Mind Map Users?..

Hey Logos users, I'm trying to find an ideal software for diagramming entire books (mostly books of the Bible but also really heady books). I will be using a method of diagramming called arcing, and I want to include the entire text of a book within a mind map to diagram the flow of thought. I'm also hoping to find one that is more visually appealing rather than less (beggars can't be choosers though).

There are several problems I have in finding a good software for this.

#1. Most mind mapping software is not built to hold an entire book worth of data, so the design is somewhat simple and round and flowing. I'm looking for a program that will start diagramming from the top left of the page and will stagger sub-categories below each preceding idea in a clear cut square angular way (somewhat similar to the Logos propositional outline tool, but with each proposition staggered (tabbed) from it's preceding idea.) See the image below.

#2. What I find is that most mind mapping software is not built to hold entire paragraphs (and pages), but only small one line headings. I'm trying to find a software that would be able to handle a lot more. I don't want a 30 page document to take ages to load or to crash frequently from overload, and I don't want software that won't allow me to put in that much text.

#3. I have found one program that fits my needs (Docear), but it's not very user friendly, and I can't export anything from it to pdf. It is saved in a strange form of document called .mm. I would like to export the results of my study so I can view it in other ways, so I would need a program that would allow me to export to pdf.

Having said all this, I am open to all recommendations. If you have a program you use and like, I want to hear about it! Thanks to anyone who is willing to give any suggestions!

(As a side note I have seen the Bible Arc software, and it looks great, but it wouldn't allow me to input text from books, only Bible text, so it doesn't fit my needs exactly.)

Existing software pic that is almost what I want:

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Comments

Ryan Robinson

Can you confirm that you want to use this for reading a book? Not just scripture?

Just wanted to clarify.

Liam

Hey Ryan, yes. I also would like to utilize something like this for some very old theology books.

Ryan Robinson

hmmm. I got nothing to that end. I think almost anything is going to be clunky for this. BibleArc's phrasing module is created for that specifically. I don't know if anything that comes close to that.

I've used excel for different ways of charting a discourse. But, it's not like the phrasing you're doing in your picture. I hope you can find something!

DAL

Mind maps are for basic outlining and list of things. I have used Tony Buzan in the past because his mind map exports to PowerPoint and you can make that a presentation with main points, subpoints and scripture references. It was kind of neat to see the branches for each main point and the sub branches for the sub points and leaves for scripture references come out. Right at the center, where the branches came out like tentacles, the title for the sermon was there, all in one nice colorful presentation. I got tired of it and the software started acting up so I quit using it. Unfortunately, when I tried to upgrade the price was way too high, so I gave up on any mind maps. Outlining, to me, is still very powerful for manuscripts and basic sermon outlines for PowerPoint presentations. Plus, there's more flexibility for what you want to do.

DAL

Justin Gatlin

To your number 3, can you use a PDF printer? A quick Google search shows me that your software allows printing, so you should be able to install a simple "print to PDF" driver and use that.

DAL

iMindmap -- version 10 coming soon.

MJ. Smith

The Brain does the best at large quantities of data in my experience. However, I believe that a layered approach with pages that can be comprehended at a glance is more effective than a wall-sized single chart.

strange form of document called .mm.

Isn't that NotePad/WordPad format?

Exporting to PDF is often not given as a form because one can print to PDF without adding the code to the application program ... cleaner and more reliable.

DMB

Liam, your search is probably not unusual.

I wanted multi-directional (essentially free-form), pastable large text blocks, and multi-layer (similar to art apps). I was mapping the Church of Christ against Paul, Jesus, and 7th century Judah. And no-can-do. I even tried 3D software ... each has a clunker somewhere. So, I rolled my own.

I really wish Logos extended their highlighting concept into some type of user-selected structure ... outline, mindmap, etc. A lot of people would like it, and easy to code. It's the easiest way to do what you want, and what I ended up with. The layering, I never solved.

An idea I would point out ... is outlining/mindmapping strictly a greek/roman/western concept ... not really appropriate to 'the east' and earlier? That's how I ended up with multi-directional.

Floyd Johnson

Check out this thread for lots of suggestions:

https://community.logos.com/forums/p/38311/287151.aspx

MJ. Smith

An idea I would point out ... is outlining/mindmapping strictly a greek/roman/western concept ... not really appropriate to 'the east' and earlier? That's how I ended up with multi-directional.

http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-history-of-outlining.html

http://www.webwritingthatworks.com/AHistoryofOutlining01.pdf

I've been amused watching the concept of mind mapping moving from web to hierarchical ... not to its advantage in my mind.

Liam

Hey everyone, thanks a lot for the suggestions! Keep em coming! I plan to look into each of these!

Justin, thanks! I haven't heard of this. I'm not sure how to do this, but I'll play around with it and see what I can do.

MJ, I didn't know that either. Thank you!

Lots of good stuff here!

Graham Owen

I use FreeMind - http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

DAL

http://www.xmind.net/

Xmind looks good too and cheaper than iMindmap. They have a FREE version too.

Abram K-J

Tree might be worth a look.

Liam

Thanks for the additional suggestions guys! Keep em coming everyone!

