Adding new topic shapes to your MindManager library

In the MindManager Library there is a section called Shapes. It contains three folders: Ovals, Rectangles and Rounded Rectangles. Any of these shapes can be applied to a topic by dragging and dropping or selecting a topic and then clicking the required shape. This can be used to give another level of emphasis to your maps. If you need to change the colour of a shape or remove / add a dot, duplicate and then open in your image editor.

What about adding your own shapes to the library? Very easy add a new folder (right click the shapes folder) and then follow the instructions on my Creating New Topics Shapes in MindManager map.

I created a new shape from my logo by editing it and adding a boundary in Paint.net. I also gave a it a transparent background. Then I added it to Shape Library and used it for the central topic of the map. You can see in the map some of my choices may not be that clever. If the shape had been applied to the main or subtopics the background would not be an issue.

This morning I was creating a new shape from a sandcastle image during an online client training session. It soon be came apparent that the aspect ratio of the shape image is dependent on the text string height and width. You need to choose shapes that look good when crushed, stretched or otherwise distorted!

There are a few ways to mitigate the distortion:
1. Control the text width in Format Topic or by dragging the left and right text boundaries
2. Font size and type
3. Edit Content Margins in the Library Shape or Format Topic > Size and Margins. See the map.

Does anyone have some great examples of custom shapes in their MindManager maps?

Writing books with MindManager

It's a very simple process assuming you are going to export the map to Microsoft Word.

The Central Topic is the Title.

The Main Topics are the level one headings.

The Sub Topics are the level two headings and so on.

The Notes are the paragraphs and or tables that appear after the headings. Use a Note on the Central Topic to produce a frontispiece for the book. Notes can contain images and tables. Use tables to create text columns and to align images and text on a page. Unfortunately there are not the image wrapping facilities that you get in Word. Use linked images if the image is still being edited or will be updated. Every time MindManager is opened the image will be updated in the Notes or you can refresh it (right click the image and refresh).

Relationships are cross references uni-directional or bi-directional if you have an arrowhead at both ends.

Many of the other items on a map will appear in the Word document: Icon markers, callout topics, review comments, text markers, task information (appears in a small table).

You can also include the map as a graphic below the title and insert a table of contents. You can control the numbering style and insert header and footer information. Finally you can choose a Word Template to use for the exported document. You might have one template for the printed book - A5 portrait double sided booklet and another for the eBook - A4 landscape 2 pages per sheet. For fiction book you can use the Word Template style to hide all but the chapter heading.

Floating topics do not appear in the exported document, so they can be useful places to write notes to yourself. Use View > Show/Hide to hide them before exporting if you do not want them to appear on the map graphic!

Use filtering to hide topics which are not finished or not required e.g. clauses in a quote before exporting.

This is how I produced my 20 page training manual "An Introduction to MindManager" The map on the cover of the booklet is the map that produces the book.

Only available from Cabre for £7.50

Now for the most important part of this blog. MindManager is a great tool for containing and publishing your book. It's easy to reorganise, to write the parts of the book you have just had the inspiration for and to identify the completeness of sections with the task complete icons. However this is only one part of writing a book. I think you should have a map for many of the following (obviously some are not required for non-fiction):

• Audience - Who is going to read it. What do they want to read. etc.
• Research - The background, your sources, references etc.
• Characters - Create a word and image map(s) which describe your characters and their relationships to other characters and the plot.
• The Plot - What leads to what etc.
  
• Writing process - Your plan for writing the book
• The Publishing Plan - Who will do it. How will it be promoted. etc.
• Finally - Why are you doing it? This could be a financial or philanthropic map!

You may like to suggest some more by adding a comment to this blog. If you have any experience of writing books with MindManager please tell me about them.

If you need any help with using MindManager to produce documents, please contact me.

MindManager Add Ins and other related software

This is work in progress. I am compiling a map of the MindManager add ins and related software. There are many more to be added to the map but I thought there were enough now to share with you.

Click the map to see the full size clickable image map.

Please add your suggestions by commenting on this post.

Using MindManager with your bicycle or bike

This is one I did earlier and a video I found on YouTube.

First my map of how to programme a two button cycle computer. the sort that tell you how far you have gone and how slow you have been. I average about 12 mph on my road bike. I was getting lost as to how many buttons to push and when. I think the process of mapping it fixed it in mind but I always had the reference on one sheet of A6 when I needed it.



Does that make it clearer?

Here is a video by Paula where she shows how she runs and tracks the maintenance of her Pegasus bike MindManager.

That is definitely getting value out of using MindManager.

3 Speakers - 3 Different MindManager maps

I am attending a monthly meeting of Entrepreneurs World. It has networking between entrepreneurs and people who can fund their activities: banks, venture capitalists and other entrepreneurs. At each meeting there is a speaker. Here are the maps of the three most recent ones and some technical notes for MindManager users.

What Ehud Furman did after Shopping.com got acquired by eBay

Note: I have hidden the lines from the central topic. You can use a no lines format option or make the lines the same colour as the background.

Uzair Bawany CEO Contact Recruitment talking about developing a recruitment business and the current environment

Note: I have post compressed (possibly a bit too much) this map image so it will load faster. MindManager produces a high resolution and therefore large JPEG file in the web exports unless you select no background in Web Export > Customise > Advanced Settings, where a smaller GIF will be produced. GIFs are great when there are no photos involved in the map but most photos will look as though they have been through an undesirable special effect if turned into a GIF.

JPEGs can be post compressed before upload to the server using on-line tools e.g. Chami or desktop tools e.g. Photoshop, Gimp or Paint.net. Unfortunately Microsoft Picture Manager only compresses when you resize to standard sizes. A clickable image map must remain the same size or the links will be in the wrong place.

John Viney talking about his life as a head hunter and his approach to investments

Note: This is two clickable image exports. The first creates the header, footer and top map. The second is added to the first by copy and pasting the exported index.html.txt file into the index.html of the first map. Make sure you set the index file name of the second export to something different to the first. I replaced index by parallel_interests in the example giving a file parallel_interests.html.txt and an parallel_interests.gif. This image must be uploaded with those produced by the first export and the edited index.html.

And I did use GIFs for both images in this export. The text is very clear and the images of John Viney slightly distorted.