As you may know, I’m a huge proponent of mind mapping. The topic has been a major focus on several episodes of Systematic (and will be again in an upcoming episode with Eddie Smith).
My favorite native app for this task is iThoughts (Mac and iOS) with MindNode (Mac and iOS) running a close second. As I frequently mention, though, I love the web app MindMeister (also available for iOS) for collaboration and sharing embeddable maps.
I’m writing this post to mention some excellent improvements that MindMeister just released.
The biggest improvements to my own workflow are the copy & paste features. Using standard shortcuts (⌘C, ⌘V), the web app now behaves much more like my favorite desktop apps.
You can now paste images from the clipboard with a simple ⌘V into the web app and have them instantly become nodes (with an option to make them attachments).
Pasting links will intelligently determine whether it’s a regular link (inserted as a hyperlinked node), an image link (inserted as an image node), or a video (YouTube, Vimeo, and DailyMotion videos are attached).
Pasting text will automatically create a new node, and text with line breaks offers the option to create multiple nodes by splitting the pasted text.
You can also copy topics and groups of nodes between maps in different windows and browsers, which is handy for multitasking and for transitioning and combining ideas.
There is also Disqus integration for public maps, and a contextual menu that you can reach by right/control clicking and empty space in the canvas. The menu allows you to quickly change the theme of the map, as well as inserting floating (detached) topics anywhere you like.
These are excellent improvements and I’m happy to see that MindMeister is still receiving so much love, even as development effort continues to make their new product, MeisterTask, a great project management tool. You can sign up for MindMeister for free and see if it’s as great a tool for you and your collaborators as it has been for me.
