ThinkBuzan has been promising that they were going to get more aggressive with development of iMindMap. And with the release earlier this week of, they have delivered on that promise. IMindMap 6 contains a wealth of new and improved features that make it a serious contender for business uses.Although I’ve always admired iMindMap and its organic approach to mind mapping, I was truthfully never fully satisfied with the way in which some of its functionality was implemented. A case in point has been the program’s 3D view.
Something I would use on a regular basis to add visual impact to my presentations? Probably not. It seemed to be a solution in search of a problem – a really cool capability that wasn’t useful for much more than conducting whiz-bang presentations. It was, after all, a read-only view.In iMindMap 6, 3D view has reached an impressive level of maturity. You can now add to and edit mind maps within this view – which makes it much more useful for presenters who want to interact with their audiences and capture their ideas on the fly.
You can also vary the angle of view with a new 3D “joystick” that appears in the lower right corner of the screen, in addition to using the mouse. You can also add one of 7 different backgrounds to 3D view, giving your presentations added depth and visual interest. An example is shown above (click image to view larger version).What else is significant to business users of mind mapping software in iMindMap 6? Read on:New branch target: One of the distinctive features of iMindMap has been its branch target, which resembles a set of concentric circles that appears at the end of any selected map branch. Drag the red circle at the center, and a new branch “grows” from the end of your cursor. Drag the blue circle, and you can adjust the size and position of the current branch.
In iMindMap 6, the branch target has been enhanced, so you can now create regular branches, box branches or draw relationships – all without having to use the program’s toolbar or shortcut keys. Note the yellow and green segments on the outer circle in the screen shot at right – that’s where the new functions have been added.Any time you can centralize more commands in floating toolbars, right click commands or devices like this branch target, it’s a very good thing. You can get more done faster, without having to mouse up to the ribbon toolbar repeatedly. Well done, ThinkBuzan!Expanded branch formatting options: Box branches and relationship lines have new formatting options in version 6.0. You can also edit the formatting of individual words and characters in your topics – say, for example, if you wanted to make one word bold for emphasis, you can do that in iMindMap 6.
Click on the large 3D mind map image above and you’ll see examples of both features on the far right side of the mind map.Improved flowcharts: The flowchart tool, which first appeared in version 5. 0 and was fairly rudimentary, has been significantly improved in iMindMap 6. Clicking on the flowchart icon in the insert tab of the program’s toolbar causes a sub-ribbon to appear below the main one, which enables you to add 11 types of flowchart shapes to your mind map.
I was easily able to drag and drop different flowchart shapes into the workspace, and then join them together by dragging a connector line from the center of each object to the next one.The program provides excellent visual feedback as you build your flowchart; hovering the cursor over a flowchart object causes a green circle with a curved arrow to appear. This is a visual prompt that tells you that you can create a connector line by dragging in the direction of the shape to which you want to connect it. The second the cursor crosses the border of another shape, a rotating circle appears, which means if you release the mouse button, the shapes will be connected. Dragging and dropping a branch from the branch target of the nearby map branch caused a dotted line to appear – an intelligent way to show that the flowchart is related to this topic. Map snippets: I get excited when a developer introduces a feature that saves users time, and enables them to produce professional-looking mind maps, faster.
That’s why I’m very pleased to see that ThinkBuzan has introduced “map snippets” to version 6. This functionality enables you to take any part of an existing map and save it for future re-use. You can then paste any snippet into a new mind map – perfect for any types of map objects you create frequently for your work, including project elements, people, to-do lists and so forth.iMindMap 6 comes pre-loaded with several snippets for writing, meeting elements, a mini-SWOT diagram (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) and a problem solver snippet. Adding your own snippets is as easy as clicking on the map snippets tab on the right side of the screen, selecting the topic that you want to save and clicking on a large orange “snippet” button at the top of the side panel. It gets added to the view, and you then have an opportunity to name it – nice! When you want to insert a snippet, simply select it in the side panel and click on the green “insert” button at the bottom of the side panel.
