You Talked, We Listened: Announcing the New MindManager 15 for Windows
At Mindjet, we strive to provide revolutionary ways for people to be more innovative, creative, collaborative, and productive. There’s nothing more important to us than making that happen.
To that end, MindManager has evolved to take mind mapping way beyond just the brainstorming session. Now it provides one of the most flexible methods for teams and individuals to capture ideas, create strategic plans, and manage everything from meetings to massive projects. We are thrilled to continue that evolution with the new MindManager 15 for Windows, and we hope that you’ll be as excited as we are.
MindManager 10 and 11 for Mac users are eligible for an upgrade license, which runs $89. Apple Weekly Newsletter Whether you want iPhone and Mac tips or the latest enterprise-specific Apple news. Marian From my perspective it looke like there was no Mac option available for MindManager at all, the site just seems to talk about Windows. I see now that 3 screen scrolls down the MindManager Feature Set' section talks about the Mac version but it could be further up the page.in the first section, beside the Try It Free button.
A Better Balance
Our goal for this release was to balance new features requested by our power users with an enhanced experience for new and casual users. We’re working to ensure that new users can be productive quickly, and our dedicated, long-time users can complete their most common tasks more efficiently.
Many of the features and improvements in version 15 are the direct result of discussions with clients, partners, and the MindManager community. To make sure we captured your needs, we used our design partner database to collect anonymous, opt-in feedback on our features. We also solicited feedback via surveys, live observations, online feedback, and customer visits.
This collaboration with our user base fully supports our ongoing commitment to refining and improving MindManager in order to provide you with the most powerful and effective tool in its class. We encourage all of you to add or vote on ideas in our community.
With that in mind, here are some of the new improvements.
Expanded Microsoft Integration
Microsoft 64-Bit Compatibility
One of the most highly anticipated updates is the 64-bit version of MindManager for Windows. Users can now run MindManager on either 32- or 64-bit Windows OS. Better yet, MindManager 15 users can now integrate their projects seamlessly with Microsoft Office 64-bit applications, and still benefit from all of the great features available in the original version.
Auto-Create Slides
Slide & Presentation Improvements
Slides in MindManager are used in a variety of ways. You can print them, create a slideshow and present it from within MindManager, or export slides to PowerPoint.
When you have a large map, it was a cumbersome process to manually create each individual slide. With this new feature, MindManager creates slides for you automatically.
Creating slides is easier, too—you can do it directly from the Presentation Menu in the ribbon.
And, if you try to export a map to PowerPoint without any slides created, MindManager will offer to do it for you.
The end result: You have a series of slides that you can use to present, print, or export, without the need to switch programs or spend extra time reformatting.
New Presentation Theme
We’ve also added a new Map Theme, “Default – Project,” which is set up with darker lines and text, making it easier to see when you’re projecting your maps.
More Powerful Project Planning
Removing Slack Time
We’ve had many people request a way to more easily remove ‘slack time’—the amount of time left after a project if the project is started immediately—between dependent tasks.
Previously, if a task finished later than expected, the new end date would push out dependent tasks to start later. However, if a task finished early, users had to manually move all the dependent tasks in the project. In MindManager 15, whether a task is finished early or late, dependent tasks can be moved automatically. This is a massive improvement for MindManager users that may have hundreds of tasks per project.
Now you can also either remove slack time for the whole project (in your current map), or for any selected tasks. When you choose selected tasks, it really represents not only the chosen task, but any dependent tasks, too.
To access this command, you can either use the Remove Slack Time button in the Task Ribbon, or from the context menu when you click on a task in the Gantt chart.
Move Project
Project Managers often spend a lot of time developing plans, identifying tasks, defining dependencies, resources, milestones, and more. Quite often, by the time they’re done, they need to shift the plan to an entirely new start date.
In earlier versions of MindManager, you had to manually update all tasks to their new start dates. Now, users can simply click the Move Project command in the Task Ribbon, select a new date, and all appropriate tasks will shift accordingly.
