We invented the concept of the Rainbow Coloring so that you could automatically have colorful Mind Maps. This is still a strong point to this day, with many people saying that they love not having to think about the colors, and yet automatically getting interesting, colorful Mind Maps. So we decided to improve on the concept in several important ways. Firstly, we added the ability to alter the brightness of the colors to give you finer control, and secondly, we added the ability to have alternating colors, so every second topic has its color taken from the opposite side of the colorwheel. This avoids a problem with the rainbow coloring where the adjacent topics are almost identical in color. This allows you to do things like this:

But this left an issue we were keen to address, and that is that some people only want some colors on their topics, so we invented another new way of coloring the subtopics automatically, and that is called Interpolated coloring. You have a color ring which you can drop colors on. You can have as many colors as you like, and it will interpolate between the colors like this:

But often you just want a set of specific colors, so we invented yet another coloring mechanism, which is called the Color Set. You can add as many colors as you like to the set, and NovaMind will cycle through the colors and apply them to the children. For instance, if you wanted alternating colors to make it easy to follow the subtopics, you could have just two colors in your colorset. Here’s an example with 3 colors:

Together, these options give you massive amounts of control over the automatic coloring, but there was one more limitation, and that is that in earlier versions of NovaMind, you could only set the coloring on the Mind Map title, so we changed that so you can now you can have automatic children coloring set on any topic.

So let’s talk a bit about topics.

We have introduced a number of new topic shapes as you can see here:

The last four topics are of particular interest, seeing as they are what we call Custom Topic Shapes. When you select that option, you can select each of the for quadrants individually and set it to be angled left or right, chamfered, square, or rounded. This gives you a massive amount of flexibility to make your Mind Maps say what you want them to say.

We are also showing some new topic coloring options, like this gradient fill:

And if you want something that gives you even more control and flexibility, you can create a detailed gradient like the one shown here.

I guess that is a bit of an extreme example, but it gives you and idea of the power of the fill options.

We also have the layout options like what we have in the Windows Technology Preview – this image shows you what they look like in the Mac version.

So that’s just a few of the things that are new in the NovaMind 5 Technology Preview for Mac. This release marks a very significant step in the development process. The progress has been really good over the last few weeks, and we are expecting to make good progress from here on in as we attend to bugs and implementing the rest of the functionality to get it ready for release.

You can now attach as many hyperlinks as you like to topics, and can also attach files as embedded files.

You can attach as many files as you like to each topic, and they are embedded so that when you send a NovaMind file to someone else, the embedded files go with it automatically, and then can be extracted by the other person. Although most Mind Mapping software allows you to add hyperlinks to topics, and some allow file attachments, NovaMind is unique in allowing you multiple of them on a siingle topic.

There is also a new ‘Automatic’ text color which will pick the most appropriate text color based on the text background (this is now the default). Of course if you select the color specifically, it will honor your color. This is one less thing you need to think about when you are creating and editing your Mind Maps.

We also have single click editing and “select and type” editing of topics. This is also there in the Mac version.

Plugin support has just got way better with the introduction of the ability for a plugin to insert custom ribbon tabs, buttons and menu items.

Importers have been added for the following file formats:

- New: Basic NovaMind 3/4 import.
- New: MindManager 7/8 import.
- New: XMind import.
- New: FreeMind import.
- New: OPML import.

Even without the release of NovaMind 5, NovaMind was only 6% behind the winner, which makes NovaMind almost certain to be the most improved Mind Mapping software for 2010.

Another very interesting thing is that NovaMind is now the second most recognized Mind Mapping software available, putting it in an excellent position for moving swiftly into first place, both in brand recognition and feature set.

These results are even more significant because NovaMind did not even mention the survey in any of their newsletters, or do much more than post a simple blog post a few days before the close of the survey.

Chuck Frey says:

Gideon King and his development team at NovaMind have been relentless in pushing the envelope in terms of what’s possible with mind mapping software. It’s really cool to see that you, the readers of this blog, recognize their efforts, by [voting] NovaMind the second most improved mind mapping program in 2009 – and, significantly, only 6% behind MindManager!

Gideon King, founder of NovaMind says:

This recognition of NovaMind as one of the two top Mind Mapping programs is very rewarding, especially as we are still putting the finishing touches to NovaMind 5, and only a few people have seen it so far. NovaMind has been the top Mind Mapping program on Mac for the last 7 years, but much of the recent interest in NovaMind has stemmed from the technical preview of NovaMind 5 on Windows, showing that we are right on track in both the Windows and Mac markets.

