There are a ton of mind mapping tools available. One of the most user-friendly of these tools I have found is VYM, or View Your Mind. This open source tool is available for Linux, Mac, and Windows (almost) and is ready to, quite literally, map your mind!

Installing

Since we’re talking about Linux, we’ll install VYM in Linux. You can download VYM from the website. You can download the binary for your distribution or you can install from source. If you install from source follow these steps:

1. Make sure you have QT 4.3 installed.
2. Download the source package.
3. Open a terminal window and change to the directory you downloaded the sources to.
4. Unpack the source with the command
5. Change into the newly created directory.
6. Issue the command qmake
7. Issue the command make
8. Issue the command make install
9. Fire up VYM with the command vym

You can also install VYM from the command line with a command like: sudo apt-get install vym or yum install vym.

Using VYM

Figure 1

When you first open up VYM you will see two windows (see Figure 1). The window you see on the left is the properties window and the window on the right is the working window.

To begin double-click the yellow rectangle and give it a name. This is the parent of your mind map. You will then add branches and children to this.

Figure 2

After you name the parent you can then add branches by clicking the “Add branch as child” button (see Figure 2). When you click the “Add branch…” button the child is automatically added with a branch connecting it to the parent. If you still have the parent selected and you click the “Add branch…” button again another branch is added to the parent. You can continue doing this until you have all of the branches necessary to map your mind.

Figure 3

If you take a look at Figure 3, you can see a mind map I have created that can map out Ghacks topics.

Of course, like any good graphical application of this nature, don’t think you are limited to the default look and feel of the map. If, while working on your map, you look in the Format menu you will find plenty of formatting options. You can change:

Style of line.

Color of line.

Color of sub-tree.

Color of background.

Background image.

In order to change the color of either the sub-tree or the branch, you would first change the color in the color selector (in Figure 3 the color selector is the small black square in the toolbar) and then select what you want to change in the Format menu. To change the color of the other options simply select that option from the bottom of the Format menu and then change the color from the color wheel window that opens.

Finally, when you have finished your map, you can save the map or export it to a few different type of formats (XHTML, ascii, OpenOffice, CSV, Taskjuggler, LaTeX, and more). Exporting to ascii creates a sort of Table of Contents of your mind map – something that could actually come in handy.

Final thoughts

Mind mapping software has a ton of uses for anyone who needs to see a less structured organizational representation of their thoughts. For some these maps work perfectly, for others they are too chaotic to makes heads or tails of. How do you map your mind?

Installation

If you already have KOffice installed, most likely Kivio is installed as well. If not, you can install Kivio without installing the rest of KOffice. To do so, follow these steps:

Open up your package management software (or a terminal window).

1. Search for “kivio” (no quotes).
2. Mark Kivio for installation.
3. Click Apply to install.
4. Or…issue your command line tool (such as yum install kivio or urpmi kivio) to install.

That’s it. You are ready to begin using the tool.

Usage

Using Kivio isn’t quite as straight-forward as is Dia. Although the fundamentals are the same, the steps to get to the results are not. Let’s take a look at a few of these steps and see where the differences are.

Main Window

Figure 1

When you open the application (see Figure 1) you will immediately see the difference between Dia and Kivio (and more of a relationship to Microsoft Visio).  Unlike Dia, Kivio offers a multi-paned view with various tools available to make the job more efficient.

Outside of the interface, one of the first differences you will notice, between Dia and Kivio, is when you create an element on the chart Kivio does not automatically ready that element for text (like Dia does). If you want to add text to an element you first create the element, then you select the text tool, click on the element you just created, and type your text.

Although not a huge difference, if you are creating larger flow charts (with many elements) you will start to notice the added steps.

The next difference is when creating multi-point (or polylines). Muli-point lines are simple to create in Dia:

1. Click the mult-point line tool.
2. Select the point of the originating element where the line is to start.
3. Drag the line to the end point element where you want to the line to terminate.
4. Manipulate the mid-points until the line is exactly how you want it.

Figure 2

Creating a polyline in Kivio is different:

1. Go to the Tools menu.
2. Select Polyline Connector.
3. Click on the originating element where you want the line to begin.
4. Click on the spot where you need the polyline to have it’s angle (see Figure 2).
5. Click on the end point element where you want the line to terminate.

Figure 2 illustrates the creation of a polyline in Kivio. After clicking on your originating element and you move your cursor to where you want the angle to be the two green lines will appear as soon as you reach a valid connection point. When you see these lines connect, click on that connection point and your angle is set.

One final big difference you will see in Kivio is that arrowheads are not automatically added to connecting lines. Instead you have to add them. But you have multiple arrowhead types to add. In order to add an arrowhead to a connecting line follow these steps:

1. Create your connecting line.
2. Right click the connecting line.
3. Select Format Arrowheads
4. Select the type of arrowhead you want (from the Type drop down) at either the Origin or the End.
5. Click OK.

Final thoughts

Which flowchart tool is better? That depends. If you want a flowchart too geared toward streamline and efficiency, go with Dia. If you want a flowchart tool geared more toward a standard GUI with loads of features, go with Kivio. In the end, both tools do an outstanding job of creating flowcharts.

JOCR itself is a portable software program. The interface looks like screen capturing software programs. It offers to capture a region, the desktop or the active window. The image will then be displayed in the program’s interface with options to print, copy or recognize.

Recognizing is obviously the main part as it will analyze the image at hand to recognize all the characters that it contains. The document imaging software will then display the recognized characters count and display them in the default text editor from where they can be edited or copied easily.

The document imaging software can be useful in situations where text has to be copied from interface elements. This can be error messages, text that is displayed in applications or images. The recognition rate depends largely on the type of image and text used. It ranges from brilliant (almost no editing required) to weak (failed to recognize certain characters, lots of editing required).

JOCR is compatible with the following languages: Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish.