The new MindManager has taken some interesting steps towards integration with, well, just about everything but the kitchen sink. Take a look: http://www.mindjet.com/products/mindmanager/

Brainstorm's David Tebbutt has written a short commentary putting some of MM's new features into perspective: http://www.smallbizpod.co.uk/blog/2008/11/11/mind-mapping-comes-in-from-the-cold/

Alexander

Not to change the subject, but I noticed in David's article that he mentions handing off Brainstorm to an American Company... That's an interesting bit of news. I wonder if it is good news for Brainstorm users or bad.

Steve Z.

Hi Alexander and Steve,

We've not said anything officially yet. In fact I probably shouldn't have 'gone public' but I figured no-one would notice.

Didn't account for Mr Hawkeye Deliyannis.

Yes it's true. Alexander has had some contact with the person involved. I can't make any promises on the man's behalf but he has a number of things going for him: a) a passion for BrainStorm that exceeds anything I've experienced myself, b) a couple of years of developing a most astonishing extension of the BrainStorm Java Viewer, c) he's quite a few years younger than me and d) he wants to take BrainStorm forward.

They all seem like pretty good signs to me. More as it unfolds. (We've done the deal and we're in 'handover' mode at the moment.)

Thank you for the reply, David.... I didn't know that you even kept an eye on this site. I'm sure this must be both a relief and a sadness for you and Marck. I assume, however, that it is ultimately good for you and will result in further improvements in an already stellar product.

Steve

I really like the filtering in MindManager 8. Combined with MM's automatic/enforced layout algorithms (so when you filter it preserves the general shape and relationship of nodes that remain, up to the root), it's a surprisingly interesting tool. My only beef is that in general the program is a tad too slow on large maps with complicated layouts.

-- Chris

Here's a more detailed review:
http://mindmappingsoftwareblog.com/mindmanager-8-released/

MM's slowness was one of the reasons I never upgraded to v.7. Now v.8's features are indeed very interesting but I'll have to see how it performs. I'm beginning to be spoilt by Linux's lightning fast speeds and lose my patience with some of these ultramodern Windows apps.

Alexander

Slightly OT, but if you're spending a lot of time in Linux, you definitely have to try Emacs org-mode. I've been playing around with it for the last five days and it's extremely impressive. I'll write a lengthy post about it one of these days, but in brief, as long as you can put up with text representations of outlines, columns, and tables, it's essentially a superset of Ecco. (It's cross-platform too, but I doubt most Windows/Mac users have the patience to master Emacs.)

-- Chris

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

MM's
slowness was one of the reasons I never upgraded to v.7. Now v.8's features are indeed
very interesting but I'll have to see how it performs. I'm beginning to be spoilt by
Linux's lightning fast speeds and lose my patience with some of these ultramodern
Windows apps.

Alexander

Chis,

Your concerns regarding the performance of MM are correct for versions 4 and 5. Version 6 was a significant improvement. I don't have issues with version 7 and I am sure v8 is better again.

The feature set of MM 8 is impressing, indeed. I like the fact that I can send a Mind Map to a user without MM as a Mind Jet Player. What I am missing here is that attached files to the Mind Map are not added to the created Mind Map Player. This should be technically possible because the Mind Map Player file can be a pdf and it is possible to add files to a pdf.

Generally, I believe that MindJet just managed at the very last moment to reply to the web 2.0 versions of Mind Mapping applications. They on the right track now. The only issue they have to approach the mass market is the pricing.

Dominik


Chris Thompson wrote:

I really like the filtering in MindManager 8. Combined with MM's automatic/enforced
layout algorithms (so when you filter it preserves the general shape and
relationship of nodes that remain, up to the root), it's a surprisingly interesting
tool. My only beef is that in general the program is a tad too slow on large maps with
complicated layouts.

-- Chris

Maybe the Windows version of MM 8 is faster, though they seem to share the same diagramming codebase. MM8 isn't terribly slow, but it's not the most fluid program either when making changes, particularly adding nodes deep in an automatically laid out map.

I do agree though that its feature set is becoming impressive. It's much more than just a "mind map" program at this point. I think the filtering is particularly powerful.

-- Chris

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

Chis,

Your concerns regarding the performance of MM are correct for versions 4 and
5. Version 6 was a significant improvement. I don't have issues with version 7 and I am
sure v8 is better again.

The feature set of MM 8 is impressing, indeed. I like the fact
that I can send a Mind Map to a user without MM as a Mind Jet Player. What I am missing here
is that attached files to the Mind Map are not added to the created Mind Map Player. This
should be technically possible because the Mind Map Player file can be a pdf and it is
possible to add files to a pdf.

Generally, I believe that MindJet just managed at the
very last moment to reply to the web 2.0 versions of Mind Mapping applications. They on
the right track now. The only issue they have to approach the mass market is the
pricing.

Dominik

I'm a long time user of Mindmanager, and after a quick review, I find MM8 disappointing. MM7 was a visual refresh of MM6. MM8 adds potentially valuable functionality, but in my view underperforms.

1. MM Player. Doesn't export text in the text boxes (at least consistently; might depend on whether any highlighting or images appear intext boxes), or any inking. Regrettably, this makes it a deal killer.

2. Linking to dbs don't help me much directly.

3. So called improved searching--I can't see any difference in actual performance. Anyone who installed an ifilter had WDS search of mmaps for a long time. The speed of internal search seems unusable as it has always been.

Temporarily very excited b/c of MM Player export. But ultimately disappointed that MM Player only works mickey mouse maps, that one might as well print to pdf.

As for eating up cycles for no good reason, MM8 seems to eat up a few % points less, but still eats up cycles for no good reason (even when apps are minimized in the background). In other words, instead of 4-10%, MM8 eats 2-8%.

jerryk,

I have to change my opinion regarding MM8:
The upgrade is not so huge and useful than I thought first.
I am especially disappointed of the new Mind Manager Player: As you mentioned already, you can only export the mindmap without any notes and attached files. Ad the Mind Manager Player is a pdf file this would be technically possible. But the version available in MM8 is not more than a joke.

If you are interested in MM8 give it a fair trial. But don't let you blend by the marketing blabla like me.

Dominik