Requests for enhancements
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We prefer that you send your requests for enhancements here. Please look first if a similar request for enhancement already exists, using Ctrl + F. Also, there is a section of requests for enhancements at FreeMind's project page at SourceForge. Features in development2006-07-16. The development team of FreeMind is currently working on the following features. (We cannot guarantee that the features will actually make it into the next release; most of them should.)
NodesAutomatic Numbering of NodesA key feature of MindJet and Simtech mindmaps is the ability to toggle a numbers on or numbers off view. This makes a large mindmap more workable, because everyone can quickly reference specific nodes by the node number(s). This is especially useful after converting a map to Open Office or Word, so you have a numbered outline. The numbers would be the logical parent-child relationship seen in outlining or data modeling. The number should be displayed above the node text with a dashed line or shading to distinguish it from the node text. The user should also have the option to display numbers with dots, or without dots (to reduce the length). When a node is moved, deleted, etc. - the maps numbers are auto-recalculated to show the new relationships. This enhancement (along with spell check) would make FreeMind a more useable business tool. GregA FullACK. The feature should allow to have all/selected nodes ISO2145-numbered (in map-view or at least on export). I believe this would not be too difficult to implement. (Probably in 0.9.0 this can be done more or less easily by Groovy-scripting, but maybe it would just turn into a standard-feature for everybody, if it was included into one of the standard-menus.) Thanks, Golgol Automatic word wrap in NodetextI'd like to see this feature. I want for example set a default max node width. So the text will wrap when this width is reached. This would make mindmaps more readable and easier to edit. nautsch Edit: I just noticed, that it is possible by giving "width=" to the body tag in html mode (or rich formatting) but it would be nice having this in plain text mode, too. Export and ImportImport and Export databasesAny database connectivity would be nice to have, especially import, be it either via ODBC or MySQL. Thanks, UndiFineD Corresponding requests for enhancement. Filesystem Integration complimenting Import/ExportDefinitely powerful would be the use of a node to view/edit the contents of a local file instead of an in-program node. This could effectively replace a lot of import/export functions, as a mindmap could be stored as a folder instead of as a single file, so that clients could extract wanted nodes without having to bring their freemind executable. Secondly, while native viewers do not yet exist, it could help users access their data nodes in extraneous formats. Some ideas. Loading viewers for certain data nodesNow that nodes can be given attributes, it isn't too that farfetched to create different kinds of viewers/editors for different kinds of nodes - or to load viewers for those nodes specifically. Completely virtual nodesLikewise, nodes whose content relies entirely on an external text (or other) file could be created which could be parsed back as text to freemind when viewed. Directory operationsFreemind's heirarchical structure of node viewing makes it an interesting way to organize directories. Exporting from command lineA feature I would really like would be to be able to do export programatically from cmdline.. something like: Exporting Legend of used IconsIt would be nice when a legend would be attached to the exported graphs, explaining the meaning of the icons used in the map. Would support usability for everyone who doesn't know what the freeMind icons should mean; even if they should be intuitive. Export to OpenOfficeNow that you can attach notes to nodes, it would be great to be able to directly export a mindmap as an OpenOffice writer document. This would make FreeMind very handy for outlining essays. (I'm guessing that this could be done with an xslt script, if there is anyone who is any good with xslt). (There is a program on Linux, Kdissert which already does something similar and would serve as a good model -- http://freehackers.org/~tnagy/kdissert/)
Unfortunately there seems to be some problem though with opening the files in version 2 of OpenOffice. I haven't had a chance to go and check against the 1.x versions.
Export to OpenOffice ImpressI wonder how difficult it would be to export into Impress presentation. The Nodes cen be Slide Headers, Subnodes can be Outlines and so on. Then Notes can be exported into Slide Notes. One can do a presentation off the screen, give away handouts with full notes to keep. --Koaster 08:48, 7 Aug 2006 (PDT) Export to Scalable Vector Graphics format (SVG)Available in FreeMind 0.8.0 RC2. Yes! I'd love to see something done with scalable vector graphics, or some such... I really wish Freemind could export to SVG, or maybe even flash... -- Bruce And happily, developers are thinking the same thing: -- Here's Dimitri on that very possibility in forum thread. Export to Flash or teach Flash to view mmSVG, however, is still not widely supported - not even in desktop browsers, so it is mostly a way to exchange drawings and print. Exporting to Flash or having a Flash viewer that displayed .mm files (after all, ActionScript can now load XML data easily) would enable quick and effortless integration with current Web browsers without requiring them to install the Sun JVM (which can be a major issue in some environments). Export to LaTeXFeb 10,2005. MindMapping concept is perfect when organizing the structure of a document. I believe that it would be a great feature if freemind could directly export a mindmap as a LaTeX file (using the text of the main node for the title, the text of the main branches for \section and so on). In the mean time (and since I know nothing about java) I wrote this perl script to translate mm->tex. Any improvements are welcome. I will mantain this utility here, but I hope this feature will be included in freemind one day. Export and import to GanttprojectThis link takes you directly to the download and instructions for the export / import xslt files : export / import to ganttproject via xslt in Freemind 0.8 you can use "File->Export->Using XSLT" to export a ".gan" file using the xslt file from the link above Export to favorites or bookmarksRequests for enhancements: Export to ontology formats (OWL, DAML)Requests for enhancements: Export and import to OPMLRequests for enhancements: See also OPML. OPML - Outline Processor Markup Language. Export branch as folder treeA function like "export folder structure" would be useful for the use cases of bookmark manager, and of project preparation. I use Bookmark Manager from SourceForge, a very nice project. I found that importing bookmarks into FreeMind is a great option, if there only was a plugin to export them, Freemind would work as a perfect bookmark manager. Plus, Freemind would work as a nice 'project manager' for creating directory-trees for large projects, at least I see I could find it very usable in my projects which require managing a lot of project files. Creating such structure in Freemind and then exporting it would be very usable. Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 18:10:33 +0200 Import through any XSLT filterThe File->Import Menu should have an item "using xslt" (just as File->Export has "using xslt") This would ease the integration of costum transformations (e.g. ganttchart <-> freemind) Export and import to GraphVizExport to epsIntegrate with Microsoft Outlooksupport for adding specially labeled nodes to Outlook's calendar and Outlook's todo list.
