FreeMind

Mind Mapping software, written in Java http://freemind.sourceforge.net/

I use this for all my meeting notes, and often share those notes in real-time (technography).

  • I like it because the layout-structure is more visually explicit than an outline, so it encourages re-structuring.
  • and it's fast
    • I typically have 3mo of notes in 1 doc, making is 2-3k lines.
      • each month has a tree-section (branch), and then every meeting/session in the month (or maybe half-month) is its own branch ("Apr23 Standup")
    • I do this because search-browsing within a doc is much easier than across-docs

does nice copy/paste as bullet points into styled-editor (like Confluence)

  • for plaintext/markdownCommonMark, have to convert spaces; comes as 4 spaces per level (or is this my BBEdit setting?), convert to y=(x-4)/2 space followed by asterisk, note have to end regex with ([^ \*]) to avoid re-matching on wider lines you already converted

there's an Applet viewer but I've never gotten it to work http://freemind.sourceforge.net/docs/Serving%20Freemind%20maps%20in%20a%20browser/freemind%20applet.html

Android file-compatible app: Thinking Space. (Nope that's dead.)

Shares with MindMeister ASP.

Has become basically "the standard" file format, so many other Mind Map apps will import/export it.

Jan'2018: suddenly won't launch. "Temporary solution" for older version works.

  • update: eventually forced to use newer version, which has many issues around edit-selection, so editing in the middle of a node-block can be very painful (insert point doesn't match where you click)

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