Mind mapping is kind of like American coffee: you either love it or hate it. While I'm not an American coffee fan, I do like mind maps, and I just found a beautiful tool for creating them -- as well as other charts. It's called Blumind [Google translate link], and here's what you need to know about it:
- It's tiny: Blumind is a 244KB download. It's super-lightweight.
- It's portable: The whole thing is just one executable file; there's no installation needed.
- It supports color schemes: If you don't like the colors on the screenshot, don't blame Blumind. It's just one of several possible schemes that the application offers. You can change the scheme for your entire diagram in one fell swoop.
- It's keyboard driven: Creating new nodes couldn't be easier. Enter creates a new sibling, while Insert or Tab creates a sub-node.
- It's simple: There aren't very many options. Most notably, there are no "node styles" - meaning that you can't format one node and then save that formatting so that you can apply it to other nodes. It does have a Format Painter, though, so you can copy one node's formatting onto another.
- It doesn't play well with others: While there are nice export options for PNG, SVG, JPG, and other "final" formats, there is no way to export your work to FreeMind, or to any other mind-mapping format.
- It can be used for more than just mind maps: It's a snap to convert your drawing to an organizational chart, a tree chart, or a logic chart. In fact, Blumind is the fastest way I know of to create a beautiful organizational chart.
The bottom line? Blumind is a great little tool as long as its lack of interoperability isn't a deal breaker for you.
Blumind is a tiny, powerful tool for creating mind maps and other diagrams originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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