Abram, thank you for pointing out Tree! It may be just what I was looking for! I'm testing out and enjoying the trial version now! I also really like the ability to explode or tighten the arms of the tree with the drop down arrows! It's funny, that's a feature that I also wanted, but didn't know how to really communicate it and didn't post anything about above! Thank you!

Friedrich

An idea I would point out ... is outlining/mindmapping strictly a greek/roman/western concept ... not really appropriate to 'the east' and earlier? That's how I ended up with multi-directional.

http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-history-of-outlining.html

http://www.webwritingthatworks.com/AHistoryofOutlining01.pdf

I've been amused watching the concept of mind mapping moving from web to hierarchical ... not to its advantage in my mind.

[Y][Y]

Floyd Johnson

I've been amused watching the concept of mind mapping moving from web to hierarchical ... not to its advantage in my mind.

[Y]

David A Egolf

I've been amused watching the concept of mind mapping moving from web to hierarchical ... not to its advantage in my mind.

The progression has occurred in other areas of computing. The original computer databases; e.g., IMS from IBM were hierarchical and, thus, limited is the way that data relationships could be expressed.

My company, Honeywell, helped push a "network" database model based on the CODASYL standard. It allowed data relationships that could be more like a modern web site. A parent record could link to children which could also have children. Any of the children could link back to parents, grandparents, or other chains of records. The relationships between records was very expressive and more akin to a tangled web. It fell from favor because the programs accessing the data had to have the procedural knowledge required to successfully traverse the links.

It was considered bad form for the COBOL programmers who were the keepers of the business logic to have to have intimate knowledge of the database internals. Thus, relational databases were born in the 1980's. Relational data could be accessed by queries which described the attributes of the desired data. Locating the actual records, now known as tuples, was left to the machinations of the database engines. (One of my jobs at that time was figuring out how to make our database engine commercially feasible.) The database administrators were supposed to guide the COBOL developers to make less expensive queries and madly added indices in order to reduce the query costs.

Alas, they found that some very simple relationships could not be easily expressed. For example, if there is an A, then there must be at least one B. This had been simple in the CODASYL world. The relational mavens started adding constraints and rules to the systems which made up for the expressiveness lost.

On a different level, in the mid-1980's a product showed up on thee Macintosh called HyperCard. It was a simple concept that all data, or ideas, could be kept as a simple stack of "cards" where individual fields in the cards could refer to other cards in the same stack or other stacks. Rules could be built on fields, records, cards, or stacks. The application was marvelous in that it was the first practical application for "hyperlinks", much later employed by URLs, and object programming (of sorts).

One could build HyperCard stacks to depict complex data sets in a very similar fashion as a mindmap. But since it did not have the pictorial representation, it was much more like building a web site with rules.

When I was finally forced to migrate to Windows, HyperCard was the thing I missed the most.

So I also see "hierarchical" representations as a step backwards and was concerned that my favorite mindmap tool, FreeMind, regarded attempts at making a "network" as an afterthought.

MJ. Smith

[Y]

I spent most of my career on Burroughs-Unisys. On the PC side I was a big fan of Houdini - the hyperlinked program whose predecessor brought Nixon down. "In 1986, he (Neil Larson) released his DOS Houdini network browser program that supported 2500 topics cross-connected with 7500 links in each file along with hypertext links among unlimited numbers of external ASCII, batch, and other Houdini files,"

Hamilton Ramos

Hi Liam, God bless:

Have you looked at Scapple. It integrates with Scrivener well.

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php

Peace and grace.

Dennis Davis

I agree with you M.J. TheBrain is great for handling large amounts of data. The other sweet spot for The Brain is that, unlike most mindmap programs, it does not focus on a single center point with nodes branching off. Instead it uses a more dynamic interface that centers on whatever text you search for. This is very useful, however, the program is not quite as good looking as some of the other programs out there (i.e. mindmanager, xmind, etc.)

Dennis Davis

MJ,

Here Here for TheBrain! I have been using it for years and although its price point has gone through the roof for upgrading, I still think its the king of mindmap tools because of its versatility.

Bill Cook

I like TheBrain. I tried to use it for a while - free version. But what I did not like about the free version was that you could not print. Is just expensive to really utilize.

Elizabete Briani

Hello, grace and peace.
I've used the cmap tools app for over 10 years to study academic articles and now I'm going to use it to study Church History. Like this there is a global community that produces and shares these maps. It is also free and the community is very active in this production.
ps: Sorry for the translation of the language.
Strong hug

Rajesh K.

Hi Everyone, Been wanting to organize my bible verses in a topical fashion (hierarchical) for a long time. That's made me look for a mind mapping tool. Would be grateful for any recommendation

Saw this thread mention multi-directional maps and TheBrain . Is anyone still using it

Regards,

MJ. Smith

Welcome to the forums. I would still recommend The Brain ...

Rajesh K.

Thank you MJ.

Had a read of the below articles and so did a price check

https://nesslabs.com/roam-research-alternatives
https://forums.thebrain.com/post/wake-up-call-for-thebrain-team-its-time-to-move-forward-10582939?&trail=90

TheBrain $219 one time
Roam Research $15/month
Obsidian Free
RemNote Free

Please correct me if I am taking the wrong route. Looking for your recommendation

Regards, rk