Mindjet Labs

FreeMind Import for MindManager 7

vivek — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:16:13 GMT

2.0.6: Import FreeMind files into MindManager Pro 6 on Windows.

Version 2.0.6 (1/26/2008)

Usage

Click on MindManager Button...select Open.
Select FreeMind (*.mm) in the Files of type field and browse to the FreeMind file to open.
Press Open once you have selected a FreeMind file.

Revision History

1/26/2008 - Updated for MindManager 7.
1/16/2007 - Fixed problem in installer that was preventing installer from working on some systems.
12/14/2006 - Updated installer to run on Windows Vista.
7/31/2006 - Fixed to work with hyperlinks that have spaces in them.
7/19/2006 - Changed from Transform to Add-in to fix schema validation issue with ap:StockIcon

- Added File...Import...FreeMind Map... menu option.
4/24/2006 - Updated to work with MindManager 6 SP1; Added mapping of priority icons.
1/31/2006 - Added handling of LINK attributes to add hyperlinks to topics.

OneNote 2007 Integration with MindManager Pro 7

Michael Deutch — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:57:20 GMT

1.0.9: OneNote 2007 Integration with MindManager Pro 7: Send To MindManager, OneNote Hyperlinks in MindManager, and Notebook Hierarchy Mapping

Version 1.0.9 (2/14/2008)

This demonstrates a synergistic relationship between two applications, Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 and Mindjet MindManager Pro 7:

From MindManager, you can easily map out the Notebooks, Section Groups, Sections, Pages, and Subpages, including hyperlinks:
Select Add-Ins Tab...OneNote 2007 Notebooks.
From MindManager, you can send the current map to OneNote as an image that you can sketch on and annotate:
Select MindManager ...Export...Microsoft Office OneNote 2007.
From OneNote, you can send a page to MindManager as a hyperlinked topic:
Press the Send to MindManager button on the Standard toolbar in OneNote.

The hierarchy of OneNote 2007 notebooks, sections, and pages in MindManager

A MindManager map in OneNote that you can sketch on.

Revision History

2/14/2008 Fixed the Com Surrogate error
1/25/2008 Fixed the Com Surrogate error
8/3/2007 Updated to work with MindManager Pro 7
2/6/2007 Fixed a problem where MindManager was not shutting down correctly when started from OneNote's Send to MindManager (Thanks to Nick Duffill)
1/15/2007 Added Section Groups to OneNote hierarchy map (Thanks to Lutz Schmieder).
1/12/2007 Added Unfiled pages, Live Shared Sections, and nested subpages to OneNote Hierarchy map. (Thanks to Bernd).
1/11/2007 Fixed problem with Self-extracting zip on some systems and fixed error messages when OneNote 2007 or MindManager Pro 6 are not installed.
1/11/2007 Added a left margin to the OneNote page when sent from MindManager.
1/10/2007 Initial Release.

This solution requires Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 and will not work on OneNote 2003 or the OneNote 2007 Beta. You can download a free trial of OneNote 2007 from Microsoft.

HTML Help File Builder for MindManager Pro 7

Michael Deutch — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:51:35 GMT

1.0.10: Create Compiled Help files from MindManager Maps

Verison 1.0.10: 8/7/2007

HTML Help files are great way of packaging information from MindManager Maps.

Windows Explorer Usage:

Right-click on a .mmap file and select Compile Help.
A .chm file will be created in the same folder as the .mmap file.

MindManager Usage

Open a map that you want to export to CHM. If you want to create a new help map, select MindManager ()...New...HTML Help Map
Add Help Map Markers icons to mark Table of Content entries.
From the Top menu, select MindManager ()...Export...Compiled Help Export...
Select a filename for the .chm and press OK.
A .chm file will be created with that filename.

HTML Help file showing new TOC Icons

Adding to a build script:

To add the building of a compiled help file to a software build process, you can use this script with command line parameters:

C:\Program Files\Mindjet Labs\MindManager Help Builder\BuildHelp.wsf

Usage: BuildHelp.wsf [map] [/chm:value] [/open]
Options:
map : .mmap input filename; if none is supplied then the active map in MindManager is used.
chm : .chm output filename. Default is the map filename with a .chm extension.
open: open the compiled help file after successful creation.
Example: BuildHelp.wsf Help.mmap /chm:Help.chm

Pagination:

When the help file is created, a page is created for each labeled topic (select Topic...Label... to add a label to any topic).
If there are no labeled topics, all of the topics are put into a single page.