There’s also an option to maintain the current milestones. This allows you to move all of a project’s tasks, yet keep the milestones and any dependencies in place if needed.
Project Map Parts
We’ve added new map parts so you can quickly drag and drop predefined branches like a project charter, status, or project success criteria branch directly into your map. These predefined branches guide you through the project definition and planning process, and provide a framework for helping you manage initiatives.
User Experience Improvements
Simple Template Navigation
One of the things we repeatedly observed in our usability lab is that when users tried to find a template, they were quickly overwhelmed. To remedy that, we’ve created a new template experience, which includes:
- New blank map templates with radial, right, tree, and org-chart layouts.
- New folders for MindManager templates for management, meetings & events, personal productivity, problem solving, project management, and strategic planning.
- New section for your own custom templates that you add.
- Easier access to our online gallery of MindManager maps and customer maps in the Maps for That community.
New Map Parts
I mentioned earlier that we’ve added new map parts to provide a repeatable and efficient way to plan your next project. We didn’t stop there!
MindManager 15 has approximately 50 new map parts to help you:
- Brainstorm, refine, and categorize ideas.
- Analyze ideas, strategies, and opportunities.
- Conduct meetings and take notes.
- Plan and manage projects, and much more!
We’ve made the default view of map parts a list view so that they’re easier to identify and select. You can always switch back to the original thumbnail view using the context menu option.
New Hand-Drawn Images
We’ve added a gallery of hand-drawn images to give your map topics a more personal touch. Choose from over 150 new images in a variety of colors.
Topic Quick-Add Refinements
In our last update, we introduced the new Topic Quick-Add feature, which lets you quickly add topics to map elements. We’ve continued to refine this feature to make it even easier to add topics into your maps. Since the feature adds space to the map (which may impact previously created maps with slides for printing and presenting) we’ve also added an option that lets you temporarily disable the feature. It’s located in the MindManager Options, Edit page.
New OPML Export
For those of you who use apps that accept OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language), we’ve now added OPML export so you can easily transfer map content. Simply use the “Save As” command and select OPML as the file format.
Mothballed Features
Periodically, it becomes necessary to remove features from MindManager. Features may be underutilized, outdated, or just fail to accomplish their intended purpose. To keep the user experience clean, we take them out.
In this release, we’ve removed the following features:
- Microsoft SharePoint Linker Add-in. This feature is being retired from the standard offering of MindManager, and will be included in the new MindManager Enterprise offering. This also includes our MindManager Server product, which installs on SharePoint.
- Google Desktop Search. Support for this functionality was dropped by Google in 2011.
- Save and Open MindManager 2002 files. As we’re moving to support both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of MindManager, it’s time to hang up support for this very old file format.
The new MindManager 15 for Windows is our most robust and streamlined version to date, and we can’t wait to see what you’re able to accomplish with it.
MindManager 15 for Windows, released today by mind mapping software developer Mindjet, offers some practical new features and enhancements that will help you to be more productive and well organized than ever before.
The most significant new features of MindManager 15 include a vastly expanded selection of map parts, project management improvements, a new set of hand-drawn icons and a reorganized and simplified template view. The developer’s objective for this new version was to make it easier for new users to get started with the program, while also responding to customer requests for enhancements to existing features.
Here’s what’s new in MindManager 15, and the significance of these new features and enhancements to business users of the program:
Expanded map parts
I’ve always been a fan of this feature of MindManager, because it makes it easy to build common types of mind maps using drag-and-drop functionality. My biggest complaint with it was that there weren’t enough map parts and they didn’t address enough key business uses of mind maps. In addition, the thumbnail images were so small that it was hard to see what each map part looked like.
Mindjet has remedied these past shortcomings in MindManager 15, which includes 50 new map parts. These “plus and play” map components are divided into categories, including brainstorming, project planning, business analysis and meeting planning. In addition, you can select any topic in one of your maps and save it and all of its child topics into a new map part. This could potentially save you many hours of work if you repeatedly create the same types of mind maps.
