Mind Pad - concept mapping software

Mind Pad is a mind mapping software designed to help with representing ideas in a visual way in a form of mind and concept maps.

Mind Pad incorporates map view with rich library of available objects and outline view. The software was designed to make the process of mapping really easy to go.

The basic concept of building map suggests to add new items by clicking enter or insert keys on keyboard, entering item caption texts and re-grouping items if necessary.

The number of objects, accessible with toolbar provide more objects that could make the map easier to work with. Various kind of rectangles, arrows and links will make the map visually attractive.

The maps allows to drag and drop, copy and paste objects. Move over, the program allows to shrink items branch into one item and "+" sign, making it easy to manage with large number of items.

The visual style of map is fully customizable. Use can start with changing background or changing the default colors used for new objects.

Placement Wizard

Mind Pad allows to change position of the objects in the map automatically. 3 types of placement are available - horizontal and vertical trees and default placement, when program puts equal number of objects on the left and right side.

To change the placement type you should go to the Placement Wizard option in Map menu.

Managing objects in mind map

Mind Pad was designed to make the process of object management as simple as possible.

So here are few simple tips to start:

After you run the program the focus will be on the main item. Use Insert or Enter keys on your keyboard to create new items;
If you need to move from one item to another, use arrow keys;
To change the position of the item drag and drop it to another parent item or move it in the outline list, which is on the right;

Type of objects

There are two types of objects available in the program. Linked and free objects, linked objects can only exists in a tree, the structure of linked objects on the map are always the same as represented in the outline.

Free objects should be used for adding more visual effects, which will make the process of reading and sharing map easier.

Available free objects looks like on the screenshot on the right. Also, an image object exists, which is a container for any object.

Free objects can be:

Resized;
Rotated;

For linked objects more link types are available.

Object properties

Helps to specify the way how the object looks like. Major properties are:

Colors
Size
Shape
Gradient
Rotation angle
Text alignment
Attachments

With Attachments property user can attach external files to the object.

As for visual scheme, there is a great way to specify the visual scheme in a one place. For this purpose the template file should be edited.

To access template file select Map > Placement Wizard. Go to the Step3 tag and click Edit Template button.

Exporting Map

The map can be exported in output files. For this purpose use the Export Map option in Map menu.

Also, exporting is available with command line. Use the following syntax for exporting:

MindPad.exe MindMapFile -export PictureFileName -StrategyMap [-StrategyMapPlacement <HTree|Tree|Default>] [-StrategyMapLevel <MaxLevel>]

Sample: export of existent map.

MindPad.exe some_project.mprj -export "C:\resulted_file.jpg" -StrategyMap