FreeMind – an opensource mindmap editor

FreeMind is a premier free mind-mapping software written in Java. The recent development has hopefully turned it into high productivity tool. The operation and navigation of FreeMind is faster than that of MindManager because of one-click "fold / unfold" and "follow link" operations.

The FreeMind website is: http://freemind.sourceforge.net

-- Contributors: MarkVanOuse - 08 Aug 2007

Embedding mind maps in TWiki

Java applet

1. upload the freemindbrowser.jar file into the same directory as your TWiki installation)
2. attach the mindmap file to a topic (eg. MyMindmap.mm to MyTopic)
3. edit MyTopic and paste the following code into your topic:

     <APPLET CODE="freemind.main.FreeMindApplet.class" ARCHIVE="http://.../freemindbrowser.jar" WIDTH="100%" HEIGHT="100%">
     <PARAM NAME="type" VALUE="application/x-java-applet;version=1.4">
     <PARAM NAME="scriptable" VALUE="false">
     <PARAM NAME="modes" VALUE="freemind.modes.browsemode.BrowseMode">
     <PARAM NAME="browsemode_initial_map" VALUE="http://.../MyWeb/MyTopic/MyMindmap.mm">
     <PARAM NAME="initial_mode" VALUE="Browse">
     <PARAM NAME="selection_method" VALUE="selection_method_direct">
     </APPLET>
     

4. replace ARCHIVE="http://.../freemindbrowser.jar" with the correct path to your freemindbrowser.jar file
5. replace VALUE="http://.../MyWeb/MyTopic/MyMindmap.mm"> with the correct path to your attached mindmap
6. save MyTopic and MyMindmap should be displayed in MyTopic

• You only need access to your server once
• the next time you want to embed a mindmap follow steps 2-6

-- CarloSchulz - 16 Oct 2006

Flash plug in

1. Get the Flash browser for FreeMind
2. Upload visorFreemind.swf file into the pub directory of your TWiki installation
3. Attach the mind map file to a topic (eg. MyMindmap.mm to MyTopic)
4. Edit MyTopic and paste the following code into your topic:

   <blockquote>
       <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="%PUBURL%/visorFreemind.swf" width="100%" height="500">
           <param name="movie" value="%PUBURL%/visorFreemind.swf" />
           <param name="quality" value="high" />
           <param name="flashvars" value="initLoadFile=%ATTACHURL%/MyMindmap.mm&amp;openUrl=_blank&amp;startCollapsedToLevel=3&amp;maxNodeWidth=200&amp;mainNodeShape=elipse&amp;justMap=false&amp;defaultToolTipWordWrap=200&amp;offsetX=left&amp;offsetY=top&amp;buttonsPos=top&amp;min_alpha_buttons=20&amp;max_alpha_buttons=100&amp;scaleTooltips=false&amp;bgcolor=0xF8FBFC" />
       </object>
   </blockquote>

5. Replace MyMindmap.mm in initLoadFile=%ATTACHURL%/MyMindmap.mm with the name of your attached mind map
6. Edit width and height
7. Save MyTopic and MyMindmap should be displayed in MyTopic

Documentations

• Flash browser for FreeMind (Overview, download)
• The Flash Browser for FreeMind mind maps (How-to, configuration)
• Documentation of the flashvars parameters
• Documentation of the XHTML object tag

Sample

-- FrankSpangenberg - 05 Oct 2007

Comments

See http://wiki.conceptmapping.org/Sandbox/FreeMindTest for a demo of AlexanderStedile 's embed example of http://freemind.sourceforge.net.

Coupled with WebDAVPlugin it could bring a new paradigm of visual re-arrangement of wiki content.

-- MartinCleaver - 24 Nov 2004

I have been using mindmaps so this extension is very interesting to me. How do you make the COMMENT work for this viewer? Could you share the configuration steps?

-- TiborGellert - 28 Apr 2005

See the UserTemplates for the source. Add that source to your UserTemplates and attach freemindbrowser.jar to it. Then you may upload a mindmap to your topic and show it by adding

%COMMENT{type="freemind" map="https://twiki.org/p/pub/Codev/FreeMind/nameofmindmap.mm" height="40"}%

-- FranzJosefSilli - 29 Apr 2005

Martin, any chance these user templates could be provided on twiki.org (preferably in Plugins web) along with a tiny bit of installation documentation?

Bug: the comment box on this page does not work anymore because of the comment tag inside verbatim above.

-- ArthurClemens - 29 Apr 2005

Comment box should work again (verbatim doesn't working that reliably). The freemind template needs the somewhat large freemindbrowser.jar file being uploaded. File upload size is limited (Thank God!).

-- FranzJosefSilli - 06 Jul 2005

Can someone post the source of the UserTemplate here? Seems the other links are unavailable.

-- JeffCrawford - 26 Sep 2006

Note that Carlo's method only works if the applet can access the file. If your web is access protected, freemind will fail. On my Apache installation, the access code returned was 200, so this confused me for some time.

Does anyone know of a way to get freemind to log in to twiki? That'd be nice.

-- MichaelLabbe - 23 Oct 2006

does anybody plan to create a plug in to include FreeMind maps in a TWiki?

-- MatthiasThullner - 14 Oct 2008