Import/Export in various Calendar formatsThe idea being that I can import can a list of meetings, or tasks into Freemind. They would be imported into a sub-node and then i can redistribute them in my mindmap as I want. -- Thanx AP SearchingRequests for enhancements: Further searching requests.
Notes of NodesNote enhancements in 0.9 beta 7 ...
Shortcut for adding a note to a nodeIt would be nice if there was a shortcut for adding a note to a node In mousing from the selected node to the menu in order to reach the Insert->Note menu item, I often overfly another node: the selection changes, which is a useability feature I like very much - but then the note drops on the newly-selected node, which is not where I wanted it. Mechanism to delete a note from a nodeI have not found a way to delete a note from a node.
Option to keep Notes window openMany but not all of the nodes in a map have notes. As I mouse around the map, the Notes window pops into and out of existence. This is distracting: I would like an option to keep the Notes window open, and see its text update if the selected node has a note. Option to position Notes window at rightI would like the Notes window to be at the right; others may prefer it at the bottom. Attach note to a nodeRequests for enhancements:
Many people want to have a note attached to a node. Some mind mapping programs have this feature. In my view, such a feature creates a basis for splitting of uses. I would expect long nodes to contain paragraphs or even small articles; I have such nodes, both plain and HTML. I also have long nodes containing nicely set HTML tables. An XSLT transforming script can either assume that paragraphs are in the long nodes or that they are in the notes; not both. Different uses would then require different XSLT scripts. Searching would need to be extended to also search through notes. Notes of different nodes, unlike nodes themselves, cannot be made visible on the canvas at the same time. Without note, every piece of the text in the mind map is a node and therefore first class citizen; it is allowed for it to have children, and whatever feature is offered to other nodes (like icons, time reminders, changing of the default color and the like) is offered to it as well. Screenshots showing how long nodes can be used follow. Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination
Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination
Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination
As this is such a requested feature, I'd like to invite you to discuss pros and cons here. --Danielpolansky 11:47, 15 Feb 2005 (PST)
Maybe it could help to add something like a 'keep-folded' property to a node. Idea behind it: A node with 'keep-folded' set is not shown, when the parent of it is unfolded. You would need extra handling for setting the property or showing those 'moved to the background' nodes though. But that way a note could just be a node with that property set. I think a property like that could be helpful in other contexts, too. If you use the Mind Map as a todo-list, you could keep done ((sub-)sub-)...)subtasks folded for example. Hilmar
Copy/Export note(s) of node(s)WYSIWYG & note editor ... are very inviting for extensive usage of notes.
AlesPoredos --ap 07:26, 28 Sep 2006 (PDT) MiscMultiple Maps at StartupWhen I start FreeMind it loads the last map I worked on, which is very good. I can have multiple maps open, which I juse a lot, so I can work on multiple projects at the same time. However when I close FreeMind and open it again, it only loads the last active map. It would be very usefull if it loaded all the maps that was open when FreeMind was closed, so I quickly can continue to work on my ongoing projects. Single Copy MultipleThe Single Copy command is used to grab stuff to duplicate without also copying all child nodes. For example I have numbered items that I keep in an "Unresearched" node, and the same numbered items in a "Researched" Node. Instead of entering the node #'s of 1 - 20 several times, I would like to be able to use the Copy Single command while selecting multiple items. Obviously it would have to be renamed "Copy Without Children" or something similar. Just keeping the command the same but adding support for multiple selection would help me a lot. Then I could copy items 1 - 20 and paste them somewhere else in one shot.
Print across pagesWould be great to have a possibility to print spanning over several pages if mind map is huge. Hint: In 0.8.0 this is possible if you deactivate the "scale to one page" checkbox in the page format dialog and enters a scale factor like "1.0". But there seems to be a little bug; if I enter just "1" as scale factor the output is still scaled to fit on one page. Print out of notesI think it is a very good idea to add the possibility to print out the notes toogether with the map(on a seperate page/pages), something like as in the expot of HTML sides. Print previewI would like to have a print preview dialog to see if my manually set scale factor (defined in the page format dialog) is ideal. Auto scale to fit several pagesAs RFE 972845 another has already provided code to have FreeMind scale the output to fit several pages. It would be really nice to have this enhancement in the normal code base. CalculationsI think that is good idea to add possibility to associate numeric values with nodes and make top nodes to recursively calculate sum of child nodes' values. This feature will turn FreeMind into easy and visual way to do home accounting or resource planning. Adding, removing or dragging child nodes between parents must cause sum to update. More complex feature - adding multiplication factors to parent nodes.
Support for Unicode and RTL languagesI think that the inclusion of better support for Unicode and RTL languages such as Hebrew and Arabic would allow a larger number of people to use Freemind as their mind-mapping tool of choice.
Use UTF-8 in the XML file to store unicode characters
Support general graphs rather than treesSome users want FreeMind to support general graphs rather than only trees. To an extent, their wish is covered by what we call arrow links, and what is called connectors in Microsoft Powerpoint. FreeMind's arrow links are not that powerful as connectors, but that can be improved. Still, FreeMind is not planned to become a general graph editor, or a concept mapper. Some years ago there was a discussion on that in Open Discussion forum, followed by a concluding consideration by me where the final position on the issue is stated together with an explanation. --Danielpolansky 11:56, 27 Jul 2005 (PDT) Always OnI would like to minimize to the system tray(for Windows). Or better yet, let's run FreeMind as a transparent window docked to the desktop. Like my brain, I like to always have FreeMind on in the background. Regardless, thanks!