Improved templates view
In previous versions of MindManager, the templates view required a lot of scrolling. In version 15, Mindjet has regrouped them into six topic-focused folders – management, meetings and events, personal productivity, problem solving, project management and strategic planning. This gives you a concise, high-level view of the types of templates that are available. You can then open a folder to view all of the templates it contains.
In addition, it displays blank templates for creating radial, right, tree and org chart maps, and continues to give you access to Mindjet’s online MapsForThat gallery. Any templates you have created are stored in a new My Templates folder. This new compact layout makes MindManager’s templates view much easier to use.
Hand drawn icon set
In addition to the standard set of icons that ships with previous versions of MindManager, version 15 now includes a set of over 600 hand-drawn icons. They are available in four colors. Mindjet VP of Products Michael Deutch says he was inspired by a post on this blog about the Vector Doodlekit, a third-party collection of hand-drawn icons and symbols, to include a similar set of resources in MindManager 15. The goal is to enable users to create mind maps with a more organic, hand-drawn look.
Project management enhancements
In previous versions of MindManager, if you had a project that was going to start significantly earlier or later than you planned, you had to manually change the start and end dates of each task. In version 15, a new “move project” command simplifies this process. By changing the start date of the overall project, MindManager 15 automatically adjusts all of the task date ranges. You can also use a new command to eliminate slack time in the GANTT view of your project. This can help you to ensure that your project gets done at the earliest possible date.
New topic “quick add” buttons
As part of Mindjet’s goal to improve the usability of MindManager for new users, version 15 now includes small nodes, each containing a plus sign (+), that stick out of the top, bottom and side of each topic. Clicking on one creates a new linked topic in that direction. Deutch said that new users sometimes get stuck trying to figure out how to add new topics to their mind maps. These quick add buttons make it easy to see what to do next. In addition, they enable any users of MindManager 15 to quickly add topics without having to mouse back up to the program’s ribbon toolbar each time – nice!
These new buttons each require a small amount of extra vertical space, however, which can potentially cause printing and page fit problems for some users. If you don’t want them to be visible, you can turn them off in the program’s options. Very smart!
Auto-creation of slides
A new command in MindManager 15 enables users to have the program auto-create slides. If you need to quickly present a mind map to your colleagues, this can be a big time-saver. A new map theme included in this version contains font sizes and settings that are optimized for display on a screen, too.
Whither MindManager 15 for Mac?
Deutch said a Mac version is now under development; Mindjet hopes to release it by year-end. He said the company is driving toward a new development platform that will make it easier to develop one set of code and deploy it to all platforms (Windows, Mac, mobile and web). That sounds like an ambitious goal, but Deutch believes it’s achievable in the next year or two.
MindManager + SpigitEngage?
During Mindjet’s briefing for MindManager 15, I asked for an update on the company’s acquisition of Spigit, a developer of enterprise idea management solutions. Can we expect to see some connections between MindManager and SpigitEngage? Deutch said the Mindjet team has done some research to figure out where the two applications could potentially connect. Clearly there are steps in the innovation process where visual thinking could have a significant impact. The next step is to determine where such integration will offer the greatest benefit to Mindjet and Spigit customers. Watch for more developments in 2015.
Conclusion
MindManager 15 for Windows represents a well thought-out evolution of the program’s comprehensive feature set. The usability enhancements – such as the new templates view, quick-add buttons and the expanded map parts gallery – will be especially appreciated by new users. Experienced users of MindManager will appreciate some of its more powerful new features, like move project and remove slack time for projects.
For more information about and pricing for MindManager 15 for Windows, please visit Mindjet’s product page.
Mindmanager 15 Mac
Watch this blog for a review of MindManager 15 in the next month or so, where I will take a deeper look at the new and enhanced features of this excellent program.