Requirements:

Mindjet MindManager Pro 7
This uses the free Microsoft HTML Help compiler that is part of the HTML Help Workshop.

Revision History:

8/7/2007 Updated EULA.
8/3/2007 Updated to work with MindManager 7 Pro
2/7/2007 Added Task Info and Topic hyperlinks. Fixed a problem with pagination.
2/2/2007 Added custom properties, spreadsheets, and comments.
2/1/2007 Added a map template and icon map marker set that corresponds to table of contents markers in HTML Help files.
Added an instructions file (that was generated by this builder) to Start Menu/Program Files/Mindjet Labs/HTML Help Builder.
1/16/2007 Fixed problem with installer that was preventing installation on some systems.
1/9/2007 Enhanced HTML transform to indent, add asterisks, and do better recursion (thanks to Allen Brown).
11/18/2006 Removed Copyright statement at the footer of each HTML page (thanks to Joel Kruse).
11/15/2006 Fixed a problem with file hyperlinks: now they are embedded in the CHM.
11/7/2006 Enhanced solution and fixed bugs:
- Fixed problem with maps that have Unicode text (international characters) (thanks to Stefan Scheib).
- Signed installer
- Fixed image map to work with main topics that do not have labels.
- Added /open flag to script to open the compiled help flag after successful creation.
- Updated explorer menu command to open the compiled help file after successful creation.
- Added code to hide topic label s in image map (thanks to Stefan Schiller).

Research Accelerator for MindManager Pro 7

Michael Deutch — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:46:57 GMT

1.0.57: Add search and research to project planning, brainstorming, and business processes within MindManager Pro 7. This adds a task pane similar to the Research task pane in Microsoft Office 2003 so MindManager can pull in search results from desktop services such as Microsoft Windows Desktop Search and Google Desktop and online services like MSN, Yahoo, Google, Technorati, and Flickr.

Version 1.0.57 (10/10/2007)

Installation

If you have an earlier version of the Research Accelerator installed, uninstall it from the Control Panel...Add or Remove Programs..Mindjet MindManager 6 Research Accelerator
Install Mindjet MindManager Pro 7 or Free 21- day Trial.
Install the Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0 from the Windows Update site if it is not already installed.
Run the Installer by downloading and running it.

Services

Google Desktop Search
Windows Desktop Search
CraigsList
Technorati
Google Web Search
Google Blog Search
Flickr Photos

Adding More Services

Additional Research Services are available here.

Usage

Start MindManager Pro 7
Open the Research Task Pane by clicking on the tab on the right of the window. If the Task Panes are not visible, then open the Research Pane by clicking the Task Panes button on the bottom-right of the MindManager (also shown in the image below)

type a word in the Search for field
Select a service below the Search for field.
The results will appear in the pane below.
Drag a blue topic icon in the results to add that topic to your map.
Press [Map Results] to add all of the results to the current map or to create a new map of the results.
You can also start a search by selecting a topic with text in it to search, right clicking on it and selecting research...

Known Issues

Windows Desktop Search 3.0 will not work with the Research Accelerator. The Research Accelerator was built to use the API for Windows Desktop Search 2.6 and there is no published API for Windows Desktop Search yet. Microsoft is planning on releasing an API in late February 2007 (see here).
Google is no longer issuing API keys for its search API (see here). If you need a key, please contact us.

Revision History

10/10/2007 Fixed an installer issue.
8/3/2007 Updated to work with MindManager 7 Pro
2/5/2007 Made a minor fix to the installer to address installation failures on some systems. (Removed unused reference to System.EnterpriseServices)
1/16/2007 Fixed problem with WinZip self-extractor that was causing strange behavior on installation.
1/4/2007 Fixed error message about Yahoo services that were previously local services and are now web services.
12/22/2006 Fixed error message about registration that was displayed during installation.
12/10/2006 Updated installer to work on Windows Vista
10/5/2006 Updated to work with Office 2007
10/4/2006 Added installation option to use Mindjet Labs Discovery Service

Requirements Manager for Microsoft Visual Studio Team System and MindManager Pro 7

Michael Deutch — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:09:55 GMT

1.0.9: Use MindManager Pro 7 to create software requirements documents and turn those requirements into work items on Microsoft Visual Studio Team System. The requirements map then becomes a bi-directional link to the work items.

