The Mindmaps Directory has taken a leap in size.  Now it has 877 maps from all over the web.  Unlike other libraries that make exagerated claims but don’t let you browse to see how many there really are (only search for a term or see  ‘popular’ ones) you can explore our full directory - page by page. 

Hand-picked, classified by map type and tagged, these offer a growing and serious resource for students and businesses.  So you can search by word, click the tag cloud to see all on a given subject, or narrow what you see to just a particular type - concept maps, say, mindmaps, or tree diagrams.

Roy

Topicscape.com’s  amazing mindmaps directory has just grown. More than 700 mindmaps assiduously gathered from across the globe.

This is the only mind maps library that allows browsing, filtering by map type (we have spidergrams, bubble diagrams, concept maps, pure, pure mind maps and other types), and is fully tagged with a tag cloud filter and search by subject capability.  Each map is linked to its original source.

So useful for business mappers, students and creative types, looking for fresh ideas and a new approach.

To see the new maps, go to the end (page 48, with 15 maps per page) and work back to page 39 at least.

Roy

At last, our Student Edition is ready for release!

We’ve been working on this for over a year and it got pushed to the background with all the updates to 3D Topicscape Pro, and other developments that we’re not ready to uncover yet.

This is a fun Topicscape with brilliant, glowing colors, stars, galaxies and planets in the sky, but the underlying serious ability to make 3D concept and mind maps to support students in their homework, term papers and research on the web.  And did we mention it’s FREE?  This is a Beta version, but that’s not why it’s free.  It’s going to remain free when it comes out of Beta and goes live.

You don’t need a Beta User’s account, just read all about this new 3D mindmapper, download it here and off you go. 

Worried about the expiry at the end of this year?  Don’t — that’s just to encourage our users to move on to the next version, or to the live version when it’s available.   We don’t want you using an old version when there’s a new one available.  Oh, and it’s a little bit selfish: We’d rather not receive reports of known and fixed bugs from people using out-of-date versions.

We hope you like it, and we look forward to your comments, plaudits and brickbats.

Roy

There’s a search engine dedicated to mind mapping that only looks at sites with useful mind mapping content.  I’m happy to say that http://www.topicscape.com has been picked as one of those sites.  

As the site says:

Use this to do a focused Google search of valued mind-mapping websites. This search box ignores the mindmapping bandwagon all-adverts sites, the trivial three-line posts about someone’s new mind-map, and pages for old software on software download sites.

I’ve tried some searches and it really does seem as focused, with few irrelevant results.

Here’s the link: http://www.mind-mapping.org/article_main.php.  On that page, there’s a concept mapping search engine as well.

Roy

We have just released a new live version of Topicscape Pro (1.3), a new Pro Beta (1.52) and new Skins installers that will work with Pro and Beta.Here’s an outline of what these installers will give our users.

Topicscape Pro Beta 1.52

The release of Topicscape Pro Beta 1.52 is a stability release that’s closing in on Release Candidate 1.

1. The duplicate-file checking user interface has been extended and, we believe, is much improved.
2. Other user interface improvements suggested by users have been implemented.
3. Data Repair has been extended to check new data.
4. The default skins for Pro Beta have been changed. New skins are available - see below.
5. And some bug fixes have been applied

Topicscape Pro 1.3 (Live)

This is a partial release to Live of some of the items previously released and tested in our current Beta 1.5.

