Mind mapping with Linux

A mind map is a diagram used to represent words, ideas, tasks, or other items linked to and arranged around a central key word or idea. Mind maps are used to generate, visualize, structure, and classify ideas, and as an aid to studying and organizing information, solving problems, making decisions, and writing.

The elements of a given mind map are arranged intuitively according to the importance of the concepts, and are classified into groupings, branches, or areas, with the goal of representing semantic or other connections between portions of information. Mind maps may also aid recall of existing memories.

Brain mapping is a graphic way to identify different parts of an issue or to plan steps or consequences of an action.
Experts say mind mapping makes information easier to remember and makes studying more enjoyable.

If you are a fan of mind mapping, you could use specific software to create mind maps. Here are some ways to draw a mind map:

FreeMind

FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. The developer are proud that the operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "follow link" operations.

You can create nodes with child and sibling nodes and add icons, clouds, notes and custom formatting for better presentation. The nodes can be expanded or collapsed, or interactively linked to local files, other maps, online resources and more. You can also insert encrypted nodes or create encrypted maps for sesitive projects. The finished maps can be exported to HTML, clickable XHTML, Open Office document, image file and other formats.

Features:
* Folding of branches
* Exports to HTML, XHTML, PNG, JPEG, SVG, PDF, Flash
* Icons on nodes
* Clouds around branches
* Graphical links connecting nodes
* Search restricted to single branches
* Web and file hyperlinks from nodes

Compendium is a computer program and social science tool that facilitates the mapping and management of ideas and arguments. The software provides a visual environment that allows people to structure and record collaboration as they work through "wicked problems". The software is currently released by the not-for-profit Compendium Institute. The current version operationalises the Issue-Based Information System (IBIS), an argumentation mapping structure first developed by Hors Rittel in the 1970s.

Compendium source code was fully released under LGPL licence on 13 January 2009

Database Driven

The program starts up with an invitation to create a user account and then an initial mind map. This is the first sign that Compendium is built from the ground up using a database to provide a multi-faceted collaborative tool. Most mind mapping software has had collaboration capability bolted on as the internet has become faster and more reliable but this is not the case with Compendium. Starting the program takes a little while as database elements are registered and built, then a window is presented with a hierarchical outline view window on the left and a map window on the right. This second window, called a visual view, is populated with an Inbox, Trash and a couple of map icons the first time the application is started up.

Another disconcerting side effect of the use of a database instead of files, although it proves beneficial once the panic is over, is that you are not prompted to save changes as you exit. The sudden fear of all that lost work turns into relief as soon as the program is restarted. The File Open dialogue box presents a choice of maps, including the one you were working on. So changes are made in realtime to the database and there's no concept of opening, saving or closing files. The data represented by your maps is referred to as a 'Project' and there are tools to backup, copy and delete those projects.

Map Creation

After following the initial screencasts you will be able to create maps. These are completely freeform and there are a number of different types of nodes (node appears to be the chosen term for an item in most mind mapping programs). As Compendium is a tool for mapping ideas, discussions and problems the nodes are more specialist than in pure mind mapping tools. You can add a node that asks a question, answers it or ascribes positive or negative attributes to another node. There are also decision and argument nodes.

A lot of attention has been paid to keyboard shortcuts, so simply hitting the 'M' key while in the view window will create a new node, opening its text box for you to immediately type the node's title. Nodes can also be created by dragging the icon for the relevant node type from the toolbar onto the map. The keyboard method works well and is preferred because mouse clicks sometimes don't quite work the way you intend them too.

For more info check this great tutorial: http://www.graphic.org/mind-mapping-software/compendium-review.html

Screencast available here

Freeplane is a free, open source software application for creating mind maps (diagrams of connections between ideas), and electronic outlines. Written in Java, Freeplane is supported on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and is licensed under the GNU GPL. In July 2009, Freeplane was launched as a fork of the FreeMind project.

Freeplane maintains file format compatibility with FreeMind. Reviewers have found early versions of Freeplane to be stable  and SourceForge reports hundreds of downloads daily

Why fork?

There was much discussion and reflection before the decision was made to fork a project as popular as FreeMind. There were two main areas where no internal agreement could be reached after years of discussion:

Software Architecture

Freeplane's code has been refactored considerably to create a highly modular, clear and logical design, to ease entrance into development and to provide a solid foundation for long term development. As there was disagreement on this, it was decided that Dimitry would start work on a fork, while Chris develops the existing codebase, to see where this would lead. It is possible the two projects will merge in the future, no one knows. At the moment we feel that Freeplane offers an exciting opportunity for developers to help create a lean and extensible open source framework for mind mapping.

Development Process

(i) release cycle

It was felt that the FreeMind release cycle was too slow, and that this was holding the project back. Freeplane aims for regular releases, this will probably mean a stable release every six months.

(ii) community driven development

It was felt that the current FreeMind set up was not doing enough both to promote and integrate community contributions. Freeplane aims to create a contribution friendly climate. We hope to ensure that contributions do not go to waste. If you can contribute, and your ideas are not wildly out of sync with the vision of the developers, then your contribution will be rapidly integrated and included in the new release.

Pimki is a PIM (Personal Information Manager) loosely based on Instiki's Wiki technology. This is the place to dump your brain, organise your thoughts and Get Things Done. The ease of use and immediacy of a wiki combined with extended view to slice and dice the data give you a unique power to store, manage and retrieve all loose bit of information in your life.

There are a lot of features added over a regular Wiki, features that only make sense when you view it as a personal application and not so much as a group oriented application. See below for a full list of goodies.

Personally, i've used for my work only FreeMind, and i've been really satisfied by this software.

It allow you to export file in .mm that can be imported by a lot of other software (mindmanager for example), or you can export the Map to an image, or betetr to an html that can be expanded by clicking on Nodes.

In general software like that allow you to put down your idea in a non conventional way but in some moments i've found that really useful, give it a try.

Check also this overview of software (proprietary too).