The Mindjet Labs

I would like to embed a map that can be navigated in an HTML page.  Using  an installed viewer is not the desired method to share maps,  We would like to make them part of HTML based documents and even wikis

We are hearing this type of request more and more often. 

For your use case, would the maps need to be editable, or just navigable?

Can you please explain in as much detail how you would use such an web-embeddable map?

What technologies would you propose for rendering the map, (Flash, SVG, WPF/E, etc)?

Thanks,

Michael

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Michael S. Scherotter
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft Corporation

I would like an easy method to view maps online - many of our organization's members are on a *nix platform and no plug-in is available; other organizations do now allow their employees to download/install plug-ins. Being able to navigate a map, including hypertext links, view notes/comments/annotations, and basically see everything that *I* can see in a map is strongly desired. I would like to see both SVG and Flash - SVG because I have a strong preference for standards and XML; Flash because most users already have a flash plug-in installed. Note that this is a "view only" mode; I would not anticipate those navigating a map to actually try to edit it.

I believe that FreeMind already has the ability to export to Flash, and possibly SVG; I'm thinking of importing my MindManager maps into FreeMind so I can take advantage of this export format.

 
PDF would seem to be an acceptable solution, but PDF versions aren't navigable - URIs aren't converted to navigable links, nor are notes/comments converted to PDF comments ...

 

Mary,

Because I am now at Microsoft, I have started playing around with Silverlight (formerly WPF/e) which is an XML-based vector graphics rendering engine that works on Internet Explorer, Firefox and Mac Safari.  I have found that with XSLT, a MindManager map can be transformed into Silverlight in a fairly straightforward way.  I have been able to implement the following MindManager features in Silverlight:

• expanding/collapsing with animation
• topic color, font, and size
• Hyperlinks
• Playback of video and audio attachments and hyperlinks
• Zooming & panning

I will be posting the sample online (with source code) in the next few weeks for people to play with and use as a starting point.  I realize that it is not Flash or SVG but I think that it is a really amazing technology.  Microsoft will be playing catch-up to Flash to get its viewer on as many desktops as Flash. I see a very cool workflow of using MindManager for content development and Silverlight for animated presentation and exploration.

Michael

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Michael S. Scherotter
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft Corporation

You can now download a simple MindManager to Silverlight converter application from my MSDN Blog.  given a MindManager .mmap file, it creates and uploads a Silverlight application to the free Silverlight Streaming Service.  Once it's on the service, you can insert a little code on any web page and view the map on Mac Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer with a small (1.1 MB) plug-in.  The source code is included in the download so you can see how it was built.

Michael

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Michael S. Scherotter
Developer Evangelist
Microsoft Corporation