1. FreeMind export and import: This is a major new feature. It allows for complete interchangeability between 2D mindmaps in FreeMind and 3D mindmaps in Topicscape, including round trips (e.g. export to FreeMind, make some changes, import back to Topicscape).
2. We have changed the default skin
3. The F6 key will hide all non-flagged topics in the ‘Scape, allowing you to quickly home in on the ones that you have marked as important.
4. The Caps Lock key now acts like a toggle for Quickzoom. You can press Caps lock, then click around on topic cones to zoom into several areas without having to hold down the shift key. When you have found where you want to be, keep the mouse button down, and press CapsLock again.
5. Thumb drives (memory sticks) can now be used with Topicscape.
6. When you’re in the Topic Center, you can now double-left-click on the wall of the cone or on the floor to return to the ‘Scape.
7. There is now an option to check for updates. Go to Tools | Options | User Preferences and near the foot of the panel you will see a checkbox “Auto-check for updates every day”. If you check this box, then on the first run of any 24-hour period, Topicscape will check at our web site to see if a new update is available. If one is, it will open a browser at the page for downloads. You will need to give Topicscape permission to access the web for this to work, but it will need that for MHT-file making anyway. This option is off at installation, but on the first run after installation (only), Topicscape will ask if you want to turn it on.
8. The default skins for Pro are now Crystal and Smoky Plastic. “Classic” has been moved to the skins installer.

The new Live version of Topicscape Pro is available here:
http://www.topicscape.com/tnc.php?productID=14&downloadID=14

Topicscape Pro Skins

There is a new installer that replaces the previous Skins installer.Just download it and install – no other steps needed.This contains all the previous skins, plus two new ones: Lite and Graph paper.

1. “Lite” is included for users who have upgraded from Topicscape Lite to Pro, but who don’t want to change the appearance of Topicscape.
2. “Graph paper” is based on a user suggestion and provides an interesting contrast to the shiny metal surfaces of some other skins.The Graph paper ‘ground’ goes well with some existing models and textures, and being light and neutral in color offers many possibilities for you to tailor Topicscape’s appearance to your taste.
3. Classic has been moved.

The skins installer has now been changed to install into Topicscape Pro Live and Topicscape Pro Beta.  Whichever you have installed (one or both) you can choose to update and make the skins available.

The Skins installer is here:
http://www.topicscape.com/downloadFile.php?productID=13&appID=7

A note about Intel drivers

We identified an issue in a recent Intel graphics driver that affects Topicscape operation.Intel have acknowledged this as a problem but have not yet given a date for release of a fixed driver. Fortunately there is an earlier version that works with Topicscape (see http://www.topicscape.com/faq.php#Q48).Intel have said that they will advise us when a correct version is on line.A new version was made available in early May but we wish to emphasize that this does not solve the problem – we have tested it.If you are using the earlier Intel driver recommended in our FAQs, please stick with it.

There were some problems with the version of Beta 1.51 that we put up on Monday.  They appeared irregularly and only on some PCs.

We think we’ve fixed them now, so there’s a new installer on line for you to download from the usual place: Topicscape 3D mindmaps
Pro Beta version

Roy

Fixes:

• On some computers, Topicscape would occasionally not start - actually it loaded and could be seen in task manager, but did not show up in the screen.
• In such cases, when switching the PC off, a panel (with an “End now” button) showed up saying that it couldn’t close Windows.
• Association types (for 3D concept maps) have been tidied up: customization controls and panel appearance.

A new Topicscape Pro Beta (1.51) was put up online on the 30th April (and a first revision is up today). It is ready for download by all full license holders and Beta Users. This Beta expires on 29th June, and well before that time we hope to release the live version of Topicscape Pro 1.5.

This is how the new Topicscape Beta can now help you manage your information in its 3D mindmaps:

Duplicate checking
Now you can drag in one or more files to Topicscape, drop it on the new ?=? panel and see which files are already in the current Topicscape. Shows size in bytes, colors different size or date in red, points out if the duplicate in that Topicscape is actually a missing occurrence file, and shows which topic it is in. Then it allows you to control what to do next, one by one (replace, delete the external one or bring it in anyway). This is really useful if you are tidying up multiple copies of different versions of documents that should already be in a Topicscape.

Quickopen introduced
In any topic, you can now “promote” one occurrence. This will show the icon for that occurrence above the cone in the ‘Scape, allowing you to click once on that icon to open the document in the application of the occurrence. Naturally a ‘fileless occurrence’ may not be promoted in this way, nor may an occurrence that has no application associated with it on your PC. Occurrences with no associated application show the default Microsoft ‘unknown file’ icon.

