FreeMind - The Challenge of Mapping Your Brain

very good
key review info
application features
  • Keeping track of projects, including subtasks, state of subtasks and time recording
  • (4 more, see all...)

Having a map is essential for any new journey. But mapping the mind? What could this possibly be? The ones interested in taking full control over their thoughts and actions have surely found out about this revolutionary concept by now, because it is truly a concept that stands in the center of the latest brain structure and function discoveries.

But let's face the truth: the human brain has been slow to give up its secrets. Until recently the mechanisms that stand behind our thoughts, feelings and perceptions were impossible to examine directly, their true nature being possible to be observed only through their effects.

Luckily, at present, the latest imaging technique reveals the internal world of the mind in the same way X-rays reveal our bones. The information technology does not lose any time either, as the developers have already brought to light software applications that enable you to organize your learning habits and brainstorming sessions in accordance with the latest mind mapping concepts. FreeMind is an example of such an application. So, if you are passionate about this subject and you want to learn more about the FreeMind’s features and options, please read further.

The Looks

FreeMind has a user-friendly interface with a classical and rich-in-options menu. As expected, the File menu lets you open an existing file or create a new one. If you choose the latter simply pick up the appropriate option and type the name of the core node for your future mind map. In case you want to change the structure of the map at a later stage in your project development you have the option to do so with the help of the New Parent Node option, in the Insert menu.

And, as we’ve reached this point, it is worth mentioning that the Insert menu also allows you to populate your maps with one or more New Child or New Sibling nodes. Inserting relevant images to your maps is also a child’s play: you can either pick up an icon from the vertically displayed toolbar at the left of the main page, or you can navigate through the Insert menu. Furthermore, the Insert menu lets you add text or graphical hyperlinks and to highlight a certain area of your mind map by grouping some related nodes with the Cloud option. To format the appearance of the nodes you can make use of the Format menu or of the Preferences pages. You have a full range of options to choose from: Use Rich Formatting, Use Plain Text, Use Larger or Smaller Font, Insert Bubble or Fork, Nude Color or Blend Color, Blinking Node, Linear or Bezier Edges and so on and so forth.

The Navigate Menu offers you all the moving actions that you need to browse through your map structure. Move to Root, Move Up, Move Down, Node Left, Node Right are just a few examples but you can discover other, more complicated ones like Toggle Folded or Unfold One Level as you move through the end of the menu.

The Tools section enables you to perform basic but extremely useful actions as: Join, Split or Sort Nodes. But the nicest feature of all is the possibility to work simultaneously on more than one map and to easily switch among them by using the horizontal bar menu on the top of the page.

The Works

FreeMind is unbelievably easy to use. It is highly visual and you don’t have to be a Mac guru or have much experience in building mind maps to understand how you can efficiently use it. But let’s take a quick example so that you can figure out how you can start. After all, it is completely up to you what level of accuracy you want to get to.

To start, all you have to do is hit the New option in the File menu. Then you can rename the core node and add further nodes to the map, in accordance with your needs. As you can see in the Insert menu, there are different types of nodes to choose from, and they can have different text and background colors as well as different font styles and sizes. Moreover, they can contain links to webpages and local folders but also multiple lines of text or images. They are named after their relationship with the parent node or after the role they play in the whole map structure.

To set priorities and the order in which a certain set of actions should be performed, you can introduce some funny faces or numbered images, also from the Insert menu. In case you want to highlight an idea or group more related concepts, you can use clouds, which can be customized with different colors. To change the whole structure of the nodes or to inverse the hierarchy and the node levels, experiment the effects that the commands in the Navigation or Tools menus might have. Also, give the Attribute Manager a try, as it can help you assign even more filters and highlighting power to your maps.

Furthermore, FreeMind offers you efficient searching tools: to find a text in a node or in its descendants all you have to do is press Command+F or use the Find option in the Edit menu. To search the whole map, you have to select the central node and then press Esc before performing a common search. The program supports regular expressions and it can help you with its recently introduced advanced system of interactive searching.

Regarding the positioning of the nodes in the map, things go smoothly: you can easily move the nodes around by using the drag and drop action. Also, you can copy nodes just by holding control while dragging or by dragging them with the middle mouse button. Moreover, you can copy and paste multiple nodes between two mind maps or plain text and HTML code from other applications. In the case of HTML code, it will be pasted as plain text but the links contained in it will be pasted as children of an additional node, with the label Links.

Finally, to export a branch to HTML you can use the Command+H shortcut but if you want to export a whole map with an overview picture to HTML you can use the pull-down menu with the Export> As XHTML option. Also, the Export menu lets you save a map as a PNG or JPEG picture or export it as an SVG or PDF file respectively.

In conclusion, FreeMind contains a whole range of visually challenging options and it gives you the freedom that you need to put your creativity at work and to make use of its rich editing, filtering, searching and customizing potential.   


The Good

The interface and the tools leave you the impressions that they form almost the perfect blend for a program of this type. No clumsy options, no overwhelming menus. Everything is clear and simple. Besides, the Help menu offers you a fancy demonstration of how the application could be used, being structured as a mind map itself. The possibility to add icons, to quickly drag and drop nodes and to export the results in different formats is also very convenient and timesaving.

The Bad

The current FreeMind version has only an experimental file locking feature and it is disabled by default. In case you have to work with multiple projects, and privacy is very important for you, you should pay attention to this aspect.

The Truth

The commands in the menu are pretty intuitive and, along with the extensive help, don’t leave too much room for you to get confused by the abundance of features. Nevertheless, a brief introduction in the theme and even a bunch of related examples and their applicability would make this application accessible for all sorts of users, especially to the ones that are new to mind mapping.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 4
features 4
ease of use 3
pricing / value 5


final rating 4
Editor's review
very good
 
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