Better File Operations, Restore Workspace, New File ExtensionOn Mac OS X at least, the file dialog is buggy - it does not show network drives or my iDisk. Also, it would be useful to have FreeMind re-open the last edited file (and restore the workspace as it was when the user last quit). Still, the most annoying thing is the .mm filename extension - that extension is tied to Obj-C code files in Mac OS X, and probably on other platforms as well. Maybe .mind or .mmp? -- RuiCarmo File Dialog ImprovementsThe file dialogs could use some minor improvements. I would like the dialog boxes for load and save to remember what directory they were in and start from there the next time the dialog is open. Also, if you try to open a file from the "recent files" list but the file no longer exists, there is no warning from freemind. It would be better to have a "file not found" warning, and better still to remove the bad entry from the list when that happens. --fist_187 It would be better not to "remember what directory they were in", but add possibility to choose "Default directory" in Preferences, which will be opened automatically whenever you save or load something. --Elwin
Crosslinking NodesThe possibility to create cross-references between nodes which are already part of the mindmap tree would be a great feature. In many real-life mindmaps items could not be categorized in one and only one category. The possibility to visualize these dependencies would be a great advantage over other mindmap solutions. Something like this is already implemented in Freemind by selecting two nodes and pressing STRG+L. For enhancing this feature the following aspects should receive attention:
Unlimited/Arbitrary AttributesWe use a couple of different products (including an internally developed one) to manage requirements. In each case we have the ability to assign arbitrary attributes to requirements at any level in the structure (e.g., Type=�Priority� Value=�High� or Type=�Source� Value=�Mike Jones�). To support migration between Freemind and these requirements management tools, Freemind should allow X number of attributes per requirement. Though I know this concept would scare the minimalists. -- unknown And a custom plugin might read these values, then calculate and display something on the map, e.g. an indicator or an aggregate. -- abadger 30 May 2006 (or even just set the colour or insert a tick or cross icon) --Violetlight 15:24, 2 Aug 2006 (PDT) It would be really nice if as well as text attributes, we could support check or radio buttons (e.g. "done", or "priority H/M/L") Node-specific actionsAt the moment, there is one "action" on a node (discounting the usual edit/cut/paste etc) - navigate to the target link.
I can see a reason to have more than one action on a node, depending on the semantics of the map's content, and specifically the storage backend or plugin. For example, a map that was a live visualisation of the tree structure of a website could have an action to navigate to a page, to check it with a W3C validator, to edit the page, to submit it to a search engine etc etc. These actions would be defined by the plugin supplying the data content, or by other plugins resident - e.g. "schedule this node" for the time scheduling plugin or "bookmark this node's target" for a (possible future) Google Bookmarking plugin.
I'd welcome feedback on whether this is a nutcase idea. --Violetlight 15:16, 2 Aug 2006 (PDT) Images in freemindI really like the way freemind can use images as nodes. However, one of the problems with adding a lot of images to a map is that they are all different sizes. So, I wrote this php script: <?php
$tsize = 100; //thumbnail size
function noresize($name)
{
global $argv;
$fullpath = $argv[1] . "$name";
echo "<node TEXT=\"<html>";
echo "<img src="$fullpath"/> \"";
echo " FOLDED=\"true\">\n</node>\n";
}
function thumbit($name, $w, $h)
{
global $argv;
$fullpath = $argv[1] . "$name";
echo "<node TEXT=\"<html><img src="$fullpath"";
echo " width="$w" height="$h"\" FOLDED=\"true\">\n";
echo "<node TEXT=\"<html><img src="$fullpath"\"";
echo " FOLDED=\"true\">\n</node>\n";
echo "<node LINK=\"$fullpath\" TEXT=\"$name\">\n</node>\n";
echo "</node>\n";
}
if ($argc < 3)
{
die("usage: " . $argv[0] . " IMAGEPATH IMAGE1 [[IMAGE2] ... ]\n");
}
echo "<map version=\"0.7.1\">\n<node TEXT=\"Ian's image generator\"";
echo " FOLDED=\"true\">\n";
for ($i=2; $i<$argc; $i++)
{
$myimg = $argv[$i];
$props = getimagesize($myimg);
$w = $props[0];
$h = $props[1];
if ($w <= $tsize && $h <= $tsize) //too small
{
noresize($myimg);
}
else if ($w < $h) //resize height to 100, scale width
{
$w = intval(($tsize * $w) / $h);
$h = $tsize;
thumbit($myimg, $w, $h);
}
else //resize width to 100, scale height
{
$h = intval(($tsize * $h) / $w);
$w = $tsize;
thumbit($myimg, $w, $h);
}
}
echo "</node>\n</map>\n";
?>
This is a command line PHP script, so to use it under linux you would type something like: $ php freemindImgGen.php "file:////path/to/prepend/to/images/" image1.jpg [image2.jpg ... ] This will output the text for a new mind map (direct it to a file of your choice) with each image thumbnailed in its own node. The images should all be in the same directory (for some reason, relative paths for images don't seem to work). Each thumbnailed image will have 2 child nodes: one node with the full size image and one node with the filename of the image as a freemind link. Anyway, the reason that I'm posting this here in the request section instead of the user contributions section is that I would like to see this behavior ported into freemind itself. This would be a better behavior for when you drag-and-drop an image file into freemind, as it does just about everything you would want to do with an image in one shot. --fist_187
Node Cloning or Mirroring (aka soft links)Requests for enhancements: One feature request that has attracted a lot of attention from users is what they call node cloning or mirorring. This amounts to enabling a node to have more than one fathers. That is, such a node appears visually at more places of a map, still, has only one structure and data. Linking a node graphically to more parts of a map is already possible, but users proposing cloning would like to see more visually integrated approach. Users get encouraged by the fact that the hierarchical application LEO already has such a feature. This feature has been discussed at forums under threads Cloning of nodes and Node cloning/mirroring.
