Hi,
I’m looking around for some software able to generate automatically a mind map, starting from a hierarchical text file, say something like

sun
.mercury
.venus
.earth
…moon
.mars
…phobos
…deimos
and so on…
(dots meaning tabs or something similar)

The resulting mind map needs not to be interactive, I need it just for visualization and printing.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

You have to write it in OPML

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPML

Or better spend a weekend and learn the basics of programming and write the text -> OPML
converter yourself.

Lots of options to choose from. One good starting point is "graphviz", which can take a simple text file and create all kinds of diagrams. Here's one example of a simple script that feeds formatted text like you describe into graphviz: https://chezsoi.org/lucas/blog/solarized-mindmaps-with-python-and-graphviz.html

If you used tabs to create your hierarchy, you can paste that into most mind maps, I think. It definitely works with iThoughtsX.

Steve Z.

Actually I just tried this with MindManager, FreePlane and XMind. Insofar as I understand your requirements, I simply copy/pasted a tabbed outline and it worked.

Jon

alexxx wrote:

Hi,
I’m looking around for some software able to generate
automatically a mind map, starting from a hierarchical text file, say
something like

sun
.mercury
.venus
.earth
…moon
.mars
…phobos
…deimos
and so on…
(dots meaning tabs or something similar)

The resulting mind map needs not to be interactive, I need it just for
visualization and printing.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

thank you guys,
lots of ideas here!
I'll start with Graphviz since I used it a bit in the past,
then will try out the others to check the most customizable among them

alexxx wrote:

Hi I'm looking around for some software able to generate automatically a mind map, starting from a hierarchical text file

InfoQube (Windows) has 2 types of mind map: (1) automatically generated with some layout options (Map View) and (2) free-form placement of nodes with lots of formatting options (IQ Surface)

Details here:
https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/2296
https://infoqubeim.com/drupal5/?q=node/3883

Pierre Paul Landry
IQ Designer

Learning basic Python is easy and good for you. I’ve done things like converted multi level OPML from OmniOutliner to single level files and index cards in Scrivener. Fun stuff.

I used to use MindView, now I use MindJet. I am currently test-driving ConceptDraw now and it is impressive