On Mind-mapping.org this week there are four new entries in the master list - three graphical and one a related development platform.

bCisive

bCisive is software for business decision making and diagramming.  It supports building and communicating business cases as well as documenting the reasoning behind decisions.

GenIE & SMILE

GeNIe is a user-friendly development environment for graphical decision-theoretic models. It is the Windows user interface to SMILE, which is a portable library of C++ classes implementing the models.

Outliner 2.0

Outliner is an outliner for mobile phones and PDAs.  It lets you create your outlines with desktop software and import them.

Vic

http://www.mind-mapping.org/
The master list of mind mapping &
information management software

Some new information organizing and visualization software for you.  Things got behind as I put together the web-based mindmappers reference pages (see my post of 14th December, 2007) and continued working on the interoperability reference resource.  The web-based one is done, as previously announced here, and the interop one is approaching first publication. 

But the entries for the mind mapping software database kept piling up, so I had a clear out over the holidays, and I bring you six new programs.

Dendroscope

Information mapping for a very specialised area, evolutionary biology, but this could be stretched to other forms of hiearchical visualization, and anyway it’s free.

LinkSViewer

This is a web-based service that gathers together information about people, companies, educational establishments and all sorts of relationships and turns them into an interconnected map.  A concept map of sorts.

Shared Space

An information management tool with a mind-mapping influence.

Skrbl

Not a mind mapping tool, but an on-line whiteboard that would allow collaborative mapping.

Surfulater

Organize files in an advanced form of outline, with graphics and web pages in a browsing screen.

Solution Language Tool

A mind map and activity map editor.  No easy download for the free trial, instead you must fill in a form having five mandatory fields.

Finally, a historical note:  Rationale has been in the database since July 2007, but I just learnt of Reason!Able that it replaced, and added it for the record.

Happy New Year!
Vic

 Update: Corrected spelling of Surfulater.  December 28, 2007

You know all those web-based mind mapping applications?  Well, I’ve been happily digging around for the past couple of weeks and putting all the information together and at last it’s published.  Now you can see at one web site which applications are totally free or, for the subscription ones, what you get for their free limited option.  

Here’s the front page:
http://www.mind-mapping.org/web-based-mindmappers/

The pages show which ones are absolutely free, the costs and options for the subscription ones and what you can get for free at those sites, and what level of publishing, sharing and collaboration each supports.

Most importantly, there’s a visualization to show at a glance which web-based mind mapping application can import or export MindManager and FreeMind:

I’ve included some web-based outliners as well, and some diagramming and whiteboard sites, provided they support sharing or collaborations.

So now there’s no excuse.  Get out there and get mapping, get collaborating and share your maps - while it’s free!

 Vic

There are five additions to the mind map software list at Mind-mapping.org this weekend: Imindi, PAUX, UML Explorer, Mappio and yalips.

Imindi - Something to watch - with interest.  It has high aspirations but little information on actual progress so far:

Mappio - This is not officially out yet, but it’s accessible and you can sign up without waiting.  I made a little mind map of mind-mapping.org with Mappio, but I’ve blogged about that already: http://www.mind-mapping.org/blog/?p=63  This is web based:

PAUX - Information management sofware with a visual element, an outlines element and a claim to a “multidimensional mindmap”.  I have no idea what the pricing is.  It says: Free “in the context of a development partnership” and there is no information about how it is priced outside such a partnership.  This is a thumbnail of the only image I could find of how the UI looks and feels:

UML Explorer - Part of the ModelMaker family, this UML tool can make mind maps and is at a good price point for a product with such capabilities:

yalips - Yes the lower-case name is the way they’ve registered the trademark, so I won’t capitalize it.  Makes you wonder where the name comes from.  This is another UML diagrams product that goes much further in the diagramming, and includes mind maps.  Reasonably priced for such a product as well:

As usual, there’s more information with full-size images at mind-mapping.org

Vic

This weekend’s update to Mind-mapping.org brings a lively and colourful new mind-mapping product, Cayra; VORG Express, a free information manager; and a development platform for throw-away web applications that revolves around a MindManager mind map.

Cayra - This is an attractive program, free for now, that produces colourful maps that don’t have to represent a pure hiearchy.  It can therefore produce a limited form of concept map as well as mind maps.

VORG Express - VE is a free information manager that also has diagramming capabilities.  It has a big brother, VORG Team, which costs US$48 a year per user.  There are other products in the family that are aimed at vertical markets: Finance and medical.  

SnapXT - Finally, there’s SnapXT that uses a MindManager mind map to build collaborative web applications.  The key to its original approach to application development is that the connection between the mind map and the application is “live” - changes to the map can be reflected in the on-line application. 

 Vic

The new entrants to mind-mapping.org this week are:

Taonotes - a reasonably-priced outliner.

Dia - free diagramming software with the ability to draw mind maps, but it has no features specifically aimed at easing mind map production.  Then again, it is free.

XWiki MindMap - an add-on to XWiki that lets you introduce mind maps (made in FreeMind) to a wiki.

Vic

There’s an update on the amazing status of ECCO Pro.

Those with long computer memories will recall how much of a popular (almost cult) following this had soon after it was launched in 1993, with its highly customizable interface.  It’s been  on mind-mapping.org since June last year loosely under the outliners and information management categories.

 Well, I just had a comprehensive update from Jim Chisholm, and learned that there are two tech groups on Yahoo supporting it - not only that, one group is actively enhancing ECCO Pro, even making it run on USB sticks without installation on the host PC! 

And it’s all for free.

Vic

Updated:  “There is another Yahoo tech group that appears to have been formed to cover ECCO, but it is a spam site now.”

New: Curio - I mentioned this project management software with mind mapping built in recently in the blog and now it’s up on mind-mapping.org.

New: Free outliner Task Coach has been added.

New: BrainStreamer is a task manager that includes a mind mapper.

New: (Well, new to mind-mapping.org) ThinkTank a charming piece of downloadable, runnable outlining history from twenty years ago.  That cover looks strangely familiar…

New: TVO (The Vim Outliner) a free Linux outliner.

Update: The entry for TheBrain has been updated and an image has been added.

Update: The entry for 3D Topicscape has been updated, with images of 3D mind maps from the newer version.

Update: The Leo entry also has new images and a new sourceforge URL.

Vic

There are some interesting additions today.  One, Rationale, is for making argument maps, and another, Pocket FreeMind, that has potential.  The author says he may later make it produce actual mind maps on pocket devices.

gjots2: a simple, free jotter and outline processor for Linux,

NeoMem: a free outliner that lets you define different classes of record.

Rationale: A graphical tool for expressing what the makers call “Argument maps”.

Pocket Freemind: A free outliner that uses the FreeMind file format and runs on Windows Mobile.

EDrawMax: A diagramming tool that can make mind and concept maps.

 Vic

I’ve added an outliner for PDAs to the list: TreNotes.  Neat use of the small screen.

Vic