The list of new features, enhancements to existing features and bugfixes for build #36 is even longer than the last one. To directly take a look at the complete list just check out our changelog. Beside this I would like to point out the most obvious changes most users will recognize immediately.

1. The default map list sorting was changed. By default it’s now sorted descending by the last change date. This means that you most current edited maps will always be on top, which makes accessing your current projects much faster.
2. The link system has been enhanced. It’s now possible to add links to any kind of node (root, text and image nodes) and it’s possible to add more than one link to one node. Due to this enhanced functionality also the interface has changed. Now the node menu will always show a dialog to add a new link. To edit or remove existing links you have to click the edit icon in the node bubble or right click the link icon.

But besides this obvious changes a lot of other stuff has been changes. For example: New icons, new JPEG export, new style option, and a lot of bug fixes.

Finally we’ve got moving again towards the user requested features. Hope you enjoy it.

After posting about huge updates in Build#34 last month, I now can show off some of the results. Build#34 was deployed successfully (since there where only a few problems reported I at least I consider it successful), and now with Build#35 we added some new features to the application - for the first time over a long period. But what did the builds actually change?

Build#34:

With Build#34 we’ve updated the base toolkit Mind42 is based on: Dojo. Since we knew that this is no simple update we’ve waited for this quite a long time, and combined it with other refurbishments of the software. So what we released with Build#34 was basically a ~50% rewritten software. Some things (like the accordion in the map open dialog, or the zoom slider) look slightly different, but as said previously I really consider this as a successful launch. Only a very few issues for such a large change really is a success.

BTW: We’ve also added Google image search in this build.

Build#35:

After the new platform (Dojo update) was finished, we finally had time again to concentrate on new features. For this we’ve focused on the list of user requests we’ve collected over the past months and started with some of the smaller but highly demanded features. Namely:

• Mouse-wheel zooming
• Map list sorting/searching to simplify the handling of many maps
• Clickable links in note attachments
• Application “Close” button in the map dialog (to leave Mind42 without an open map)

Also we’ve changed some minor things and of course fixed some bugs of the Build#34 platform change. The full list can be found in our changelog.

We’re already working on the next build which will feature more implemented user requests and will be happy for any further feedback and comments. Feel free to contact us by commenting this post, posting in our Google Group, or using our contact form (or contact e-mail address).

It has been a long time since I did the last post, which was about Mind42 leaving the beta. Since then there were no posts, but this doesn’t reflect the developments arround Mind42 at all. We know were we still have problems and are working hard to fix them. We finished the Beta with Build #29, and now we are at Build #33. So there is still progress, just no time to post about every detail

So if you are interested in what has changed since my last post, check out the Changelog. Otherwise stay tuned for more updates: Currently we work on build #34 and more, which will be huge updates. I’ll post more when the stuff gets ready.

P.S.: One of the new features with Build #33 was the public map browser. Check it out!

After we’ve been in beta for over a year now, the introduction of countless new features, a database crash, a server move, and tons of bug fixes we decided to finish the beta with the now available build 29.

The most visible change is our revised homepage. We now offer a detailed help and we also optimized the sign in/up pages as well as the general homepage navigation. We hope this is at everyones fancy.

On the application side we now have reached a point were the kind and count of support mails (new mail address: info@mind42.com) indicated that the service runs pretty stable. As it is with any software project we probably aren’t bug free, but since this is a web-application we will continue to enhance the application with every build. Going Un-Beta is just a signal that we have reached a certain level of stability.

What does this mean for the users of Mind42? Currently: Nothing changes. We are still working an a paid pro-version of Mind42 - but this doesn’t mean that we’ll quit the free service of Mind42. More infos will be published when this is getting ready. Also we are still interested in adding new features to Mind42, so please just send any feature requests to info@mind42.com.

So welcome everybody to the second beta-free year of Mind42. After this pretty big step, we’ve worked on for months now, we are tensely waiting for feedback. Just comment this post or send us an e-mail to info@mind42.com .

Finally as the lead client developer I want to say thanks to all the folks at Irian who worked on (some more, some less) and made Mind42 possible, as well as all the early users of Mind42, which are still using the application and helped us with their precious feedback. Thanks.

It was a little bit quiet on this blog in the last months. But finally we are on our way to 1.0 with some new features we introduced in the current build #26.

As maybe some of you have noticed, there have been some troubles and infrastructure changes to Mind42 during the last months. We moved our database as well as the webserver. Honestly we didn’t only do this because of we needed the infrastructure for build #26 features, but because we had to due to some failures on the old server. By now all this should be over. New database and webserver - New service monitoring - New features. So here we go:

New map dialog: Our new mind map dialog got much clearer, features a preview of the map (available after saving your mind map), and also the open and delete buttons aren’t so close to each other. We hope you like it.

