I've become a big fan of David Sparks, iThoughts HD to Scrivener trick. Take your mind map, flesh out your idea, then take that visual through the magic of OPML and turn it into a functional outline. It's made my more structured writing so much faster and you are spot on, you (or at least I) can't truly flesh out these types of ideas in a text file.
I've been convinced by you and others (Gruber, Mann, & Rhone, among others) that plain text is the way to go for keeping text. But what are some other open formats for things like spreadsheets? I know CSV will keep the cell data, but is there a "plain text equivalent" for Excel? I have a spreadsheet that I use for budgeting that I'd like to keep around. Any suggestions?
If you enjoy playing with columns of data, including numbers, Panorama Sheets is great fun. It may or may not suit your needs, but it does allow import/export of text files in various formats including CSV. Watch the video here.
Well, you should you orgmode1 with Emacs for that. Works great, The only downside is that you have to use Emacs ;)
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You did not just write a post about mind mapping without recommending any applications for it.
All the ones I've used are either slow or inflexible. I want to just mesh some ideas and grid them, automatically backlinking to ideas already on the table.
I did a while back. I have to admit, though, that I broke down and upgraded my Mindjet MindManager license. It's not, in my opinion, worth what I paid, but it's definitely a joy to use for most mapping. MindNode is still awesome, though, and definitely my go-to app for simple maps.
I've been trying to get into MindNode for the Mac, but i find iThoughts on the iPad so much faster (and it seems to adjust to changes better as well).
Michael: I'm not sure I know MindNode Pro all that much better, but I just find it easier/faster to use a regular keyboard to brainstorm with over the virtual keypad on an iPad. I LOVE the ability of iThoughts and MindNode Pro both to save as OPML in order to go to Scrivener.
iThoughts is wonderful on the iPad, but I find it unintuitive that it's faster for your than MindNode Pro. Maybe it's just me and how I use the iPad. Although iThoughts is fantastics, MindNode Pro is now my "go to" app for this sort of thing. Not only is it quick, but re-thinking or re-structuring a map is easy: drag and drop a node into a new area. I can use the keyboard to fold/unfold sub-nodes. It's especially nice when working with a group who have a lot of suggestions—easy to edit, easy to restructure.
The only thing I wish MindNode Pro had is the ability to put "notes" into nodes. Apparently it will have this feature at 2.0. iThoughts is great at handling notes and a lot of other things, but I never thought of it as quick.
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