A comparison of multimedia capabilities of mind mapping software
by Chuck Frey, Mind Mapping Software Blog
One of the capabilities of mind mapping software that you’re likely to be using more in the near future is the ability to integrate audio and video into your mind maps. But the major mind mapping programs vary considerably in their support for these formats today. Here is a helpful guide to their capabilities.
Multimedia is on the rise
The world is moving in the direction of greater use of such rich, multimedia assets. Tools like webcams, smartphones, iPads and GoPros are making it easier to create and share high-quality videos. At the same time, MP3 is already a proven format for sharing audio files quickly and easily.
Why would you want to integrate audio and video files into your mind maps? Here are some practical business uses of this functionality:
Providing instructions to your team members
Organizing training resources for your team in a visual format, with lessons delivered in a series of videos
Record a small group brainstorming session, as an audio backup to the ideas you’re recording in a mind map.
Create a personal audio journal, with audio recordings supplemented by child topics in the map that contain key words pertaining to the subject you recorded (so these recordings would be indirectly “searchable”).
Multimedia Comparison Report Page 2
How do programs support multimedia files?
Before we move into a discussion of the multimedia capabilities of each major mind mapping program, it’s important to explain how these multimedia assets can be included in a mind map file. Here are the techniques that may be used, in increasing order of integration with the host mind mapping program:
1. A hypertext link to an external audio or video file. When the mind map gets shared with others, the audio recordings do not “travel” with it. Assuming you are sharing a map within your internal network and all recipients have the same level of access rights, you could in theory link out to audio or video assets in a shared network directory. If you shared your mind map externally, this wouldn’t work, however. In those cases, you could host your audio and video files at a public URL. This is the same way in which you would share a link to an external video hosted on YouTube, for example.
2. An embedded audio or video file, which is created externally but is attached by the user to the map, in much the same way as a Word document or Excel spreadsheet, once attached to a map topic, becomes part of the file when shared with others.
3. An embedded audio or video file, which is produced within the mind mapping program rather than externally, and becomes part of the mind mapping file that may be shared with others.
At their base level of functionality, however, all of the programs reviewed here will at least let you create a hypertext link to an external multimedia file, in much the same way that you can add links to web pages and external files of any type.
MindManager 2012
MindManager does not integrate multimedia files into its design. However, you can create attachments and hypertext links which point to audio and video files, and then play them by clicking on these assets.
One interesting aspect of MindManager is that it plays audio and video files within the program’s embedded browser, rather than in an external window. For example, when I attached an MP3 file to a topic and then double-clicked on it to play it, the browser pane opened and the audio file was played using Quicktime, as shown in the screen capture on the next page.
Multimedia Comparison Report Page 3
The same thing happens with video files. They get played using the player that is associated with that file type, but within MindManager’s integrated browser, as seen below. In this case, I attached an MP4 file I created for an MMI report last year. Once again, it opened in Quicktime and began playing.
One downside: MindManager uses a generic paperclip icon to indicate that a topic has an attachment. You can’t tell what type of file it is until you hover over it. Ideally, I’d like to see MindManager display an icon based on the file type – such as a movie icon for an MP4 video, or a waveform for an MP3 file.
Multimedia Comparison Report Page 4
MindGenius 4
MindGenius does not integrate multimedia files into its design. However, you can create attachments and hypertext links which are audio and video files, and then play them by clicking on these assets.
NovaMind 5
NovaMind 5 does not integrate multimedia files into its design. However, you can create attachments and hypertext links which are audio and video files, and then play them by clicking on these assets. iMindMap 6
iMindMap enables you to add audio notes to your mind maps. Clicking on the “audio note” icon in the “insert” tab of the program’s ribbon toolbar opens a panel on the right side of the screen with a large “record” button. You simply click it, record your voice, and then click it again to stop recording. You can attach multiple audio clips to a single topic. iMindMap uses an icon that looks like a pair of ears as a visual indicator that a topic includes audio clips. I found it very hard to see what exactly these two tiny pink objects were, even at normal map magnification. Plus, their light pastel color nearly blends in with the white background color of the mind map. The Multimedia Comparison Report Page 5 worst part, however, is that when you click away from a topic (such as deselecting the “improved 3D view topic” in the screen shot at the bottom of the previous page), the audio icon disappears. That means unless you have the topic selected, you can’t tell it has any audio clips attached to it. Perhaps that’s a bug of iMindMap 6, which was just released a week ago.
I recommend that ThinkBuzan switch to an icon that it easier to see, such as a speaker cone with sound waves emanating from it, like the example at right.