Mindmap-WikisCreating a mixture of Freemind and a Wiki would be very interesting. It would be shown on the web, and editable by everybody, like a Wiki, but it would not be text-only but a FreeMind's mind map instead. That is, provide FreeMind user interface to the underlying wiki technology, handling versioning and other issues. Is there any use of wiki markup in this scenario? Current wiki technology like MediaWiki is already quite attractive in its present state. Either FreeMind interface would be the only one, which would in my view discourage most of the users, or FreeMind interface would be alternative to a web interface, which would require FreeMind to understand wiki markup. This considered, I hold such a project for too expensive compared to the value it brings. Quite another issue is collaborative mind mapping. This issue is similar to wiki, but here the wiki name does not properly apply as neither wiki markup nor wiki's versioning concept applies. --Danielpolansky 13:24, 18 Feb 2005 (PST) Ok, GraphViz is not really mindmapping, but oddmuse-wiki in colaboration with graphviz is really fascinating, take a look (and don't forget to follow the "Edit the text of the Page"-link): http://wiki.doomicile.de/LinuxMuleHistory -- HinnerK
I would suggest starting with a simple save-to-WebDAV option, and then following it up with a standardized XML-RPC interface (maybe Atom would be too complex). Having some sort of hooks into node editing operations in the code would be useful, so that people could develop plugins of some sort to perform the actual HTTP transactions live from the applet version -- RuiCarmo The first thing that came to my mind while opening FreeMind for the very first time was: "Would it be possible to integrate Wiki in FreeMind?". Currently I am working with a project management software (named Trac) which integrates a Wiki Engine. It is a kind of colaborative project management solution, and it has encouraged all the team to document and activelly contribute to each other´s tasks. Maybe WikiFreeMind :-) could be something similar. I don´t think that FreeMind being the only one interface to be an issue, I think it would be great if we could use wiki formatting inside FreeMind nodes. It would be easy (a gross guess) to allow Wiki-links between nodes, or wiki/web-pages outside the map. It would not be too difficult to do a kind of serialization of the map as a Wiki Database, each node being a wiki page, following the extension mechanics proposed by WikiMedia, you could allow wiki tags that would keep track of the properties of the node as a serialized wiki-page. It´s pretty much brainstorming, but I think it would be possible to use FreeMind as a Wiki Navigator, and the Web Browser + Wiki Engine as a Node Editor. --loudenvier 17:15, 05 Apr 2005 (BRA) Have a look at the WikkaWiki software. My zero programming skills don't let me to grasp how it works or what it does. But it seems pretty interesting. It allows to insert FreeMind maps into the wiki. here's a inline example. --Calamar 04:31, 20 Dec 2005 (PST) Applet allowing editing mind maps.Requests for enhancements: It would be fine to edit a map via applet and save it to a webserver directory.
Saving maps using WebDAVLet FreeMind read from and save to WebDAV server. Repeatedly requested. According to the WebDAV website,
===Changing attributes by depth level.=== Wouldn't it be good if nodes could have levels (defined as outward from the centre) so that you could change color, font and other node properties by level. For instace, all nodes of level two would have red bubbles. OR Allow user to define default level attributes to be applied when a branch is made. The most common one being font size and edge width. Undefined attributes like colour should flow down. This is just the desired default at creation time and may be changed. Branches further out than the deepest defined default all inherit from previous branch. Integrated Google web searchHow about an accessory software that would input FreeMind's XML and conduct Google and Google News searches on all nodes plus their neighbours? If anything useful is found (and there would be less than x hits), it would *wget* them and add links to the material to the map. Run this as a cronjob and your mind map will always have new ideas when you open FreeMind again.
MIDlet for editing with mobile phonesMIDlet idea entry front-end is a MUST! I want to be able to do mind mapping with my mobile phone and then upload the changes to the main map on my desktop.
Have floating textbox for titles or commentsHi I would like to request a feature, namely a title and/or comment at the beginning/end of page to be able to use it in presentations, where I would have my name on top right. I would suggest that there is no link to other nodes just a kind of text box. Maybe there are more people thinking about this nice addon? Request for enhancements:
An editable tree view (like the html export)With such view I can imagine freemind to be useable an smaller devices like an ipaq running familiar (or ppc). Can you run freemind on such devices? --Alex A non graphic tree view modeSimilar request as Alex. A non-graphic linear mode would be usefull ! The graphic mode is the best to organise and visualise the information, but a simple linear tree mode is more comfortable for reading and editing large portion of text. It would also allow to access the same databases on a small screen. Freemind has become one of my most important tools on my Pc and I am dreaming to use it on a symbian phone too. Thank you so much. Franck Option not to open last opened file upon startUsers request that they should get a user option to tell FreeMind not to open the last opened file upon start. Seems like a sensible request to me. --Danielpolansky 10:07, 2 Jun 2006 (PDT) ToughGraph like dynamic layoutRequests for enhancements:
I think FreeMind would become much more powerful (not to mention cool looking) if it had a dynamic mode without a root node. It would be great if arbitrary links (not just parent/child) between any nodes were supported, if text size and colors would dynamically adjust according to the distance, relevance and other factors, and if the layout would be dynamic, with the graph rearranging itself on the fly. More details at the TouchGraph site ([1]), and at this page: [2]).
I agree that alternatives to the hierarchical view are important and the whole advantage of using visual mapping in the first place --Ryba 17:16, 27 Oct 2005 (PDT) More flexible Resize OptionsWhat about the following resize possibilities: --TMaschler 01:46, 17 Feb 2005 (PST)
Resizing should be able to resize a node and the text dynamically wraps and changes the size of the box. The current approach requires hard returns to resize the text boxes.--Ryba 17:06, 27 Oct 2005 (PDT) Easier to delete nodesA relatively straightforward enhancement: the Node/Remove Node on the popup menu could be moved to the main popup menu, under 'Insert Child Node'. It would probably be better server by being called 'Delete Child Node'. I think it would also be fantastic if it had a shortcut key - Del probably being the most suitable. I find it a right pain to delete nodes (I notice someone submitted an RFE on sourceforge asking for a delete function, clearly not being aware there already was one - I think this indicates it needs moving!) David Perez comment: An alternative I use is to cut the node in order to delete it.
Torsten Gräßler comment:
Most of the times you delete something and sooner or later you find out that you actually need that thing again. Undo is good, but once you have closed FreeMind it's lost forever. Wouldn't it be nice to have a .trash file to accompany every .mm file just to make things easier? --Anonymous.
