it will waitting more than 30 sec per times, The JRE 1.5 update 11 will be better. --Josepchangtw 16:55, 15 Nov 2007 (PDT)
• Certain actions, foremost among them the paste action, cause FreeMind (or perhaps just the editing area) to lose focus somehow, so that no further keyboard input has any effect, until you click in the editing area to restore the focus. This severely detracts from the keyboard-only usability of FreeMind.
  • Please describe how to reproduce and see this behavior DimitriPolivaev 14:40, 18 Oct 2007 (PDT)
  • After pasting a node that has been copied from Freemind, the keyboard has absolutely no effect (really! I even tried mashing it randomly) until you click the mouse in the window, or switch to another window and then back, or do something else that focuses the Freemind window. Pasting text or anything else works just fine; only pasting a copied node (or nodes) causes the problem -- to put it as clearly as possible, the problem only occurs when pasting from Freemind to Freemind itself. Also, I should mention that this is not a problem in 0.8, only in 0.9.
  • I have a very similar problem, under Ubuntu 7.10. It happens that: 1. whenever I paste something, I lose the ability to use the keyboard (all shortcuts), editing, entering text. 2. I can get keyboard back by switching to another window or virtual desktop, but after I repeat this (paste something) the third time, I lose keyboard for good until I close and re-open Freemind; 3. mouse works and I can save my map. Please note that for me it happens both with 0.8 and 0.9 branches, when running 0.9.x both with jre 5 and 6. Zecg
  • Same here on openSuSE 10.3, x86_64. It's hard to reproduce when it happens but I also suddenly use the ability to use keyboard. I've found no way to get keyboard back except closing and re-opening Freemind. Mouse input still works. Appears to be introduced in the 0.9.x branch regardless whether I use jre 5 or 6. It's a show stopper. Is there a way to record all keyboard/mouse input to help to track this down ? --Steve
  • The March 3 build seems to have fixed this bug. If others can confirm this, you can probably delete this thread.
  • Not confirmed. The problem is still in Beta 16, just re-tested. A few times it happened after pressing INS, type in something, CR, CR, type in something, CR and cut the nodes again with CTRL-X, CTRL-X or a similar sequence. --Steve
• Node dragging problem:
  When dragging the small circle in front of a node and moving the node vertically to raise the distance to the upper or lower node, this behavior in FreeMind seems to have changed.
  In previous versions, the node could only be dragged to the right, up or down, but not more to the left towards the parent node. There was kind of an invisible vertical border. You could not drag the node beyond this border towards the parent node. This border was excellent to keep all child nodes aligned while changing the nodes' distance.
  Now this doesn't work any more. In the current version, this border seems to be gone unfortunately. When I change the vertical distance of one node to another node, I cannot keep the moved node in it's horizontal position any more.
  (By the way, pressing <CTRL>-left-mouse-button on a node's drag-handle also changes the distance between nodes, but this functionality is not compareable, because it changes the distance of all child nodes in this column, not only of the selected one.)
• Node dragging problem 2:
  FM 0.9 B15. I created a map with FM 0.8, then switched to 0.9. If I copy the contents of a MSWord table into a node, MM gets it formatted with HTML and displays the table perfectly. The problem arises when I move the node to another branch of the tree. The html content gets converted to ascii (e.g. <html> becomes &lt;html&gt;) and thus all the formatting is lost. --ScavType 14:09, 04 Jan 2008 (PDT)
• Print Preview shows wrong view after selecting Fit to one page. Steps: create map that's more than one page wide with default page setup options. Edit page options to fit to one page. Choose Print Preview. Expect it to show one page. Instead, it showed the first page of two pages as if ignoring the "fit to one page" option. After clicking next page button, print preview then realized it should zoom to fit to one page. --JimK
• Hover text for Print icon on toolbar says "Print..." implying that a dialog box will open but instead it just starts a print job. Text should say "Print" or it should open dialog box. --JimK

General Comments

• Feature request: When you move mouse over a node text is displayed in popup cloud, but it dissapears after few seconds. I would like for it to stay. Also, It would be great to be able to focus that popup and edit (ok that's a hard one, but at least copy) the contest there right away. --Kova 06:49, 19 Jan 2008 (PST)
• Feature request: I would like an option for text view (bottom) and tree view (top) to show (expand) when you move mouse over them. Right now I have tree view maximized when I'm editing the tree, but when I want to write something in the nodes or have a look what is written I have to go down, resize the text view, write text / view the text and resize again. It would be great if it resizes to half for example if I just move my mouse down to bottom where text area is. In short, I need quickly switch between node edit (text) and tree edit (graphics). --Kova 06:49, 19 Jan 2008 (PST)
• How about a forum for this stuff? Wiki is great for a single document, but not for discussion or suggestions like this. --Kova 06:49, 19 Jan 2008 (PST)