Rewriting NovaMind from the ground up based on user feedback from the last 7 years has been a huge task, but this survey really shows that going right back to basics, and building the Mind Mapping solution that everyone wants, was the right decision to make. This is just a small taste of things to come, once NovaMind 5 is released.

We would like to thank all those who supported NovaMind by voting for NovaMind in the survey.

About Mind Mapping

Mind Maps are diagrams that work the way people think — they organize the information in the same way our brains organize information. They make it easy to understand, remember, and communicate complex information.

Our brains like thinking in pictures. The smooth curves and colorful pictures used in Mind Mapping create powerful images for your brain to remember.

Mind Maps cater to both logical left brain thinking and pictorial right brain thinking at the same time, which makes them a very good way of storing and recalling information, presenting things to other people, and brainstorming new ideas.

About NovaMind

NovaMind is used by businesses, in education, and for personal effectiveness, for tasks such as note taking, managing to-do lists, brainstorming, research, problem solving, decision making, presentation preparation and delivery, project planning, knowledge management, writing, and many other uses.

NovaMind has been the top Mind Mapping program available on Mac computers for the last 7 years, and has been available for Windows for over 3 years. It is rapidly gaining recognition for its many unique and innovative features and ease of use.

NovaMind 5 is set to take Mind Mapping beyond where any Mind Mapping software has been before, making Mind Mapping even more powerful, intuitive and fun.

For more information about NovaMind, please visit www.novamind.com or e-mail Gideon King at Gideon/at/novamind.com.

There was particular interest in the new layout engine in NovaMind 5, with the unique ability to lay out the topics at any angle, and to keep the Mind Maps compact at all times, while allowing the user to place topics wherever they want. Also the coloring systems to make the Mind Maps look interesting and yet keep them consistent and looking good were very popular. Most of the demonstrations were done on the Windows version of NovaMind which has been in Technical Preview stage since October, and is therefore already pretty well tested and running smoothly.

A number of current users of the Mac version of NovaMind came by to have a look at what is coming in NovaMind 5, and were impressed with the new inspector system and ease of access to the advanced features of NovaMind 5 while keeping the program easy to use. The technical preview for Mac is expected to be released by the end of January, giving our Mac users the opportunity to try out the new features of NovaMind 5, while we continue to put the finishing touches to it ready for release.

Here’s a picture of Gideon King, founder of NovaMind at the NovaMind stand before the show began:

We’d love your support by you voting for NovaMind.

Just click on this link http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CKBMN76 to vote.

I know this is a bit of a tricky one since we have not actually released NovaMind 5 yet, but you can see the thought that has gone into the design from the videos and the technology preview, so it would be great if you could lend your support by voting for NovaMind.

Thanks – much appreciated.

We will be demonstrating NovaMind 5 technical preview for both Windows and Mac at the show, and we would be happy to be able to show you what’s coming. You can visit us at stand SW107.

Learn more about the BETT Show and register online for FREE

Transcription

Bonjour, je suis Cathy Schneider, Marketing Manager Europe chez NovaMind. Aujourd’hui, je souhaiterais vous présenter quelques nouvelles fonctionnalités de mise en page que vous pourrez retrouver très prochainement dans NovaMind 5

Un des problèmes majeurs avec les cartes heuristiques, ou autrement appelés Mind Maps, est quelles deviennent immenses très rapidement, et tous les logiciels existants ne règlent en rien ce problème.

Nous avons testé l’ensemble des logiciels de Mind Mapping présents sur le marché et vérifié si l’un d’eux offrait une bonne mise en page et évitait ce problème de perte de place. Devinez ce que nous avons découvert ? Oui, c’est exact, AUCUN d’entre-eux n’offrent une mise en page digne de ce nom. Je suis persuadée que si vous utilisez déjà un des ces logiciels vous êtes pénalisés par ce problème.

Alors qu’il devrait en fait s’agir d’un élément fondamental d’une application de Mind Mapping, n’est ce pas ?