Version

1.0.9 (8/3/2007)

Installation

This MindManager Add-in requires the following:

Mindjet MindManager Pro 7
Microsoft .Net Framework 2.0
Microsoft Visual Studio Team System
Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 or Visual Studio Team Explorer

Source code:

The C# source code used to create this solution is installed in the Source Code directory in the installation folder.

Usage:

Scenario:

A software development organization uses Microsoft Visual Studio Team System to manage all of the bugs reports, features requests, scenarios, and development tasks for the entire company.

A team within that organization uses MindManager to create a map of software requirements for a software development project that is starting up.
Once the team agrees upon all of the aspects of the project, a team member then opens the VSTS task pane in MindManager and connects to the team server by pressing the Connect button.
In the Connect form specify the team server's address and port (like http://devserver:8080). If the server requires login information (other than the default user credentials, then enter them in the form and press Connect.
If successful, a list of projects on the server are listed.
Select a project from the list and press OK.
At this point a MindManager creates a business type for each work item type in a few seconds and lists the different work item types in the task pane.
Select topics that represent specific types (bugs, features, tasks, etc) and double-click on the types to assign the types.
Once a topic is assigned to a work item type it is in a "pending" state with a yellow icon, and is not yet on the team server. you can double-click on the topic's data container where the properties are listed to edit those properties. By default the topic text is put into the work item title and the topic's notes are put into the work item's description. When you press OK after editing the properties, that topic is published to the Team System.
You can select multiple topics and assign a work item type to them as a group.
If the work item topic hyperlinks to an http:// or https:// address then a hyperlink is added to the work item's link list.
If the work item topic has another work item topic as its parent topic or subtopic, then a related link is added to both work items' links list.
If the work item topic has a relationship pointing to another work item topic, then a related link is added to both work items' links list.
You can also publish the topic by pressing the refresh icon to the right of the topic text.
Once a topic is published, it is linked to the work item on team server and it's icon changes from yellow to green.
If you edit the work item in Visual Studio or in the Team Explorer, then the changes will be reflected in the topic in MindManager when you press the Refresh button for that topic.
Pressing the Publish and Refresh button will first try to publish pending work items to the Team System and then refresh all existing work item topics.
Each work item topic has a Help option in its context menu. The help describes the work item and all of the fields. This information is taken directly from the project definition file.
All of the properties that are visible on the editing form in Visual Studio or Team System are visible in each topic. Press the Show All Properties button to show the properties that are in the tab pages on the editing form.
Once the work items are created, the requirements map is put in a shared location, possibly with Microsoft SharePoint, and can be opened and refreshed to track the progress of the project.

Revision History

8/3/2007 Updated to work with MindManager Pro 7
1/15/2007 Fixed winzip problem with installer, Added domain parameter to work with CodePlex projects (Thanks to Brian Sherwin).
12/7/2006 Updated installer to work on Windows Vista; signed installer.
4/25/2006 Fixed bug where work item properties were not editable in MindManager once they were published.
4/20/2006 Fixed bug where topics without notes caused errors when assigned a work item type

Made topic text update to work item title when refreshing.

Changed logic so that once a work item is published, its work item type cannot be changed.
4/17/2006 Initial Release

How This Was Built

Background

Kevin Kelly, a Mindjet MindManager user and Microsoft Program Manager for Visual Studio Team System came up with an idea last year: use Mindjet MindManager to define software requirements and then have those requirements instantly uploaded into Microsoft Visual Studio Team Server where they can be tracked as work items.

Once Mindjet MindManager 6 came out in the September 2005, such an integration became much more compelling and possible as a way to demonstrate new features in MindManager 6 such as task panes and business topics and to show how MindManager could easily integrate with a powerful project management system. Since Mindjet has a large number of users in software development, this seemed like an appropriate challenge, so Mindjet worked with Microsoft to get it done.