• In the German translation the use of capitals is just a mess. (Sorry!) For example "Speichern Unter..." Why a capital "U"? --Terkor 06:58, 15 Dec 2007 (PST)
• Since some changes in the properties of FM need a restart of the program in order to be seen, there should be a restart option after you changed settings or in the file-menu. --Terkor 02:18, 19 Nov 2007 (PST)
• any idea how I can print or give out a mindmap WITH the notes I made to the nodes? I think I tried all export possibilities but could not find a way. --bebach 17 Nov 2007
• Since I communicate with others using html exports or java/ flash exports, I uploaded to the web, it would be wounderful to have an internal ftp client in freemind and have an export option "upload by FTP". --bebach 8 Nov 2007
• Missing Export feature: I love the XHTML-Export with includes Image of the mindmap. For many reasons it would be much more comfortable to have just the images with an imagemap, for example a link collection. It will save user one very painful klick an the looking for the right section in the html export. HTML-Export as an image map would be much better for some users since the are not used to the also very nice flash or java web exports. They are very good for experienced users. --bebach 8 Nov 2007
• Moving a branch from one side of the root to the other - the text and child branches should "flip" to enable this
  • Um, they do! Drag the node onto the root node and drop when you can see the gradient appear - then you'll mirror the structure. Otherwise you're just repositioning the node. --Kenrob 04:34, 5 Oct 2007 (PDT)
• I believe the Calendar / Scheduler feature can offer great benefits if improved. I suggest a pop up will should come up when the reminder time arrives. Similar to MS Outlook, you should have options of delaying the reminder or canceling it. --Felipe 13:33, 1 May 2007 (PDT)
• I love freemind and work with it a lot some hours a day! I am looking forward to the new version and I start testing from v0.9 beta 12 --bebach 24 Aug 2007
• Feature Request: Database views are a powerful feature. I wish something like this for freemind. The idea is to store all the data in some ordinary mindmaps whithout redundancy, and on the other side work on them with the help of several virtual mindmaps, like views in database systems. The intention is to benefit from all the advantages of database views in freemind with a similar feature. To build the freemind views could xquery be used.--maxreeb 6 Sep 2007
• Feature Request: Lose Nodes. While FreeMind works great for information that is already relatively structured in your mind, it is VERY difficult to use when your information is very disorganised, like any kind of stream-of-consciousness type note-taking. In that scenario, the fact that FreeMind forces you with an iron hand to structure information before you're allowed to move on to the next idea, forces you to completely stop the creative process maybe 10 times a minute, which is why I tend to AVOID FreeMind and favor even just WordPad any time I'm creative, because FreeMind works against me by forcing me to be so structure right off the bat that it grinds the creative process to a halt. I truly feel that you need the ability to have what I would term 'Lose Nodes', which is notes that are simply floating on the page and detached from the tree. Of course the goal is to get them attached to the tree in an orderly fashion, but for the sake of picking your own brain, you actually need the ability to simply drop them on the page, and then drag-drop organize them later by binding them together into a tree. You would do the exact same on a physical desktop -- you would cut out little pieces of paper, which would initially just be floating around on the table, until they slowly become organized into a tree. The fact that people have done this for hundreds years, I think proves that this is a natural and intuitive workflow, one that FreeMind easily both could and should support. By the same token, if you realize that a tree is poorly structured, you would want to take it apart and re-assemble it in a new way. As part of that process, maybe 20 or 40 nodes would be temporarily lose, and a 'Lose Nodes' feature would allow you to simply drag the nodes lose from the tree, drop them in the white space, and then later attach them somewhere else. I think this would be extremely intuitive. And very lastly, in this mindset of being able to do in FreeMind what you are thinking, I think you need to support more than one root. Although the GOAL is of course a neatly structured tree with a single root, you again don't necessarily arrive there through clean path -- no, the path is messy and disorganized, and then order forms slowly. I feel I would be able to structure large and experimental concepts much more easily if you supported Lose Nodes and multiple roots. With multiple roots, you would be able to detach section of the tree into a new tree, work on them concurrently, until you realize that they're part of the same concept, and glue the trees back together. These two features together are what is preventing me from being truly productive with FreeMind from a discovery perspective. I have no doubt that FreeMind works like a charm for information that is already relatively organized, but for discovering new and original concepts, FreeMind forces a structure on the information that is not mature for. Rather, FreeMind helps your produce a graph of the end result, but doesn't fully help you get there. --Perholm 16:23, 12 Sep 2007 (PDT)
