FreeMind Mini Review
Thursday, October 5, 2006I mentioned FreeMind in a previous post. I used it for all my note taking at WD06 and found it to be very useful so here's a quick review.
FreeMind is really a thought mapping tool and not specifically a note taking tool. It allows you to add points in a tree-like manner. So you start with the main topic node and add a child node to it. It's represented as a branch. When you add nodes to a parent node it automatically determines where the branch should go on screen. If you are adding a child node to the main parent it'll alternate to the right and left for branches. Then if you add a child to a branch from the main parent it'll put them one under the other. Click the thumbnail to see what I mean.
Essentially you only worry about organising the points according to the relevant information structure and thus not have to worry about visual presentation. This makes it a very quick and effective note taking tool.
Pros:
- keyboard navigation makes it quick: hit 'ins' type in point, hit 'enter', arrow key to navigate back to parent node, hit 'ins' again and add next point.
- Can drag and drop nodes for quick reorganisation of points
- file format is XML, not binary.
Cons:
- Only at v0.8: suffered strange slow downs
- Java
- Having to keep hitting ctrl+s all the time whie note taking, would be great if it used a live file format, so when you add a new node it's written to disk immediately.
4 Comments
Thank you.. thank you.... just what I'm looking for (pity about the java) great for brain storming and concept ideas building.
I use Mindjet Mind Manager Pro 6 for doing these mind maps. They're all the rage in the corporate environments over here in Perth so I thought they were a bit wanky at first but now I kinda like the way you can collate thoughts real easy.
I tried Mindmanager and never really got into it - a bit too 'clunky' for my liking. But I really love Freemind. I find it faster and more intuitive - I use it almost as much as my word processor. It organises my world!
It is only v0.8 but it's very polished - it never seems to slow down or crashes for me (I get more problems with Firefox 2 - which I still prefer to IE7).
You don't really need to keep using ctrl+s as it has an auto save feature.
Go to Preferences... and you can select how often it saves.
I think this is an excellent product. I did start using a GTD app. which used a tree list type approach, with projects and sub projects etc... however you can't "see" what is going on once you have too many actions.
FreeMind is excellent as I have a tendency to get easily side tracked, whereas with FreeMind if I "hide" (i.e. fold away) all the non-relevant tasks and just view what I'm currently working on, then I tend to stay focused.
I am working on some projects with an enormous amount of websites, paperwork, emails, Excel and Word documents, and people. With FreeMind I can add an email link and phone number to an "important people" node, so with one click can email people related to the project. I can also jump straight to a website (which can be anything, documentation, research etc) relating to a current task.
This means that FM is like a control CENTRE or HUB where everything else can be accessed. Which is brilliant news for scatterbrains with too much data on their machine.
Three cheers for life being made a little easier :o)