The Challenge

In 4 days, build a MindManager add-in in C# that integrates with Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) in the following way:

A software development team uses Mindjet MindManager Pro 6 to develop a requirements map for a software development project.
MindManager connects to VSTS to get the work item type definitions.
The project manager takes the map that was used in step 1 and then assigns work item types to topics in the map.
The work item topics are uploaded to VSTS and a link to each one is stored in the map.
The map can be easily refreshed to reflect the current status of the work items represented in it.
The work items can be edited in either Visual Studio or MindManager and they are kept in sync.
The map that was used to develop the consensus and buy-in can now be used to track the project through to completion.

The Result

Through the Microsoft Visual Studio Industry Partner program, I attended a 4-day Dev Lab at the Microsoft Platform Adoption Center at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington. There, I had at my disposal systems, software, and staff that were capable of answering my questions about the potential integration. In this environment from a standing start with absolutely no experience with Visual Studio Team Server, I was able to get the basic functionality complete in one and half days and in three days I was able to meet the challenge. BONUS: When you install the add-in, the complete source code to build the add-in is also included in the Source directory in the installation folder.

Thanks to:

Kevin Kelly
Tom Crozier
Terry Clancy
Gregg Boer
Mareen Philip
The staff at the Microsoft Platform Adoption Center

Without the support of these Microsoft employees (and many others) I could not have done this.

Map Explorer for MindManager Pro 7

Michael Deutch — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 16:17:06 GMT

1.0.11: Adds a task pane called "Map Explorer" to MindManager Pro 7 that displays the content of the active map in a hierarchical tree view.

Version 1.0.11

Developer Information

This solution contains the source code to demonstrate how to add task panes to MindManager and how to handle MindManager document events.

Usage

Start MindManager Pro 7
Open an existing map or Create a new map.
Open the Map ExplorerTask Pane by clicking on the tab on the right of the window. If the Task Panes are not visible, then open the Map Explorer Pane by clicking the Task Panes button on the bottom-right of the MindManager (also shown in the image below)

As the topics are created on the map,Map Explorer will automatically keep populating the topics in the Map Explorer Pane.Selecting nodes in the map explorer will select and snap the corresponding topics into view in the map view.
Nodes in the map explorer can be dragged and dropped within the map explorer to rearrange topics, callouts, and floating topics.
In Map Explorere pane: Right click on a topic to Insert Topic, Child Topics, Callouts or can even delete a topic. (See image below)

User Warning

Some users of the version have reported problems causing MindManager to crash when running the Map Explorer with Gyronix ResultsManager. If you are using ResultsManager, please do not install the Map Explorer. Mindjet and Gyronix are working together to diagnose and solve the problem.

Revision History

9/10/2007 Fixed an issue with installer
8/3/2007 Updated Map Explorer for MindManager 7 Pro
1/16/2007 Fixed problem with installer that was preventing installation on some systems.
12/13/2006 Updated installer to run on Windows Vista.
9/29/2006 Added Filter on Selection option to filter the map when a topic is selected in the Map Explorer.
9/12/2006 Added font control (Tools...Options...Map Explorer) and improved perfomance.
8/08/2006 Updated to improve performance of large maps.
8/07/2006 Updated to enhance performance of maps with ink topics.
7/24/2006 Added Tools...Options...Map Explorer option pane to set ink option for Map Explorer. Updated ink rendering to make it a bit more readable.
7/17/2006 Added support for ink in topics.
7/7/2006 Fixed installation issue with extensibility.dll
6/4/2006 Created

Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Add-in Template for MM7

Michael Deutch — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 01:36:51 GMT

Version 1.4.5: Add a project template to Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 for MindManager 7 Add-Ins built with C# and Visual Basic.Net.

Version 1.4.5 Released 06/13/2007

Prerequisites:
Any version of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 that can build Setup and Class Library Projects (2005 Express Edition cannot build setup project).

Installation:

Close Microsoft Visual Studio.
Download and run the Installer.

Usage:

Start Microsoft Visual Studio 2005.
Select File...New...Project...
In the Project Types control, select Mindjet MindManager Projects
In the Templates list, select Mindjet MindManager 7 C#/VB.net Add-In
Press [OK] to start the project wizard.