Association type visibility
When association types were introduced in the previous Beta, to see them, you would click and hold on an association line. That would show the Association Details Panel and allow you to read and edit the association text (and the topic names). [Reminder - association types are the verb phrases you can now add between topics. For example, “is the capital of” may be an association type between topics France and Paris.]

We have continued our planned implementation of Association types and now this new beta provides other ways of viewing them that you will want to use when you are just viewing them, not editing. Hover over and association line and you will see a blue hint expressing the full association phrases. If you have not edited these, they will just say, for example, France is a parent of Paris, and Paris is a child of France. If you have edited them, they might say France has its seat of government in Paris, and Paris is the capital of France.

You can also opt to see Association types as strong blue panels in the ‘Scape when you click on a topic. You will see the association type for the connection between the selected topic and its parent(s). You will only see this if a) you have edited the standard association types (the default “is parent of” and “is child of”) and if b) the new checkbox in Tools | Options | User Preferences | Miscellaneous operations | Suppress standard association types is checked (ticked).

There’s an option to see all associations at one time: press Shift+F7 once. This will toggle on all association lines and their descriptions, subject to b) just mentioned above. Press Shift+F7 again to toggle this off.

Association-types search
There is now a checkbox on the Advanced Search panel to make the search look in association types. The example just mentioned would be found if you search for “capital” and checked the “association types” checkbox.

Association-types to FreeMind and back
Our implementation of FreeMind round trips has been further enhanced to include association-type texts. These won’t be immediately visible in FreeMind, they are stored as attributes, because FreeMind makes mind maps, not concept maps, so does not have association types. But storing them in the attributes means that re-importing an exported FreeMind back into Topicscape will preserve any association types you have added.

Coming up!
Soon we shall be releasing a Beta that supports tagging topics and occurrences and filtering the visible topics by tags.

Please give us your feedback about the new Beta!

Thanks

Roy

I’ve just done a review of some of the different styles of mindmaps and put down a little of my experience about how people who like mindmaps develop their use of them over time.   If you liked mindmaps, or concept maps, when you encountered them at in college, chances are you went on to use them in adult life - but in a different way.  Maybe to plan projects, manage your tasks or get control of your information. 

 Which style do you use?

http://www.topicscape.com/mindmapping/mindmapping-styles.html

Not mind maps this time - I just found this wonderful collection of concept maps for science and mathematics education (K12) from The National Science Digital Library.  The grade is indicated at each stage of increasing complexity in the subject matter, and clicking on a concept description provides a series of relevant web links for more information.
Changes in the Earth’s Surface
Plate Tectonics
Weather and Climate
Solar System
Stars
Galaxies and the Universe
Gravity
Atoms and Molecules
Conservation of Matter
States of Matter
Chemical Reactions
Evidence and Reasoning in Inquiry
Scientific Investigations
Scientific Theories
Avoiding Bias in Science
Mathematical Processes
Mathematical Models
Design Constraints
Designed Systems
Laws of Motion
Waves
DNA and Inherited Characteristics
Variation in Inherited Characteristics
Biological Evolution
Natural selection
Agricultural Technology
Communication Technology
Computers
Graphic Representation
Symbolic Representation
Ratios and Proportionality
Describing Change
Interaction of Technology and Society
Decisions about Using Technology
Flow of Energy in Ecosystems
Flow of Matter in Ecosystems
Cell Functions
Cells and Organs
Disease
Maintaining Good Health
Coping With Mental Distress
Diagnosis and Treatment of Mental Disorders
Influences on Social Change
Social Decisions
Heredity and Experience Shape Behavior
Culture Affects Behavior
Averages and Comparisons
Correlation
Statistical Reasoning
Systems
Manufacturing
Health Technology