  • Understood the issue. What I do is setting "disable key type" off, and "key type adds new" on. So each time I am hitting "return" key and starting to type again, it is a new node automatically created. In fact it works then like "wordPad", a node being equivalent to a line. To keep my map "clean" all those new nodes are created under a node "to be cleaned" or even a new map. Then I do the assembling by moving nodes with the mouse, and this is all the power of freemind. Faster to reorganise information than any other tool I have ever tried. I like your expression "kind of stream-of-consciousness type note-taking". This is exactly my use (several hours/day for years) of Freemind which is my main/only data entry software, and it is the best tool I know for this. --Fb5 03:57, 23 Oct 2007 (PDT)
  • About the multi root discussion. The same result could be attained easily now with the tabbed windows. For large maps already difficult to see, multiroots would make them really messy. An improvement for your concern could be to have an option to view tabbed windows "side by side" ("arrange all" in Word from Windows).--Fb5 04:15, 23 Oct 2007 (PDT)
• Feature Request: Rearranging Nodes. I'm wondering why, when you're rearranging the order of nodes on the same hierarchical level, why you're only allowed to move a node *before* another node by dropping things in the top half of the destination node. All the time, I need to move a node so it comes *after* another node, but you can't simply drop the node in the bottom half of the destination node to move it to come *after*. And by the same token, there's NO way to move a node to be the last one without dropping it in the right-side of the *parent* node. This is frustrating, really frustrating, and there's no real logic to it... who made the decision that you can only move nodes *before* other nodes, but not *after*? Why did you decide to make it like this and not the other way around. And why is the only way you can get a node to the bottom of a list, to drag and drop onto the right side of the *parent* node. I run into this probably 20 or 30 times an hour, and the current design seems arbitrarily selected. You should be able to move nodes both *before* and *after* each other by dragging and dropping them into the top or bottom half of the destination node. I feel that nothing else is consistent and makes sense. Sorry for my rant, I just feel that there are some things that don't follow GUI 101. --Perholm 14:00, 13 Sep 2007 (PDT)
  • A simple workaround is to drag to the second-last position, i.e. the top ½ of the lowest node. When you have everything else repositioned, drag the lowest node to it rightful place. --Kenrob 04:25, 5 Oct 2007 (PDT)
    • I think this is unacceptable as a solution. Workaround, yes. Solution, no. --Perholm 14:12, 10 Oct 2007 (PDT)
• Feature Request: Copy/Paste Paragraphs. I'm an author trying to use FreeMind to structure a large literary project, and it would be incredibly helpful if FreeMind had the following functionality: If you grab some text from Word (which might consist of for example 10 paragraphs), it would be incredibly helpful to get each of these paragraphs as individual child-nodes. The reason is that we're using FreeMind to organize a book-type project, of which some has already been written, and we need to get each paragraph of a chapter into a separate child-node in FreeMind so we can rearrange the blocks the FreeMind way, which by the way works fantastically. But at the moment, we can't find any other way than to copy/paste each single (friggin) paragraph individually. And the same goes for when you're trying to get something back into Word; it would be great to be able to simply select a branch, and get it copy/pasted into word as a simple top-to-bottom text copy where each child-node is an individual paragraph. That way you can use FreeMind to organize a literary project, knowing that the project ultimately has to end up in Word, but FreeMind is far superior for organizing and structuring the information. Perhaps consider a 'Paste Menu' like Word has, which asks you how exactly you want to paste, i.e. 'Keep Formatting' or 'Text Only' -- a similar menu in FreeMind could ask if you want to turn individual paragraphs into nodes, or if you want to paste the whole text as a single node. This would be REALLY helpful to organize literary projects. This would also allow you to much more easily use FreeMind to edit something that is initially written as stream-of-consciousness, i.e. any brainstorm. Such a brainstorm would likely simply consist of lines upon lines (or paragraphs upon paragraphs) of disorganized ideas written into Word or a text-editor. When you bring this into FreeMind, you ought to be able to turn each 'idea' (i.e. Paragraph) into a separate node. Right now, I can find no other way than to copy/paste each line individually, which is enormously labor-intensive. UPDATE: OK, FreeMind already has this feature, but it doesn't always work, because if you're pasting from Word, the text coming in is interpreted as Rich Text, and put into a single child node. If you want the behavior I describe, you have to first copy the text in Word, paste the text into Notepad (not Wordpad), copy it from Notepad, and paste it into FreeMind. I think there should be the ability to interpret text coming from Word as 'text-only' and not automatically bring in the formatting. In the case of a literary project, the formatting is only interesting in Word... in FreeMind you only want to edit the text, the formatting is irrelevant in a FreeMind context.--Perholm 23:11, 13 Sep 2007 (PDT)
  • You can use Edit->Split Node after inserting a formatted paragraph into the node. It splits the node in single paragraphs. DimitriPolivaev 14:19, 17 Sep 2007 (PDT)