Image/PDF export: We finally rolled out an image and PDF export option, which was one of the most demanded features overall. Now you can embed mind maps into your documents sing the PNG export, or print them using the PDF export. If the results aren’t as expected just write us a mail so we can optimize this.

The whole rest: Due to the new server Mind42 now should be faster an more reliable than before. As always we’ve also fixed some bugs, and last but not least: We’ve added an offset reset button within the settings dialog. Sometimes moving a nodes offset (dragging the move icon) gets confused with reordering a node (dragging the node). Therefor there have been cases with unusable maps due to immense offsets. If you ever have this problem you now can use the reset offsets button.

With this release we finally are on our way to 1.0, and we would be pleased about every bug report, so that we can finally remove the nearly one year old beta tag of Mind42.

E-Mail - Mailing List - Changelog

The first release after the holidays - the first release in 2008. Since we plan to finish our BETA in the first half of 2008 this is a pure bugfix release. As always, the full list of changes and bugfixes can be found in our Changelog.

The most important change this time is, that our user database now works case-insensitive. This means that a different upper/lower-case spelling of the same username now refers to the same account, which makes logging in easier (you don’t have to remember how you spelled your name on signup), and reduces likelihood of confusion. Unfortunately we had to rename some usernames which violated against this new setup. The affected users have been informed.

In the end I would like to spotlight our new FAQ which, like the changelog, could be found in our Google Group. If you are missing any important answers in the FAQ please don’t hesitate to let us know.

It was about time for a new release, and here it is. As the beta phase of Mind42 is drawing to a close, this build features a bunchload of polishing and optimizations. But also two new features, namely:

• Additional icon methods
• Additional font styling options

The icon additions include the ability to add multiple icons to a node as well as removing them via right click. But we’ve also introduced icon groups. Icon groups are made up of icons which belong to each other, like different colored flags, the different number icons, or the new todo progress icons. When adding such an icon to a node you can easily iterate through the icons of that group by clicking the icon. For the todo icons this for example easily allows you to advance the progress of a node without having to enter any menu.

The new font styling options enhance the already existing node coloring options. Now you can manually set the size and style of nodes.

In addition to the new features there are mainly some reliability improvements as well as performance tunings and optical polishing. A full list of changes, as always can be found at our Google Goup Changelog Page.

By the way: Except image export and printing capabilities this features should have been the last new features for the beta. Of course we’re still working on some server issues and an enhanced homepage, but from a mind map editor feature perspective the current state closely reflects the 1.0 version of Mind42.

Feedback as always appreciated:
mind42@irian.at - Google Group - Comments

We’re sorry for the inconvenience, but we currently have some problems with our database… We are working on it…

Update: Access was restored. Thank you for your patience.

Hi everybody!

It has been a long time since the last build which is more than a month ago. But we haven’t slept, we’ve just refractored, optimized and polished Mind42 to improve the overall experience of Mind42. Here comes the feature list of the new build:

• Increased UTF8 support (attachments, import, export, …)
• Increased performance (copy/past, drag & drop, deletion, … of branches is much faster now + faster published map view)
• Changed handling of unavailable images (they no longer disappear + now there is a retry button available)
• Added invitation link lookup to the collaborators dialog

But now, before releasing you to explore the new features and give me some feedback, I want to spend some words on the last of the mentioned features. As we keep getting mails of users whose invitations never arrive at their invitees we’ve thought about how to deal with this. Besides optimizing our mail server, we decided to add an “invitation link lookup” to the collaboration dialog. Therefore the list of unredeemed invitations got a new icon with a question mark. If clicked it shows you the link to accept the invitation. This allows you to get the link, and send it to your invitee yourself if the mail got stuck anywhere. We hope this temporary solution for the lost mail problem is acceptable for everybody.

As always: Feedback appreciated!
Comments - mind42@irian.at - Google Group

In short:
Check out the MUTT subsection of this page. There you’ll find a simple todo/issue application I wrote for my company (Irian Solutions) to test some offline patterns. The resulting Dojo Offline example application is publicly available now.

More detailed:
Yesterday I held a presentation about offline web applications at the AjaxInAction conference in Frankfurt/Germany. It was called “Offline-Webanwendungen mit Google Gears” which translated would be something like “Offline-Web-Applications with Google Gears” and was all about Google Gears, Dojo Offline and a practical example application. For this purpose I was allowed to publish an example application I wrote for my company to test some offline patterns - MUTT.

MUTT stands for MultiUserTodoTable and is a simple implementation of a todo/issue tracker. Simple only, because of the sychronisation and the server part have been kept simple (e.g. you can’t edit anything but the status of an issue - which makes synchronisation easy). But beside its simplified functionality it offers a full blown implementation of a data switch, shows templating with Google Trimpath JavaScript Templates and shows how to deal with Dojo Offline (Events, ActionLog, …).

You can find MUTT in the open.source section of my homepage, or you directly follow this link.

So have fun with the example application - and let me know if anybody liked it

P.S.: The slides of my presentation are available here (german!).