StatisticsRequests for features: Show the statistics
on the node level or a map level (once you can do node level, you also can do map level). Thousands of new iconsEnhancing the number and variety of icons to the sufficient amout would definetely increase versatility of FreeMind. Plenty of small pictures it is a must if you want to organize your knowledge (e.g. notes from collage), so that every 'key info' could be easily remembered. The more icons that help associating the information the better - I would like to see pictures of man, men, woman, women, tree, chair, table and so on - any thing you can imagine, categorized. I know I can use external pictures, but it's really inconvenient if I have to look for each picture on the Internet for a few minutes while creating a new map. Built-in icons would be a great help.
it would be great if i would able to add or delete icons in to the toolbar my self. 22.2.05 by erwin Not sure if the hyperlink arrows count as icons, but it would be good if they could be colour coded; eg blue arrow for a hyperlink to a local file on the local computer, yellow for a file located on the local network, red arrow for a hyperlink to a html site, Green arrow for a local hyperlink
--h3 11:00, 27 Jul 2006 Zooming With Scroll ButtonBeing able to pan by holding down the right-hand mouse button and twiddling the scroll wheel is great. What would help navigation a little more would be to zoom in and out by holding down, say, the left-hand mouse button. Requests for enhancements: User defined iconsRequests for enhancements Keep custom/unknown XML tags when savingRequests for enhancements: Collaborative editing of mind mapsRequests for enhancements:
Conference-like editing of a shared map. When one user adds a node, other users get display update, and vice versa. Rather demanding request, but also potentially highly useful. --Violetlight 09:30, 2 Aug 2006 (PDT): Problems to solve in this area:
Allow for mathematical formulas using LaTeX or MathMLRequests for enhancements: People want to type in mathematical formulas in text markup and see something good looking when not edited. User attributes or tags of a nodeRequests for enhancements: For user editable using a popping up table. File format example: <node TEXT="Tagged"> <tag NAME="cost" VALUE="500¬"/> <tag NAME="todo" VALUE="yes"/> </node> Rich text formatting of nodesRequests for enhancements: Rich text formatting includes boldface, italics, font colors, tables and the like. It is already possible using HTML in nodes. What's missing is the GUI support for editing HTML nodes. Another thing missing is pasting of RTF - Rich Text Format directly into FreeMind. Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) in nodesNodes could store and view scalable vector graphics (SVG). Currently, nodes certainly can store SVG, but only its source code is displayed. It should be possible that SVG is displayed like graphics. Editing of SVG can be done using external programs like Inkscape, or using an SVG editing component written in Java. Viewing of SVG could perhaps be achieved using Apache's Batik framework. How fast, and how much more memory consuming it would be is unclear. Enable spell checkingRequests for enhancements: Add label to edgesRequests for enhancements:
Add label to arrow linkFilter nodes by their iconsRequests for enhancements Set filter on a given node, as a list of icon names. When such a filter is set, only those descendands of the filtered node are shown that satisify the filter. A node satisfies the filter, if one of its icons is in the filter's set of icons, or one of its descendants satisfies the filter.
Insert Current Date and HourFeb 25,2005. It would be nice to have a button to insert in a node the current date and/or hour. Thanks!
It would be great if a time stamp would be created automaticaly wehn creating a new nod. It should only be displayed when a special "Date-Button" is aktive!
Simple Trick for KDE Users2005-09-29-11:16:32-PDT This will be a really nice feature in general. In the mean time, you can use the following method if you are using KDE. Under KDE, you can insert the current date and time (like the one above) into klipper by binding the following command to a key combination (for example, Ctrl-Alt-C): dcop klipper klipper setClipboardContents `date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H:%M:%S-%Z"` After this, Ctrl-Alt-C followed by Ctrl-v should allow you to insert the date, in a format of your choice, into any document (including freemind). Support for callto: protocolAs pointed out in a forum posting, support for callto: protocol would be helpful. If this was fully integrated, it would allow integrated voice and mind-map collaboration. For example passing "opinion sections" of a draft map between participants with a voiceover prior to including them into a collated and agreed version. Another example might be calling between the participants of a (limited) brainstorm as the brainstorm was first diverged and then converged within the mapping tool. --Violetlight 09:17, 2 Aug 2006 (PDT) Ability for arrows to have text associated, or be full nodesRelated To 1167198 non-tree graph (concept map?) I have a need in my current project (uni), to show heirarchies of risks, causes, and parties involved. Associated among these varying levels of heirarchies I have created arrows indicating relationship (affects-this, causes-something-else etc.), the color of the arrows indicating the relationship. It would be helpful to be able to put labels on the arrows. Actually more important than this, arrows should be full nodes, Allowing different objects to be attached as children (including other arrows). Admittedly giving arrows the ability to be full nodes may invite abuse & cause complexity, however informational-relations are themselves complex (solution should be as simple as possible, no simpler). Coding would perhaps be more elegent to allow for more than 1 child node in the code, but have a limit placed by higher-level code? (i.e. no children of children, even though the arrow objects themselves may allow for this) Object StylesIt would be nice to have the ability to set styles for an object, and be able to select styles (styles would perhaps be associated per object-type) when creating objects. Objects include nodes, edges and arrow links. Using styles, the physical formatting shall no longer be set for a node but rather for a style. An example XML representation may be: <map>
<style ID="S1" LABEL="Urgent" OBJECTTYPE="node"
COLOR="#404040" BACKGROUNDCOLOR="#FFFFE0"/>
<node TEXT="Root">
<node STYLEID="S1" TEXT="Styled node"/>
</node>
</map>
It is not clear if the user may set the ID himself. Then it perhaps should not be ID but rather NAME. XSLT transforming sheets refer either to ID or to NAME rather than to LABEL of style. Hyperlinks to Programs with ArgumentsIn addition to (followable) hyperlinks to web-pages, to local folders, to executable programs, and to executable files (e.g. "datasheet.xls"), it would also be nice to have hyperlinks to programs with arguments and switches such as: "notepad myfile.bat" or "explorer.exe /n,/e,C:\" --Lhg 01:11, 18 Apr 2005 (PDT) Yes...I am using freemind for System Administration: And it is quite excellent, to have nodes for every computer and user on my system with child nodes for services, nfsmounts, etc... but i would like very much to be able to link to the other computers with executables like # ssh mynfsserver.mynetwork emacs /etc/exports or # ssh mykrb5server.mynetwork emacs /etc/kdc/kdc.conf Show multiple maps in tabsXEmacs shows multiple documents at tabs at the top. Microsoft Excel shows multiple sheets of a document at tabs at the bottom. Although this is not a standard user interface model, seems quite useful for FreeMind. Various users requested this feature. --Danielpolansky 11:38, 30 Apr 2005 (PDT) Show multiple pages of the one map in tabsConceptDraw MindMap has this feature. Right-click on a node, select "send to new page", and the node with its children appears in a separate tab in the same document. This avoids the need to spawn extra files when your map becomes unwieldy and you want to chop off a branch. It is hyperlinked to and from its location on the original page. Why use this instead of exporting to a new file? Because when the "new" map is conceptually part of the original map from which it was extracted, it is tidier and less error-prone to keep it in the same file. It won't get lost. And with a new page, instead of a new file, the user is saved from having to think of a meaningful file name for the extracted section. Node names do not necessarily make good file names. Allow more maps to be shown side by sideIn XEmacs, Vim or Microsoft Excel, it is possible to see several documents side by side. It would make sense for FreeMind too. Nevertheless, the added value is