Thoughtex.net - Product News

Bug Fixes, Map Resizing and a splash screen

thoughtexadmin — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 01:26:22 GMT

A new version of thoughtex.net is available, it includes some stability improvements as well as the following enhancements:

Map Resizing has been improved. Previously thoughtex attempted to detect when the map was becoming "crowded" and would resize accordingly. This heuristic as never very well tuned, and was not easily discovered by users. Now the map resizes when one of the nodes is too close to the edge (or even off the edge). This change was made in response to some feedback from Bruce McLeod.

We've added a splash screen. The first time a Windows Presentation Foundation application starts up (and thoughtex is built using Windows Presentation Foundation) a number of different things have to happen that can cause the cold start-up to be slow. The splash screen (which is not written in WPF) will give users feedback that thoughtex is starting up.

We've changed the way you add nodes. Previously performing a mouse click on the map area would add a new node to the map. We've receved feedback from a number of people that this resulted in too many nodes being added by accident. We've changed the behaviour so that you need to double-click to add a node to the map. We're concerned that this may not be very easy for users to discover, so let us know if you this is too confusing and we can add some visual cues in a subsequent release.

Scheduled for the next release is the ability to re-parent nodes by breaking the linkage between one node and its parent and attach it to a new parent. If you have any features you'd prefer to see please drop us an email at feedback@thoughtex.net and let us know. Also if there are any particularly egregious defects you'd like to see fixed please contact us also.

Printing, Bug Fixes and a New Open Dialog

thoughtexadmin — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 14:13:42 GMT

I've just released a new version of thoughtex. This version includes a number of bug fixes (most notably if you don't have desktop search installed on Windows XP or Server 2003 the previous release would crash straight away). The biggest "feature" in this release is one that probably should have been there from the start - robust printing support. Your maps will be scaled and rotated to print on whatever size paper you select. I've also re-vamped the "open" dialog used to find maps to make it prettier and more useful. Please let me know if you like the new release.

Offline Installer for Thoughtex

thoughtexadmin — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:48:56 GMT

We've created an off-line installer for thoughtex, to allow it to be installed on computers that can't connect to the internet. You can download an off-line installer for thoughtex here.

Why does thoughtex's file saving feature work differently to most windows applications?

thoughtexadmin — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 11:57:25 GMT

Thoughtex's file save feature works a little differently to most windows applications:

It doesn't ask you for a file name
It doesn't ask you where you want to save the file

Thoughtex saves your files into your "my documents" directory, and uses the name of the topic your mind map is about, and the date that you created it to create a unique and fairly sensible file name.

Although this seems somewhat dictatorial (what if I don't WANT to save my files there) this is actually a carefully considered design decision. Our thinking around file saving is heavily influenced by the ideas of Alan Cooper, who (to paraphrase) thinks that the file system is a huge implementation detail that most people shouldn't have to care about. It doesn't match the mental model we wanted to create that was closely aligned to creating a physical mind map on paper.

Cooper advocates making file system "disappear" completely from your application, so why do we have a file save button at all? We found that using applications that had embraced this "no file save" approach like Microsoft OneNote was a little scary. The ingrained habit of regularly saving could not be followed, which lead to largely irrational doubt about the permanence of our work. Was it all going to "go away" when we closed the app? In the end we added a save button to the toolbar and associated keyboard shortcuts, to give people who are used to having to save their work all the time an explicit save action they could perform, but you can use Thoughtex without using it at all. Did we make a good call by taking this approach? Does the lack of options when saving a file "worry" you? Would you like to see the name of the file that was just saved?

Free Mind Mapping for Windows

thoughtexadmin — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 15:26:54 GMT

Welcome to the thoughtex.net product blog. Thoughtex is a free mind mapping application for Windows Vista and Windows XP SP2. It's currently in beta, and we hope you like it. Send feedback to feedback@thoughtex.net.