Voici à quoi cela ressemble avec les autres logiciel de Mind Mapping (ici, il s’agit d’un produit concurrent, et si vous l’avez déjà utilisé, ou bien même un autre, vous avez expérimenté ce problème) – vous ajoutez des sujets, des sous-sujets et cela déplace considérablement les autres sujets, laissant de large espace inutilisé, comme ici…

Et cela s’accentue dès lors que vous avez plusieurs sujets et sous sujets qui se développent sur plusieurs niveaux, cela pousse l’ensemble et ressemble à ca.

Vous ajoutez un nouveau sujet, qui ne pourra en aucun être positionné prés d’un autre avec tout un ensemble de sous sujet qui ne pourront de toute façon pas s’entre mêler mais qui vous font gaspiller un espace considérable sur votre Mind Map

Chez NovaMind, nous nous sommes dit que nous ne pouvions laisser cette imperfection et nous avons décidé de vous proposer quelque chose de bien mieux que ca

Voici quelques unes des nouvelles fonctions de mise en page disponibles dans NovaMind 5

Cette vidéo est réalisé en utilisant une version Alpha de NovaMind 5, il se peut donc que ce vous voyez aujourd’hui diffère quelque peut avec la version qui sera commercialisée. Mais en regardant cette vidéo aujourd’hui, découvrez l’innovation et prenez connaissance des avantages de la toute nouvelle mise en page de NovaMind 5.

Il y a 4 types principaux d’objets dans vos Mind Maps :

• les sujets
• les bulles d’annotations
• les sujets flottants
• et les formes

Aujourd’hui, nous allons nous intéresser uniquement aux sujets. Pour NovaMind 5, nous avons travaillé sur l’un des principes majeurs, à savoir, garder l’ensemble de vos mind maps le plus compact possible et éviter une perte d’espace totalement inutilisable.

Vous pouvez noter, qu’avec NovaMind 5 si vous ajoutez des sous-sujets ici, les sujets eux-mêmes se positionnent de façon à ce que les lignes de connections s’effleurent sans jamais se toucher, seul l’espace nécessaire à séparer visuellement les sujets entre eux est utiliser.

Mais que se passe-t-il lorsque l’on écrit dans le sujet du dessous ?

Comme vous pouvez le voir, lorsque l’on modifie le sujet, l’écart se referme et lorsque l’on écrit, le sujet est déplacé de façon à utiliser le minimum d’espace nécessaire.

Cela est encore plus évident lorsque vous utilisez un sujet de forme ovale.

Si vous réduisez le sujet, les autres s’adaptent ensemble de façon à rester les plus compacts possibles.

Maintenant, si vous redimensionnez votre sujet, l’ensemble s’écarte automatiquement. Les autres logiciels de Mind Mapping ne vous permettent même pas de redimensionner vos sujets comme vous le souhaitez. NovaMind 5 le peut et vous donne la possibilité de les redimensionner élégamment.

Désormais, vos Mind Maps gardent automatiquement la dimension minimum et la plus compact possible sans que vous n’ayez à vous en préoccuper.

Maintenant, intéressons nous à un autre de vos besoins précédemment plébiscité ; avoir la possibilité de disposer vos sujets de haut en bas dans une arborescence. Voici comment nous y avons répondu…

Avant cela, je me permets de vous rappeler que nous utilisons une version Alpha pour cette vidéo et que l’aspect actuel sera certainement modifié avant la commercialisation, mais cela vous permet d’avoir un 1er aperçu sur cette fonctionnalité.

Vous pouvez désormais aller de la droite vers la gauche comme ceci…

Vers le haut…

Mais nous voulions faire plus que cela et vous donner encore plus de flexibilité dans la mise en page, nous avons donc ajouté la possibilité de choisir également l’angle d’inclinaison que vous souhaitez. Regardons cela dans une autre Mind Map…

Bien sur, cela rend la mise en page de NovaMind 5 bien supérieur à n’importe quel autre logiciel de mind mapping actuellement disponible.

Nous avons souhaité allez encore plus loin, et ne pas avoir cette flexibilité de mise en page disponible uniquement depuis le sujet central de la Mind Map, mais également possible à partir de chacun des sujets, vous pouvez désormais faire ceci…

Dorénavant, vous avez une flexibilité encore inégalée par aucun autre programme de mind mapping, cela vous permet toutes les mises en page de mind maps, exactement comme vous les souhaitez.