questionable. --Danielpolansky 11:38, 30 Apr 2005 (PDT) Direct pasting of RTF from clipboardIn one of the future versions, direct pasting of HTML into FreeMind will be supported; the code for it already exists and has not been published yet. In addition, direct pasting of RTF as HTML would be helpful. A free algorithm for conversion between RTF and HTML is needed for that. RTF (rich text format) is used in email messages in Microsoft Outlook, and in hierarchical notebooks Key Note and TuxCards. --Danielpolansky 03:36, 22 May 2005 (PDT) Lock Contents and Hierarchical Position of a NodeIt will be really nice to be able to lock the contents of a node so it cannot be edited unless it is explicitly unlocked. Similarly, it might be useful to prevent a node from being moved to another position in the hierarchy of the map. Better Placement of New "Secondary" Nodes Relative to the Root NodeWhen adding nodes to the root node, they appear to be placed Right, Left, Right, Left. If some of these secondary nodes are deleted and another one is added to the root node, the side on which it is added appears to be chosen according to the number of secondary nodes on each side. This seems fair enough, but if some of the secondary nodes have hundreds of child nodes and others only have a few then you can end up with a map which has far more nodes on the right than the left, but still have new secondary nodes added on the right hand side. How about using the total number of nodes on each side when working out whether a secondary node should be on the right or left of the root node? Alternatively, allow secondary nodes to be dragged onto the other side of the root node (which doesn't appear to be possible currently).
Using basic vector shapesUsing basic shapes like line, rectangle, square, circle etc. would by usefull.
Treat a node as HTML using an attributeInstead of the cumbersome "<html>" string required at the beginning of the text. And even worse, having to keep the MaxNodeWidth enforced with something like <body width="600">. Why not take a different approach. One that seems like it would have little impact on the code, though I have not read it as of yet... If html was treated as an attribute like bold and italic as in html="true", then process the entire node as html same as when the string "<html>" is detected at the beginning of the text. There would be a default <style>body {width:<MaxNodeWidth>}</style> in place, though the actual html in the node could override this just the way normal CSS does. This has MAJOR implications for the use of the xml file. Though I have not written any XSLT yet for FreeMind yet, I was appalled at the thought of having to strip out this "<html>" string out of every node that used it. And positively frustrated at the idea of having to test for tags used to control width, i.e. <body width="600">. I really thought this crude and that it would slow the proceesing of files that use what is really a most beautifully clean concept. However, an html attribute does away with all of this and seems to me to be a much more elegant and cleanly way to deal with html.... BTW, it would be very straight forward to write an XSLT transform to upgrade existing .MM files. I just had another thought, why not go all the way and give each node a MIME type, limited to "text/plain" (default) and "text/html" for now. This leaves the door open to readily process other mime types through plugins, or whatever. In any case the attribute concept is something worth thinking about. --danv 10:25, 8 Feb 2006 (PST) Add pictures to notesAdd a picture to a note of a node. It would be cool to export a map to HTML (Clickable Map) and have the picture only in the note. Whis would be the logical implementation for e.g. overview of new features in 0.8.0. It would not be needed to create extra nodes for pictures only. Code environmentPossibility to insert source code e.g. html (pre does not work...)
--Danielpolansky 05:57, 29 Apr 2006 (PDT) Alphabetize NodesAutomatically rearrange a specified node level in alphabetical order. Today I do this manually in certain circumstances. It can be very time consuming to preform this manually, and hopefully it would not be too time consuming to automate. --Slashdotted 18:22, 21 Jul 2006 (PDT) Order of NodesAccording to Buzan Mindmaps should be read clockwise. What every mindmapping tool misses is the fact that nodes on the left side of the center should be added from bottom to top, with the last entered node on the 11 position. Selection and Deselection of IconsIt would be great if the icon toolbar on the left would show different styles of an icon (selected / not-selected), so one can easily deselect an icon for a node, rather than go through the contextmenue each time Besides, it would be great if the context menu could allow remove specific icons, not just the last one. Reminder nodes - Alerts and possible Outlook / Lotus Notes / etc integrationIt would be a great additional feature if it was possible to use FreeMind as a reminder tool too. This idea poped into my mind right now, so it's not pretty much developed yet, but if it was possible to mark a node as a reminder then I would have no need to use Outlook to remind me of things to be done. I was reading something on GTD (Gets Things Done) and it connection with MindMaps and I thought that it would be useful to attach reminders to MindMaps/Nodes. There're a couple of approachs to implement it: The first would be to integrate Freemind with Outlook ot Lotus Notes, and then when you tag a node as a reminder it actually creates a reminder inside Outlook or Notes using the node text and context, so that you get reminded by those applications when the reminder alert occurs. The other option is to write an application that is used to alert user of a node reminder. Loudenvier 11:08, 11 Aug 2006 (PDT) Ganttproject/Freemind integrationIt would be very interresting to integrate Ganttproject, for a better project management. This solution would be very close from JCVGantt pro + mindmanager (http://www.gantt.fr/#). Both (Freemind and Ganttproject) are GPL, and java coded . User InterfaceWindowsIt would be especially helpful if we could reorganize the arrangement of freemind's windows. For example, nodes with notes appear at the bottom and can't be moved around. In other heirarchical editors, a tree view could appear at the left and the text (notes) could be moved to the right, where a large screen and indentation could make most of the text readable as compared to the bottom of the screen. KeyboardF1 is conventionally helpF1 is normally a help key in most apps Show a help bar on the bottom of the screen for F keysHave an optional toolbar that can be shown along bottom of screen with buttons that can be clicked with a mouse and operate as per the function keys and also give a hint as to what key does. e.g. [F1 help] [F2 hot][F3 green][F4 ] [F5] And format the text of the key as per the pattern it applies Enforce Default Per-Line Text Width For Long NodesAt least 70% of the nodes are multi-line nodes, and to make all the long nodes look *uniform*, we need to manually insert line breaks for each long node, this can get pretty tedious, and also it's difficult to get all nodes of uniform width. A much better way is to have the system enforce a configurable "long node width", that adds line breaks when necessary. If no such paramater is set, it can default to the current behavior. Locking Node Focus =Currently the node focus is "set" by moving the mouse. The last node that the mouse flys over is the default focus node, and subsequent operations like "insert an icon" is performed will be performed on that node. It would be really helpful to be able to *manually* lock the focus on a node, this way it's easier to set an icon (all the way to the left side of the screen) to the right node. Toggle for Re-centering the Map upon node selection =I love FreeMind and yet I still dream of a more and better version. Under the mouse section, I have suggested a toggle to enable and disable the mouse fly-overs select node mechanism. It would also be nice if there was some means to recenter the map upon node selection to make that section of the map the graphical focus. The most compelling form of refocusing large mind maps are ThinkMap's Visual Thesaurus, The Brain, The WebBrain. Of course, being a user and not a programmer, I can only imagine how much work that might take. Perhaps, you might find it useful to forge a collaboration with the SourceForge Hypergraph Project and ask them to build an export to Hypergraph module for you. One note of caution: Straightforward implementation of a hypergraphs compress large peripheral nodes into a small and unreadable overlapping space. This defeats the value of the hypergraph navigation. Thinkmap has solved that problem by forcing peripheral nodes to be well-spaced for readability.
