Freeplane
From FreeMind
Freeplane is a fork of FreeMind, lead by Dimitry Polivaev.
Freeplane uses SourceForge for file downloads.
Freeplane uses GitHub as a code repository and for forums and tickets; it no longer uses SourceForge for these purposes.
System requirements
- Freeplane-1.11.4 from 28 May 2023 requires Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 11 (released on 25 September 2018) or later through 17, according to freeplane.exe launcher and per freeplaneGui.lj4.xml source code file.
- The last version supporting JRE 1.8.0 was Freeplane 1.9.x series: Freeplane 1.9.14.
Announcements of the Freeplane fork
Announcements of the Freeplane fork in FreeMind forums:
- Freemind-developer: Vision of the second project, 2008-03-01, sourceforge.net
- Open Discussion: FreeMind fork, 2008-11-16, sourceforge.net
Visuals
- Subjectively, as per Dan Polansky, Freeplane 1.9.14 looks, let's say, not so nice: the icons, the white background color in menus, everything says something's wrong. This is so not only in comparison to FreeMind, but also, say, Notepad++.
Download statistics
- As 9 June 2023:
Releases
Available from here:
- freeplane/files/, sourceforge.net
Earliest releases:
Release classification
- Freeplane does not use the ranks of alpha, beta and release candidate (RC). FreeMind did use alpha, beta and RC ranks, as late as of FreeMind 1.1.0 Beta2 from 2016, when FreeMind development activity ceased.
- Freeplane has a freeplane preview file section:
- Thus, there is the rank preview, which must be something like beta and release candidate, but not differentiated.
- As per the "freeplane preview" file section:
- "This directory contains the latest preview versions of Freeplane created for testing purposes almost every week."
- "The data format of the maps saved and read by preview versions can be changed without any notice."
- There is Release cycle page in Freeplane documentation, in "attic"; this does talk of alpha, beta and RC. This is probably no longer followed, as per the file section and as per this being in the attic.
Name spelling
- Freeplane is spelled with lowercase "p", whereas FreeMind is spelled with uppercasee "M".
Discussion
- freeplane/discussions, github.com -- since March 2022
- Trial: Using Discussion Forums and Tickets at GitHub replacing SourceForge, 10 Mar 2022, sourceforge.net
File format
- Freeplane file format is extended beyond that of FreeMind to support additional features.
- Documentation:
- Current Freeplane File Format, docs.freeplane.org -- in the attic
- New Freeplane File Format (Proposal), docs.freeplane.org -- in the attic; this seems to be a proposal that was never implemented
- File format stability: hard to assess; there is no *.xsd file in the source code tree to specify the file format. By contrast, FreeMind has a .xsd file describing the file format that seems to have been kept up to date, linked from File format page.
History
Some of the earliest events in the history of Freeplane are early announcements and first releases/versions. To the extent these items are already on this page, they are duplicated here for convenience.
- 1 Mar 2008: Freemind-developer: Vision of the second project, 2008-03-01, sourceforge.net
- 16 Nov 2008: Open Discussion: FreeMind fork, 2008-11-16, sourceforge.net
- 9 May 2009: release 1.0.7 alpha as per Freeplane's history_en.txt[3]; the earliest release/version mentioned in that text file is 1.0.5 alpha, without date
- 26 Jul 2010: release Freeplane 1.1.0[4], which seems to be the oldest one found in freeplane stable/archive[5]
The early history can be further investigated/reconstructed from Freeplane's old wiki[6] (which runs Mediawiki wiki engine) as well as from SoruceForge forums. For instance, wiki page "Relationship to FreeMind" was "Imported from wikispaces" on 31 Jul 2009[7].
See also
Links
- Freeplane homepage, docs.freeplane.org
- Freeplane project page, sourceforge.net
- freeplane, github.com
- freeplaneGui.lj4.xml, github.com -- indicates the required JRE version