XMind Pro 3
XMind Pro enables you to insert audio notes directly in your mind map. These audio clips can be recorded from within the program. XMind calls these “audio notes,” and they are accessible from within the “insert” menu.
Clicking on the audio note button opens up a new window within the program’s workspace, with a record button. To make an audio recording, simply click on this button and begin speaking. While you’re recording, a red square appears next to the currently-selected topic, indicating that a recording is taking place. When your recording is completed, that icon changes to a green arrow, to indicate an audio recording is available to play.
Clicking on an audio recording opens the sound file in your computer’s default multimedia player (in the case of the laptop I’m using to write this report, that was Windows Media Player).
Pros: You can attach multiple sound files to a single topic in XMind. They are all displayed in a single window, which would make it easy to assemble and manage an entire library of audio recordings within an XMind map. Multimedia Comparison Report Page 6
Cons: I didn’t see any way to tell XMind where it should look for audio input. By default, my laptop uses a microphone array at the top of the keyboard to record audio input. I also have a noise-cancelling headset, which I use with Dragon NaturallySpeaking for dictation and for audio recordings. However, XMind doesn’t seem to give you any options to change the source of your computer’s audio input. This should be added in the program’s preferences in a future release. Also, I was a little surprised to see that XMind could record audio, but not play it back from within the application.
XMind 3 Pro does not integrate video input into its design. However, you can create attachments and hypertext links which are video files, and then play them by clicking on these assets. Curiously, they don’t play within the embedded browser window like they do in MindManager. They play in the default application for that file type – externally.
MindMapper 12
MindMapper does not integrate multimedia files into its design. However, you can create attachments and hypertext links which are audio and video files, and then play them by clicking on these assets. Even though MindMapper 12 has an embedded browser, multimedia assets that are treated as attachments play externally, not within the browser pane.
Multimedia assets that are hosted externally as hypertext links, such as YouTube videos, do play in the browser pane, as seen in the screen shot below. Multimedia Comparison Report Page 7
Note the error message about Internet Explorer 7. This is a bit of a concern. MindMapper 12 was introduced in 2011, yet the version of browser it emulates is so old that YouTube may not support it soon. This is probably the case with other video hosting sites, such as Vimeo and MetaCafe.
Visual Mind 11
Visual Mind does not integrate multimedia files into its design. However, you can create attachments and hypertext links which are audio and video files, and then play them by clicking on these assets. They play externally.
ConceptDraw MINDMAP 6
ConceptDraw MINDMAP does not integrate multimedia files into its design. However, you can create attachments and hypertext links which are audio and video files, and then play them by clicking on these assets.
MindView 4
MindView enables you to add linked audio files to your mind maps. The way it goes about it is rather clever, I think. As you would expect, the “sound” toolbar icon is located in the program’s “insert” tab of its ribbon toolbar. Clicking on it causes a floating toolbar to appear, which enables you to record, play, pause or stop recording.
Here’s where it get interesting: MindView doesn’t immediately insert your audio recording into your mind map. That means if you make a mistake, you simply stop the audio recorder and click on the record button again. A new audio file will be started and the old recording will be discarded. When you’re done recording and click on the “stop” button, a checkbox on the right side of the recorder that was previously grayed out is now green. When you click on it, Multimedia Comparison Report Page 8
MindView will save the audio file – not embedded in the topic, however. Instead, the program opens your folder directory and asks you where it should store the WAV file it created, and what name you want to give it. Once you input that information and click save, only then does MindView add the recording to your topic. I like the way that works!
Once your audio file is attached to a topic, it appears just as any other attachment would in the MindView workspace – as a paper clip icon. If you hover over the topic, a tooltip pop-up displays the files that are attached. As you can see in the example at right, this topic contains two WAV files.
Videos attached to topics in MindView are displayed in an external viewer, such as Windows Media Player or Quicktime.
Conclusion
Based on my research and my personal preferences, the ideal functionality looks something like this:
Audio notes can be created from within the mind mapping program (XMind, MindView and iMindMap) The audio recorder ought to give me the option of starting over if I make a mistake – which is likely to happen fairly often, if I’m just getting started (MindView) Playback should ideally be done within the program as well, not in a separate window (MindMapper and MindManager)
No single program can do all of these things, unfortunately. No mind mapping program currently enables you to create new videos within the application. They all support attaching or linking to videos, however.
My suggestion? If the ability to add audio and video clips to your mind maps is important to you, I recommend that you think about what your ideal functionality would look like, and then use this guide to manage your way through the trade-offs.
Multimedia Comparison Report Page 9
Questions?
Please contact Chuck Frey at [email protected].
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Published 7/20/12