Pour les deux mises en page les plus traditionnelles, à savoir horizontales et verticales, NovaMind 5 vous offre la mise en page la plus compact du marché. Nous vous offrons également la flexibilité de modifier vos sujets et sous sujets automatiquement sous l’angle voulu et de garder ainsi vos mind maps les plus compactes possible même inclinées.

…mais nous ne nous arrêtons pas la.

Nous vous proposons la fonction ultime. Il est absolument remarquable d’avoir cette flexibilité de mise en page, mais nous souhaitons souvent déplacer un sujet et le positionner a un endroit bien précis. Et que se passe-t-il ? Les différents sujets se chevauchent, et nous devons déplacer tous les autres sujets un a un.

Maintenant, vous pouvez positionner vos sujets ou bon vous semble, le logiciel garde le contrôle et adieu les chevauchements intempestifs.

Si maintenant je bouge mon sujet ici, les autres sujets quant à eux restent ou nous le souhaitions.

Si vous mettez un sujet au dessus d’un autre, il sera automatique déplacé.

Si vous ajoutez un sujet qui en pousse d’autres, ils seront automatiquement déplacés mais garderons leur liens avec les sujets-parents. Vous n’avez plus à vous soucier des chevauchements inopportuns.

Voici une des raisons pour laquelle nous sommes vraiment impatients de vous proposer NovaMind 5!

With the significant amount of interest that has been generated by NovaMind 5, it became necessary to expand the NovaMind sales and marketing teams worldwide. As part of that expansion, NovaMind are pleased to announce that we now have a full time European presence with the hiring of Cathy Schneider, as the NovaMind Marketing Manager for Europe. She will be working with the rest of the sales and marketing team to address the needs of our European customers.

Cathy brings a wealth of experience, having worked as a marketing manager for Mindjet, selling MindManager in Europe, and therefore is thoroughly familiar with Mind Mapping. She also brings experience as a business manager, sales manager and after sales manager, and is fluent in French, German and English.

Cathy says “I’m very excited to be joining NovaMind at such a fundamental time where I can leverage the full spectrum of my experience. I see tremendous continued opportunity for NovaMind and look forward to helping the company expand its product line, increase its brand awareness and reach new customers.”

One of the first things Cathy did upon joining the team was to translate one of the videos about NovaMind 5 into French, and the resulting video is available at this URL: http://www.novamind.com/features/nm5.php#topiclayout

NovaMind founder, Gideon King said “NovaMind 5 is a complete redesign of our Mind Mapping software from the ground up, and it is great to see the huge level of interest out there. It has become obvious that nobody else in the market is addressing the fundamental needs of Mind Mappers. This has generated a lot of interest in NovaMind 5, and the need to grow our sales and marketing team significantly.

We are delighted to be able to welcome Cathy to the team to firmly establish our presence in Europe. She brings with her the experience of working with MindManager for several years, and is therefore able to both be up to speed on Mind Mapping principles and uses, as well as seeing the unique advantages of NovaMind.”

Cathy is available to take enquiries from companies and individuals from the UK and Europe, and can be reached at cathy@novamind.com . She will also be at the NovaMind stand at the BETT show at the Olympia stadium in London, 13th to 16th January 2010 – stand SW107.

This video shows you how easy it is to transfer MindMaps back and forth between NovaMind and iThoughts. The demonstration is done using NovaMind for Mac, but works equally well with NovaMind for Windows.

For further information about iThoughts, and to get your copy of NovaMind or iThoughs, please visit http://www.novamind.com/ithoughts

I believe that NovaMind in its new Version 5 is will now be ranked in the top tier of software programs in the mind mapping genre .. and it may be heading for the Number 1 position.

The MindWare blog is a highly respected source, and has been blogging about software for Self-Improvement, Personal Development and Success since 2004.

Bruce is mentions in particluar, the layout engine: “NovaMind’s map layout engine has been completely rewritten in version 5 to maintain a compact map layout. [The program is] … quite efficient, maintaining a clean map layout while preventing topic overlaps and eliminating much wasted space. If one topic threatens to intrude on another, the first topic moves out of the way just enough to accommodate it…Most mind mapping programs limit where you can place topics. Some enable you to drag and drop them within certain prescribed limits, while others are more rigid and don’t enable you to move topics around the workspace at all. In contrast, you can move topics wherever you want in NovaMind 5, and the program will honor where you place them.”

To ready the entire article and other posts, head on over to the Mindware blog