I love the flexibility FreeMind provided to make my mindmap pretty. For each node, I can choose the font size, format, color...The choices are so many that making the changes with mouse is a little bit slow because the choices are buried in many sub-menus. The physical style provides a short-cut. But the styles are not attractive. Why not provide a tool so that the user can define a node format (including font size, format, color and icon et al) and associate it to F3~F9 and Ctrl +F1~F9. So after I type in the content, by pushing one key, the node can be customized within a second. MouseScroll wheel zoom Operationa) It would be nice to be able to zoom using just the scroll wheel rather than pressing CTRL at the same time. How about a user preference/option to control this. This is similar to many other Apps e.g. Excel ie wheel = zoom or pan b) The way the scroll wheel works seems opposite to many other programs which is confusing ie push wheel forward causes a zoom out whereas other apps zoom in The words "Node up" and "Node down" could be easier to understand if there was a verb in it e.g. Move node up Move node down The operation of it is great, but as a novice it is not clear if it does move up a node - ie where current cursor is moves or move the node - ie the node is moved to a different position on the diagram Coming from the graphics department, it would be really nice to have the standard mouse/keyboard navigation style (which by the way is great way of handling oversized documents and going from overview to detail view with just a few clicks): a) Space toggles View Panning b) CTRL-Space toggles zoom in (Click to zoom in, zoom centered to position of mouse cursor) c) CTRL-ALT-Space toggles zoom out (click to zoom out, zoom centered to position of mouse cursor) Tried to map CTRL-Space to zoom in, which worked, but not on mouseclick but on keydown. Additional ALT key for zoom out was not accepted at all in settings->keys
Toggle for Mouse fly-overElsewhere in this RFE, others have noted that although the mouse fly-over selection mode is great for rapid navigation, there are times when one changes the selection as the mouse cursor moves up to the toolbar. Why not toggle the mouse fly-over by some method. Perhaps one of the most convenient methods would be a left mouse double click on the node to freeze the selection. MenuToggle toolbar on/off via View MenuAdd ability to toggle display of toolbars via the menu Suggest put it under View menu Functionality as per RIGHT mouse key on a blank part of the screen As a novice found it hard to understand the difference between Map and Browse would have found it easier if it had said ALT+1 Edit map ALT+2 Browse map ALT+3 File Add a save all map iconsIf you work with several maps, it is impossible to save all maps in one shot, except if you close freemind. ToolbarsIcon toolbarCross and watebasket look like icons rather than buttonsTo a novice the delete (red cross) and delete all (wastebasket) icons look like icons ie add a cross to the map rather than perform operations especially on the popup "select icon" window. Some icons in left toolbar fall off bottom of toolbarTop toolbarOrder of icons in top toolbarWould be nice if these icons were in a more standard order (as per other apps) e.g. New, Open, save, print, cut,copy, paste with next/previous map buttons more to the right (Icons in V0.08 RC2 look a lot smarter) Font size pulldown is very widePulldown to select font size is stretching and becoming very wide, which doesn't look neat. New toolbar for format operationsMove font type and size pulldowns to new format toolbarie group all formatting functions as per Format menu options onto a format toolbar Add ability to select a default format for texte.g. have a split icon left part looks like a letter "A" in colour text is currently set to right part of icon looks like a black down arrowhead which if clicked pulls up a colour picker Add ability to select a default format for linese.g. have a split icon left part looks like a line in colour text is currently set to right part of icon looks like a black down arrowhead which if clicked pulls up a colour picker Add ability to select a default format for cloudse.g. have a split icon left part looks like a coloured outline of a cloud in colour text is currently set to right part of icon looks like a black down arrowhead which if clicked pulls up a colour picker
One-click selection of cloud colorIt would be nice not to have to go through the context-menu to change the cloud color. This should be as easy as in v0.7 by just clicking in the toolbar. ..like seen in MindManager: a small detached window that allows quick overview and repositioning of the visualized map section GesturesHow about the ability to use gestures (mouse or pen) to do basic manipulation? Click and drag right to enter new node. Click and drag left to enter new sub-node. Maybe use middle button click for gestures to avoid conflict with current capabilities. Outline ViewIt would be really nice to have the option of seeing an outline view - which you could also drag and drop with --Slashdotted 18:26, 21 Jul 2006 (PDT) AppletSince you can drag for navigation, why not allow the scrollbars to be disabled in order to increase screen real estate? MapsEditingSupport for "Detachable" or Floating NodesFreemind would be enhanced if it allowed for a user to right click on a node and detach that node from the main tree, resulting in a floating sub-tree or node. This would be an easy implementation, and it wouldn't compromise Freemind's strengths in terms of folding and hierarchy data. Furthermore, a detached node / tree could be moved back onto the main tree in the same manner a regular node is re-ordered about inside the tree. The floating node's location could be tracked relative to the root node using the shift parameters. This increase in usability wouldn't confuse new users, either, because 1) it would be easy to re-attach the floating node, and 2) Detaching a node would only be available through the right click menu This would allow for use of legends, flowcharting, etc, at minimal effort. --dlooijen 29 Jul 2005 In Mindmanager you can create floating objects like dlooijen describes above. However, a visual improvement would be that floating/free nodes could have their child nodes on any side, regardless of where it is positioned in relationship to the root node. This gives the benefit of visually showing different children (coming from different roots) that are some how related (mindmanger calls this a "relationship", not necessarily a heirarchical one). Such a view would allow for concepts of one stream to be compared to another stream more easily. This might not translate well into a document outline, but the whole purpose I use visual mapping is because I don't want to be constrained by the logic of a document outline! --ryba 27 Oct 2005