This is excellent – simple and intuitive functionality that is perfect for business and personal users of the program. Every iMindMap 6 user should be making frequent use of snippets to speed their work.Wayback: This new feature integrates with ThinkBuzan Cloud, the developer’s online map storage and sharing service, to enable you to view a history of changes to your mind maps, and easily revert back to previous versions of it. This service is accessed from within the tools menu of the program, which gives you a view of all of the mind maps you have stored online. Clicking on the wayback view of your mind map, a horizontal timeline is displayed (see the screen shot below), showing each time you saved your map.
You can easily delete a revision or revert to it. Nicely done – this is a very useful service for business people, who typically must have documents and plans approved by multiple individuals and teams. This is a creative and useful way to leverage the integration between ThinkBuzan’s desktop mapping software and its cloud-based component.Initially, however, I was a bit confused: I thought wayback took a snapshot of my mind map each time I saved it – whether it was open or if I was in the process of closing it. That’s not the case.
IMindMap 6 can only synchronize your mind maps to the cloud service when the file is closed. Same goes for Wayback. It would be nice if a future version could also let users manually decide when to save a snapshot to the wayback service.Improved presentation view: iMindMap 6’s presentation view has been rebuilt to give it even more power and functionality. If you’re in a hurry and don’t have time to create a custom presentation, the program can auto-generate one for you, either displaying each topic and subtopic, one per slide, or just first-level branches only – nice! In presentation view, iMindMap 6 displays a slide selector along the bottom of the screen, where you can easily add and reorder slides.When a slide is selected, the corresponding section of your mind map is highlighted with a blue bounding box. Dragging any of its corners enables you to adjust the level of zoom on that topic in your slide, corresponding to the size of the bounding box relative to the topic.You can’t move the bounding box up, down or sideways, however. I’m not sure why this is so.
But I had one branch where I wanted to move the box to the left, because the wording of my topic was on the far left side of the slide. Not gonna happen. You can also rotate the bounding box (see the screen shot at right), which gives you the ability to “straighten out” topics on curved branches that may otherwise be a bit hard for some people to read. This is accomplished by dragging a rotate icon inside of the bounding box. This is simple and intuitive. When you play your presentation, the panning, zooming and rotation is very cool!Because iMindMap only enables you to select one branch at a time in presentation view, version 6 includes a new branch grouping function.
It allows you to group select the slides of a number of sibling branches, and display them all in a single slide. Presentation view also gets its own undo and redo commands – essential if you have created an effect (such as excessive rotation) that you’d prefer to get rid of.If you run out of time while creating a custom slide presentation, you can click on the “auto complete” button and iMindMap 6 will auto-generate slides for the rest of your mind map, while leaving the ones you’ve already created alone. This shows great attention to detail, and should be very useful to time-starved executives who start creating a presentation with the best of intentions, only to get distracted by other priorities and run out of time.Another really great new feature is the ability to save multiple presentation versions within a single map file. This enables you to create shorter and longer presentations from a single mind map – very cool!
How many times have you attended a meeting with a large PowerPoint slide deck, only to be told the time available for your presentation has just been cut in half? Now you can be prepared for both scenarios!Presentation settings give you additional control over animation speed, whether links should be functional in presentation view, select a style of 2D transitions (bounce vs. Pan/zoom), how the map will be traversed (top level topics only or all branches) and whether the default view for the presentation is 2D or 3D.Presentations can be done on one or two screens; the latter gives the presenter a separate view that includes notes, a presentation timer and presentation settings. The settings can also be accessed from 2D mode, by clicking on a discreet arrow at the bottom of the screen. This gives presenters a high level of control over the way the program behaves, while staying out of the way while not in use.ConclusionThinkBuzan has delivered a mind mapping program that is a significant improvement over previous versions. Some of the functionality that debuted in version 5.0, such as 3D view and flow charting, have matured considerably. I also love wayback and iMindMap 6’s improved presentation features.
