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.

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.

---

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

---

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 (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)
• 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.
• Auto-Save Appears Buggy: Auto-Save only saves random sporadic auto-saves every few hours or so. My settings are default, 60000 ms interval, keep 10 files, write to .freemind directory (I have disabled the 'Delete' feature to retain more copies of my work). In the .freemind directory, I found 3 older versions of my map, at 3 arbitrary times during the day. I've cleaned out previous auto-saves to test auto-save feature. I've changed my map, indicated by an asterisk in the title line, and have waited for about 20 minutes -- still no auto-save. I would strongly suggest to examine this possible bug as a matter of urgency, and I would suggest for users to Ctrl+S often, as it does not appear that auto-save functions more than very sporadically, and can not be relied upon. --Perholm 22:32, 13 Sep 2007 (PDT)

Bugs or features ? (questions 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)

Wishes

• 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)
• Rearranging Nodes: If you are rearranging the order of nodes on the same hiearchical level, you can only drag nodes to be *before* other nodes, not *after*. That's a problem if your goal is to get one node to be below another node -- in which case you have to insert it *before* the following node further down. This is hard to do visually in a large tree, but moreover, the node further down may actually be off screen, meaning that there's NO WAY to make the rearrangement, even though you can see all the nodes you want to affect. By the same token, the *only* way you can move a node to be *last* in a list is to drag it up to the parent, drop it in the right half of the parent, in which case it becomes a new child. I find this an extremely roundabout way, and on a large tree, you a literally unable to do it. I think you need the ability to drag and drop nodes to be both before and after other nodes. This is how you already think, and FreeMind ought to support it. --Perholm 22:39, 13 Sep 2007 (PDT)

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

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 (and maybe in the future this list can be saved). 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)

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.)
• Is there a simple and quick way to erase a note? If there is, it is not in an intuitive place. Perhaps right-clicking the note icon and getting a "Remove" in a context menu would be a way of doing it. Or just a "Remove Note" in the ordinary context menu when you right-click on a node. And a "Remove Note" in the Insert menu (like the "Remove Reminder" in "Tools").
• 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.
• Beta 13: The Long Node Editor shows nodes without a background color with the background color of the next higher node with a background color. This is of course irritating.

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 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

taskreport "Gantt" { 
  columns start {title "Start"},name, end {title "End"}, duration, chart 
  #loadunit days
  #hideresource 1
 } 

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

taskreport "My Tasks"

Include Files (TJI)

Mindmap with defined TASKS and RESOURCES 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..)

In TaskJuggler our project will look like this:

Download

Here you can download full example.

Freemind version info

You have to compile FreeMind from CVS to use this functionality (FreeMind ver. 0.9.0 beta 9, CVS tag: fm_060405_integration)

The rest new features

Icons

User icons

User icons can be added. PNG files of the icons have to be added to the folder .../.freemind/icons. All *.png files in .../.freemind/icons are handled as user icons.

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.
• If a Latex formula is added to the root, the edges of the lower nodes should not go "through" the formula box. They should lie "behind".

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:

• When the dialog is opened the first time (and thus no pattern is chosen) the column with the pattern names gets too narrow when you chose a pattern. When you reopen the dialog (after you have chosen a pattern before you closed the dialog), the column with the names has the right size. --Terkor 18:57, 2 Sep 2007 (PDT)
• 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.

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?

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?
• 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)?
• 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).
• 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 selected nodes (like in IE or FF)?

Export Filters

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.

General Bugs

• 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 13) working almost perfectly, as far as I can see. Good work! Only if there is for example bold or underlined text in a nodes text the space to the rest of the text is not displayed that perfectly on every zoom level. ;-) --Terkor 18:08, 2 Sep 2007 (PDT)
• ) 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: If the edge color of a child of the root is chosen to match the background color of the map (in order to hide the edge), there seams to be a hole in the roots edge where the invisible edge emerges. This did not happen in FreeMind 0.8.
• ) Beta 12 always opens showing Note Window and Left Toolbar, even when I hid them in the last session. FreeMind should remember my last settings again. --Terkor 10:21, 26 Aug 2007 (PDT)
• ) Beta 12: When I hide Note Window by using the View Menu or the Context Menu and when I then hide or show the Toolbar Menu, the Note Window reappears. (This does not happen when I close the Note Window with the little triangle on its edge.) --Terkor 10:23, 26 Aug 2007 (PDT)
• ) Beta 12: Hidden Note Window opens when Filter is activated or deactivated (this does not happen when Note Window was closed with the little triangle on its edge). --Terkor 18:34, 27 Aug 2007 (PDT)

General Comments

• Moving a branch from one side of the root to the other - the text and child branches should "flip" to enable this
• 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 --xgw 24 Aug 2007
• 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)
• 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)