  • That's interesting discussion. When I copy from word to freemind, each paragraph is copied as an individual node and that is what I expect and what You would like. Maybe your freemind settings are different than mine ?--Fb5 04:05, 23 Oct 2007 (PDT)
  • It is now I met the issue You described Perholm. This is when copying form WEB BROWSER to FREEMIND. The copy keeps the html formating and keeps it in one node. This is a real annoyance for me too and that would stop me to move from 0.8 Version. Is it possible to have a "Paste Special" or "Paste as text" menu which also split paragraph as nodes, please Dimitri ? One advantage of the html copy would be for tables, which doesn't work in 0.8. Thank You. Franck --Fb5 03:46, 6 Dec 2007 (PST)
• SIMPLICITY , SPEED and RELIABILITY : Those must be the main strengths of Freemind. I am using Freemind as my main computer interface for data entry for three years, ending with large maps (several 10s of thousands nodes). I have tried many other softwares and my conclusion, there is simply no equivalence on the market. It would be a shame to slow the program or the user-interface because adding new features. So, my expectation is to have user-options for enabling or not those features (attributes and Wysiwig). Thank You so much for the great work. Franck --Fb5 20:03, 2 Oct 2007 (PDT)
  • I want to second that: my maps are not nearly as big as Franck's but for me simplicity and reliability (as already provided by 0.8.0) are most important, too. Please try to keep focus on the simple things instead of adding too many features.--Christofb 12:27, 30 Oct 2007 (PDT)
  • Absolutely right. It is wonderful that new features are being added, but it is ESSENTIAL that Freemind is able to run QUICKLY on any computer, or it won't be useful. --Loydog 2:44, 8 Nov 2007 (PDT)
  • I absolutely agree to that. I'm a freemind user for years now and though I'm looking forward to see new features in freemind I always loved the fast and easy way to create maps on every occasion. So maybe if there are resource consuming new features they could be inserted as plugins or sth. like that so users are able to decide wether they will activate a feature or not--lpdubel 02:06, 14 Nov 2007 (PST)
• Attachments (Multiple): It is necessary to be able to add multiple attachments to a single node. For example, one node may have an attached pdf doc, word doc, excel sheet, and other mindmap. kberardinelli 09:17, 26 Oct 2007 (EDT)
  • What I do is to create subnodes (even without any text) and assign an attachement to each of them. --Fb5 02:26, 15 Nov 2007 (PST)
• Attachments (Deletion): Currently, there seems to be no way to delete an attachment. This needs to be very easy to do (perhaps by right-clicking and selecting 'Delete Attachment'. kberardinelli 09:17, 26 Oct 2007 (EDT)
• Feature Request: Especially when using freemind on a beamer I would like to have a fullscreen mode ie without window decorations etc. Just the canvas, even without menu bar or status bar. -- barney 13:52, 29 Oct 2007 (MEZ)
  • I would love to see that too. Think about using it in a classroom for a brainstorming on the beamer. --Christofb 12:27, 30 Oct 2007 (PDT)
• Feedback: In Beta 13 (the one before 14), I could remove the note area from the view and use ctrl-< to activate the note area, make it visible again, and type ahead. This still works in Beta 14. When done, I could use ctrl-< again to focus the mind map node again and the note area vanishes again. In Beta 14 the note area stays visible and I need to ctrl-<, ctrl-> to move out and hide the area. The behaviour in Beta 13 was much easier to work with. -- barney 13:52, 29 Oct 2007 (MEZ)
• Feature request: IMO it would be very useful to be able to add some metadata to a freemind map as a whole like titel, description, author, keywords --lpdubel 02:06, 14 Nov 2007 (PST)

• Feature request: I would like very much to have a better method for transclusion. Compendium allows reuse of nodes across multiple views (whether maps or lists) and automatically handles updates from any instance to all appearances across a range of maps. Compendium even places a subscript counting the number of transclusions for a node! Can one hack this up through per node addressing in FreeMind? Would that handle automatic updates? I suspect a database back-end for nodes makes more sense. I want to construct constructing Maps through addition across a collection of nodes (again, like Compendium) instead of filtering maps by subtraction across a single map's nodes. As a first approximation to this, I'd like to save Filters independently of maps. --Jay_Dugger, 2217 Sunday, 2 December 2007

• Feature request: Ship it! (sorry, but it would be nice to have a released version that works with the lattest java version), and well, it's been 2 and a half years... Tomh 05:09, 10 Jan 2008 (PST)

• Feature request: I really miss a strike-through along bold and italic, with a keyboard shortcut. Cheers.

• Feature request: Nothing big, I just wanted to ask weather its possible to bind the structure to too points again (left right) from the rootnode like it was it 0.8 and that change this when you want. Because its much esear to start a structured mindmap using only the keys... Also I liked to have two sides to divide the thoughts when speaking about pro and contra. It Would be Great if it was possible to ad this as an Option to the root-point. (Inculding the move navigation with strg that could move one node all around the root) Thank you! --X-Site 16:29, 9 Mar 2008 (PDT)