I'd like to implement sibling root nodes for this purpose, and combine the feature with "cross-linking nodes" above, so a node can have zero, 2, or more parent nodes--a dramatic generalization. In the case of "0" parents the network can still be represented in outline form by considering these detached root nodes each like an Appendix. For what it's worth, a new layout mode will have to be introduced, as in the other feature request. --abadger 30 May 2006 Would be nice to be able to add a header or footer e.g. with name of file, title, date Would be nice to add a user image e.g. logo to a page Option for centering actually selected node after selectingIf the user moves through really big map using keyboard, orientation in map is impaired a bit, if child nodes are not visible (e.g. they are behind rigth or left side of shown map part). Would be nice, if there would be a choice in options to always center the view on actually selected node. I think not a lot of work and still big help. Btw. thanks guys for making such a good program. Free positioning of nodesA node cannot be positioned above or below a parent node, it can only be positioned on its left or right. The consequence is that the map expends on those sides only, even with a few elements a map goes out of the screen and becomes difficult to overview. It would be much better to have a "360" position possibility around parent nodes. This seems very important to me to condense freemind maps and make them less "left-right spanned". --lesguilw 1 Sept 2006
Make the main branches come from the center, not the edgesIf you make the branches coming out of the central node, begin at the very center (coming out from behind the center node oval), then you will give us the ability to move the main branches anywhere, including above the central node. This would be better than the way you have it, with the branches sprouting from the left and right edges of the center node oval, giving the map a bowtie look, with no branches reaching above or below the center node oval.
Allow non-hierarchical, rhizomatic nodal structuresI would like to see more flexibility in the nodal structure of FreeMind's maps. In addition to the suggestion of radial hierarchies above, I would like to propose multipolar, nonhierarchical or rhizomatic nodal structures. By this I mean the creation of maps that do not have a single root node but a cluster or group of root nodes around which sibling and child nodes are grouped. Instead of mapping to a singular concept, a group of related concepts could be mapped this way. I also support the call for linking unrelated nodes as an additional tool to using the graphical links. Archis 22:45, 19 Nov 2006 (PST)
Setting/Changing FocusAn option whereby the focus can be set to a selected node. Doing this should then position the node in the centre and only showing its siblings. It should then be possible to save this as a new map so you can link nodes in other maps to it. --Paul 14 Sept 2006 FormattingStyles (CSS?)Currently freemind only allows direct formatting of some properties. It would be much better to have a hierarchical system of (possibly editable) styles that can be applied to objects. I think these styles should be handled by CSS. I suggest the following properties:
Now, with these properties there might be styles for hierarchy levels. I.e. one set of styles for the root object, one for level 1 nodes (+ one separate style for the accompanying level 1 edges), level 2 nodes and so on. Advantages
Disadvantages
Zapyon 00:16, 17 Nov 2006 (PST) (PS: feel free to add details inside my stuff instead of adding comments)
Auto FormattingConfigurabilityThere should be a way to set the colours (and may be more details) of the auto format function. The way it is, it is quite useless form (and possibly others), as I like the way it hierarchically resizes fonts, but I cannot use the coloured text, I prefer black (especially as I use coloured clouds a lot) Should include optimal positioning of nodesThis of course only makes sense together with the already suggested 360° positioning of nodes. But it would improve usability of a) freemind and b) the maps incredibly Coloured backgroundAbility to define a colour for background paper
MiscShow a '*' in window title if map has been updated but not savedAs per other editors show a '*' next to the file name (in the title of the window) if a file has been updated but not saved yet. Remove '*' when it has been saved
File format changesCVS/SVN friendly output *.mm file formatFreeMind's .mm output file is XML format, and can be managed by version control system easily. But some attributes not suitable for that. e.g., "FOLDED" attribute saved in .mm file, makes documents changed frequently and unnecessarily. Why not saved "FOLDED", "CREATED", "MODIFIED"(it's CVS/SVN's duty) outside? I write a patch for this. When saving file, a *.mmx file is also created. When loading *.mm file, if a *.mmx file exist, load it at runtime. But the code needs review and your enhancement. -- Jiangxin 12:18, 6 Apr 2006 (PDT)
I agree that these attributes are miserable to read, and distracting to CVS. What about a preferences pane to disable extensions, including "built-in plugins" such as this one? -- abadger 30 May 2006 Metadata at head of fileCertain data relates to the map as a whole, and could influence its parsing by the tool. This could be as simple as the creator/maintainer of the file, the creation date/location etc. On the other hand, it could define the look and feel on a per-file basis (over-riding user.properties and freemind.properties). Finally, it could define the location, mechanism and arguments/parameters for accessing data that was not inline within the file. For example, a header that says "use the Google Bookmarks plugin and login with this ID/password". The node data is not within the file, but supplied by the plugin. --Violetlight 09:49, 2 Aug 2006 (PDT) Support for compressed fileFor big map the file is very big and it can be usefull to support compressed format. It cames very handy especially when usign the applet for the browser. Having the map compressed will speedup the download time of the .mm file. --Bobonov 14:35, 27 Sep 2006 SWT-based version of FreeMindLet's face it - Swing doesn't look and feel good. SWT ([3]) proved as perfect solution (not only) in the Eclipse IDE world (runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, x86/64), and while 1.6 Java should have much better support of native windowing / widgets, I think SWT is the way to go for FreeMind. -- GeorgeV 23 Jan 2007 |
