Mind Pad 3.1 is a FlowChart & Diagram product from mind-pad.com, get 5 Stars SoftSea Rating, Mind Pad is a mind mapping program 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 program was designed to make the process of mapping really easy to go.
Mind Pad is a .NET mind mapping program for Windows. If you ever asked for simplicity of mind mapping and for topics with some properties that are right for your business needs, then Mind Pad is a outstanding tool to start. Creating and linking text blocks is easy with Mind Pad. But it can do more. Mind Pad allows you to organize in mind map objects with any properties set. Mind Pad suggests a new approach to mind mapping. Now, mind map is not just a lot of linked text blocks. Mind Pad allows to create your own frame objects with unique properties that are most suitable for your business. You can organize objects into some hierarchy or map. For instance, with Mind Pad Model Editor you can easily create an object called 'Contact' and assign to it some really useful properties, such as Person name, Company name, and Next time to contact date. Then you can create a mind map using 'Contact' frame object and link new objects with each other showing the relation between your contacts.
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 software 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.
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 software 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.
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 software 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;
Helps to specify the way how the object looks like. Major properties are:
* Colors
* Size
* Shape
* Gradient
* Rotation angel
* Text alignment
* Attachments
With Attachments property user can attach external files to the object.
As for visual scheme, there is a outstanding 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 The license of this office software is Free Trial Software, you can free download and get a free trial before you buy. If you want to get a full or nolimited version of Mind Pad, you can buy this office software.