Comments on: Here be dragons

By: Bill Jaramillo

Bill Jaramillo — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 15:19:34 +0000

Great Post! I’m new to the mind mapping arena and have been looking for a different perpective. The PersonalBrain comes close but there is something still missing. I am hoping for a more interactive interface. I have some ideas and hope to start a project and see if I can some feedback. Are there any recommended forums to post new projects outside of SoucreForge?

By: Fredo

Fredo — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:14:00 +0000

I fully share your concerns. In my eyes, when it comes to mindmapping, the aesthetics play a role besides functionality. So maybe Freemind has quite a lot to offer, but it doesn’t so in a nice and intuitive way.

Lately I stumpled upon Labyrinth. It’s a GNOME mindmapping application in early development stage. It makes use of Cairo and hence produces visually good looking maps. Currently, it’s feature set is limited, but it does the job for basic tasks. So maybe this is the future for desktop integrated mindmapping under GNOME.

By: Dorian

Dorian — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:14:00 +0000

I don’t know how useful these programs will be for you but they are included in the Ubuntu repos:

1.) kdissert (which is the one I recommend and it does export to OOo)
2.) vym (played around with it for a tiny bit).

Also both are KDE applications.

By: Piotr

Piotr — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:14:00 +0000

http://www.psycho-project.org
This project is in very early stages of development but looks like I can have a lot of time to work on it in the near future.
Mind Manager is my biggest inspiration so you should like it.

By: kwasi

kwasi — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:14:00 +0000

kdissert/semantik?
I haven’t tried the latest version but it was getting fairly useful the last time I took a look. And you can output to LaTex and ODF

http://freehackers.org/~tnagy/kdissert.html

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:14:00 +0000

Great post! I’ve been pretty disappointed with the open-source mind-mapping programs myself. Having the app online is definitely a plus for me though since I work on many different machines. Thanks for the suggestions!

By: Mathew

Mathew — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:14:00 +0000

Have you tried Compendium?

"Compendium is a software tool providing a flexible visual interface for managing the connections between information and ideas."

http://www.compendiuminstitute.org/default.htm

By: erik

erik — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:14:00 +0000

You can also force Freemind to use the gtk (alike) widgets. On java6 it looks pretty nice.

By: D

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:14:00 +0000

@erik: For me, it’s not about the look, it’s about the feel. Even skinning up Java doesn’t change how it integrates into the desktop. While not so essential for mind mapping, stuff like libnotify and the like make all the difference between "a collection of GUI tools atop of X" and "a desktop".

-Dx

By: Chuck Frey

Chuck Frey — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 16:14:00 +0000

Several of the web-based tools (Mindomo, MindMeister) are approaching the level of usability of the desktop mind mapping programs. May be worth looking a bit further in that area. A lot of these tools are detailed in my Mind Mapping Software Blog (http://mindmapping.typepad.com).