Finally a Logical Application
I recently found this open source project called FreeMind. It came out of a discussion on IRC and I have to admit I have been very impressed. If you have ever been in a course trying to take notes in a word processor, you know how impossible it is to keep a structure and represent what you really mean in an efficient way. While this application won’t produce a clean print, it does allow you to organise your ideas. The output graphic looks very clean without any efforts.
The application just create a set of nodes linked together with text in them: it’s plain simple. The good part of it is that it’s actually very simple to use and the navigation is very quick. There are a few more advanced features from what I could see in the screenshots, but I’m not an expert with it yet. Since most common operations can be done with the keyboard (actually, all of them if you can remember the keys), you don’t really have to mess with the touch pad. Touch pads are fine for casual navigation, but when it comes to graphics or drag and drop, it’s hell.
The entire application is written in Java, so it’s cross platform. It also boots and run quite fast. Some Java applications are just too heavy graphically (ever used NetBeans?), but it’s not the case. Actually, the entire application weights under a meg. It seems to be very stable: it never crashed on me so far.
One of the most positive aspects about it is the way it saves the files. The files are saved in plain text, which makes it friendly to all revision control system. Not only you can take notes, but you can backup them efficiently and even do some collaborative work with them. This is one of the things that have been bothering me with OpenOffice.org format forever. I just wish there was a way to ask it not to compress the files. I just use CVS for everything.
It can also export to HTML, which generates a readable page. It’s probably a good option if you intend to have a paper copy. There is also a print option but it somehow scares me and there is no preview. I with I could see what I print. An other nice option would be image export. It might come in the future. They also have a demonstration applet on their website which shows you can actually have the application running in a browser in readonly mode with all folding capacities enabled. I don’t know how they did it (I need to read the documentation), but it seems to be a very nice option for any project.
Notes taking is one of the first things I tought about, but the application can also be used to design projects or brainstorm with other people. It’s based on the concepts of Mind Mapping by some psychology author (just search google). There are other applications using the same concepts. Some of them are commercial and there are quite a few other Free alternatives.