I take notes in meetings using FreeMind. Every time I identify a task I mark the node down using an icon and after the meeting I follow up creating the necessary tasks in Evolution. I would like to be able to link my mindmaps to tasks in Evolution. Hopefully it can be done using FreeMind, or perhaps we need to invest in Psycho or something similar tighter to the Gnome desktop. If we decide not to use FreeMind, the tool of choice should use FreeMind’s XML schema to ensure interoperability with folks running other desktops.
Sometimes there is a node in the mindmap I would like to expand into a Tomboy desktop wiki page. Right now, I have to create the node on Tomboy and write down a reference in the mindmap with the URL to the wiki page.
Sometimes I am writing in Tomboy and I identify tasks required to follow up the note. I would like to create a wiki link to the task in EDS.
And of course, I would like to see my tasks in EDS, and be able to link back to FreeMind and Tomboy.
Microsoft Office has a similar feature.
How do we do that for the Gnome world?
Thanks, Bruno for a good hint of a really handy tool. I will put FreeMind into my toolcase. Unfortunately I am constrained by using Windows, so I can’t give a try for the other tools you mentioned.
harri
Hi Bruno,
I’m glad somebody have noticed Psycho and mentioned it as a valid opportunity for a usable application.
The things that you talk about here, like compatibility with FreeMind (not only) and EDS are very high on the list of my priorities.
I think that the first thing of those you mentioned, that I would like to implement is import and synchronization with Tomboy.
The problem I have with Psycho is that I am the only one working on it and I’m learning everything necessary as I go - I have no previous programming experience. Only a clear vision where I want to get with Psycho.
Hey Bruno,
I’d love to hear from you which features that you use in FreeMind, would be “must haves” for you in Psycho.
PsychoToDo on our Wiki is probably a good place to have a look what I plan for the future.
I would like to roll out a “technology preview” release as soon as possible to let people play with it and tell me what they need to be happy.
Cheers,
Piotr
Piotr:
From a UI point-of-view, all I need is (MUST):
- the ability to add nodes with a single keystroke (e.g. using “insert” key)
- the ability to move nodes and graphs by mouse dragging
- the ability to detach and reattach a node to another node by drag and drop
- the ability to highlight/mark certain nodes with a single keystroke
From an interoperability perspective (COULD):
- the ability to talk to EDS to create tasks
- the ability to link to a Tomboy note
- the ability to import/export FreeMind mindmaps (as a matter of fact, why don’t you pick Freemind or OPML as your XML schema instead of rolling out your own)
I also see that you have prioritised PNG over SVG - it seems a bit odd to me since I would think that you could do an XSL transformation from your XML serialisation to SVG/XHTML/whatever. There are tons of utilities to produce PNG (or whatever graphics format) out of SVG.
Thanks for your input. Seems like you’re not going to be very hard to satisfy.
At least in the MUST part…
The PNG over SVG priority is not intentional. It’s just that the version of cairo that I was using at first had the image surface enagled (which allows for saving it to PNG) and the SVG surface disabled. In current version on cairo SVG surface is on by default so it should work out of the box. I should actually try that.
As for using OPML as my file format - not sure if OPML can handle the visual part of the map. The model structure shouldn’t be a problem but. I will have to look at FreeMinds format. It may turn out to be exactly what I need.