FreeMind 0.9.0: The New Features

Site map Main Page Download Asked questions Screenshots Accessories FreeMind on Linux Development Marketing Essays Stuff

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 Make the backup copy of the map Open it with the 0.9.0 again Select all nodes Format-> use plain text Save Open the mind map file in text editor Remove all lines starting with <attribute_registry> and ending with <attribute_registry/> 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 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 Comment / Question, 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) Report on potential bugs. With FreeMind 0.9.0 beta 9, Some titles of branches truncated when the map is displayed at 75% or 50% 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/ I can't save a new mind map under MS Vista. Modify and save of an existing mind map works. Report on potential bugs. With FreeMind 0.9.0 beta 8, 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) Duplicated attributes added; when add an attribute to node which already has the attribute, the attribute will be showed 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) The key bindings of alt-s and alt-s do not work as expected of showing or hiding attributes.--yushen 02:23, 25 Nov 2006 (PST) 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) 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) 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 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) Filter Create filters to view and print the data more effectively click on the little funnel to the left of the zoom size toggles on and off default values are useful no filtering Currently Selected Nodes create filter for one Attribute to the right of the filter status, click "Edit" in the drop down menu at the top right, 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 create filter for one Attribute and its value 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" user feedback Write your feedback on use of filters here. 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. One suggestion: is there any thought being given to saving filters (or did I miss something)? The addition of notes in this version seems to break backward compatibility, so that shouldn't be an issue. -- RichardForster10:40 20 Sep 2006 (EST) 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" Great feature (FILTERING) but it is trouble to create rules for filtering everytime FREEMIND is launched. Is there WORKAROUND to keep my rules (config file or ..???..) I agree, there should be option to save filters for latter use. I would also love to see the ability to keep filters saved for reuse. 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. And yes, I agree: being able to save the filters would be very nice and helpful. (Terkor) 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. --VincentD 02:30, 9 Nov 2006 (PST) Export to Flash does not support Rich Formatted nodes. --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. In the editor the paste function together with the cut function does not work. The text is cut out but I can not paste it back in. (This is both for Ctrl-V and using the icon.) 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. Does there really have to be such a thick gray line that marks the end of the text in the editors? Couldn't it be a thiner one (or at least a lighter one). If you need it at all... 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. 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 Create an attribute for a node. The attribute must be named "script" Create the Groovy script and set as the value of the attribute Press Alt-F8 or select "Evaluate" from the Tools menu. Wish for Groovy script editing 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 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 User icons User icons can be added. PNG files of the icons have to be added to the folder .../.freemind/icons; the comma separated list of icon names without the .png extension has to be set in the user property user_icons. User Feedback I am not clear on what has to be done to create user assigned icons. Would you please elaborate.--Felipe 15:25, 30 Apr 2007 (PDT) Is it possible to have a User Icons dialog to manage this feature more easily? 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) 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) Edit Styles, Patterns, Automatic Layout Patterns Change Format Dialog New "Change Format" dialog box that lets lets you edit node and edge attributes at once. (Format > Change format...) User feedback: The dialog does not show the proper font of a node, it always displays the first font of the font list. 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 a pattern is chosen, the column with the pattern names gets too narrow (Win XP). 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..." (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 How could we ever live without it? 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? To Do ) Moving a branch from one side of the root to the other - the text and child branches should "flip" to enable this ) 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: When the map is scrolled while the cursor is placed inside a node (that means while a node is in "edit-mode") the cursor and the area near the cursor does not move with the map but stays at the same absolute position. ) Display error 2: The text of the map is not displayed correctly on every zoom level (for example 75%). (Zoom 100% is OK.) Following errors: If some text inside a node is bold or italic the space before and after this text is not displayed correctly. The space of the right side of a node is not displayed correctly. This is very obvious when some letters are cut away. Very obvious with nodes placed on the left side of the map. If an icon is used the icon and the text may "collide". ) Display error 3: If a node is a bubble and has a background color, the shape of the background does not match with the shape of the bubble. The bubble has rounded edges, the background is square. Thus the area filed with the background color is at the edges a bit bigger than the bubble. ) 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.