It all adds up to what is without question most significant version of iMindMap produced to date.If you own a previous version of the program, you should definitely update to version 6 for the productivity increases it enables. If you’re in the market for mind mapping software, I would definitely put iMindMap 6 on your short list of contenders.A single-use license for iMindMap 6 ultimate costs US$256; upgrade pricing for earlier versions of the program is also available by inputting your iMindMap serial number into.
IMindMap 5 Ultimate- Mind Mapping Software Review and Free Serial NumberMind Maps are graphical representation of our ideas and tasks around a central Keyword (idea). They can be used for generating and capturing ideas, planning events as well taking notes in a more visual interface. IMindMap by ThinkBuzan is quite a popular software in market to do that and rated at par by many reliable sources. What is mind map?Basically, Mind Map is a visual representation of How our brain thinks and remembers about certain thing.
Mind Mapping is a powerful technique allowing you to make the best use of your brain power. Central Idea is branched out with various related tasks and things around it helping you convert random thoughts in linear way and coming to some conclusion.To whom is it useful?In one word – Anyone to solve a problem, make decisions, organize thoughts clearly or simply remember things in visual way.For example: Students who want to memorize certain topic, take notes or have a presentation to express and communicate better.
Business Personnel who are planning out a meeting or new project. Individuals for Goal Setting, Career selection and many questions and tasks in life. IMindMap 5 Ultimate ReviewiMindMap 5 is a latest version which comes bundled with many new features and revamped interface to suit both Windows and Mac users. To be true, I used any Mind Mapping software for the first time. Looking at the features provided by iMindMap 5 like 3D Presentations, MultiMaps, and many others, its stands out from others in Market. InterfaceThey have customized interface for Mac and Windows PC users. On Windows, we have a Ribbon interface similar to MS Office products which is quite convenient.
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There are inbuilt templates of Mind Maps to start modifying one according to needs. Working out and creating mind is easy even for beginner with rich visual interface.Each and every element right from Central Idea to Branch and Nodes can have different color and icons. Just hover on any element and circle appears from where you can create new node.Another impressive addition in this version is Smart Layout which smoothly space your branches out for you, so you can focus on getting down ideas and your map will stay organised. 3D PresentationPresentation view in 3D is marvelous. Branch appears one after another as you go on mouse clicking with smooth zoom and pan animation effects. This can guarantee a good impression on your audience. Image LibraryIt has a huge library of images though only few are of high quality which can be embedded in our mind maps for better feel.
Icons are classified in categories which makes searching and adding them to mind map easy. MultiMapsiMindMap is the only software providing this feature to link more than one central idea in one workspace. This is useful when you are working out on a topic with number of sub heads to be covered. Online AccessThis feature lets you collaborate on maps online with colleagues or friends in real time. Also, makes it possible to access maps anywhere anytime and you can use it as backup of desktop version.iMindMap Ultimate comes with 12 months of free subscription of online version and you need ThinkBuzan account to use it.
Embedding SpreadSheetThis is another cool feature especially for business users who want to embed small spreadsheets about certain branch inside Mind Map. Just Right click and Insert Spreadsheet to get a small spreadsheet which will be displayed just behind the branch. Import and Export of Mind MapiMindMap 5 can now import native maps from MindManager, Novamind and Freemind – with no file converting or fiddling around.Mind Maps can be exported in PDF, Image, Presentation, Spreadsheet or use the new Pack and Go feature which zips up your map with all of its attached files into a folder so that you can send it in one tidy package.ConclusioniMindMap 5 Ultimate is easy to use feature rich tool with nice visual implements. Being a first timer to use any Mind Mapping software, I found it great tool storming out creativeness in you.
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Give it a try and You’ll definitely see and be surprised by the difference it makes! IMindMap 5 Ultimate Serial NumbersI will be giving out two iMindMap 5 Ultimate Serial Numbers to readers who share this article on Facebook. To participate, Share this article on Facebook and write your views about the product including Facebook Profile URL. Winner will be randomly selected and declared on 25th May 2011.Download Trial version of for 7 days and write your views about the product in comments to increase chances of winning a free copy.For others, you can try out which is free forever and good for beginners though it doesn’t have all features mentioned above.