Show HN: Mindscope (iPad) – sweet spot between mind-mapping and outlining | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Mindscope (iPad) – sweet spot between mind-mapping and outlining

mindscopeapp.com

6 pointsepaga10 comments

I haven't tried the app yet, but four suggestions would be:

- dependency tracking between items (there are many use cases for this, anything from project management to social networks), inShort on iOS has an advanced implementation based on Theory of Constraints in industrial-scale manufacturing, http://www.shortki.com/inShort.html - something much simpler could still be useful

- multiple parents for a child node, NoteLynX has an implementation on Android: http://astrodean.blogspot.com/2011/10/outliner-hierarchical-...

- WebDav import/export for OPML or other formats, this allows sync to self-hosted storage

- interoperability with iOS apps which perform local encryption, e.g. ipgmail

Thanks for the ideas! Especially 2 and 3 remind me of stuff I've been considering anyways.

Re: 1 - could you be more specific regarding "dependency tracking"? Each entry is currently simply a text entry that you can move around with your finger. You can also set up arrows between entries. How would you envision tracking dependencies? Could be you'll need to try the app out first and would have more thoughts then.

Thanks again for the feedback!

A lot of visual apps allow users to draw arrows, but why are people drawing arrows? Is the direction of the arrow significant? It's usually a dependency, e.g. MS Project saying that this task must be completed before another task = time dependency. A hierarchical outline is another way of expressing dependency (composition).

What eventually happens after drawing lots of arrows and creating outlines is that users want to make changes to their diagrams. But the diagram editor then ignores all those beautiful arrows and the poor user ends up moving singular nodes around and repeating the layout manually.

inShort hard-codes a set of rules for a specific use case. A lightweight drawing tool could still benefit from allowing some operations to be aware of inter-entry dependencies/arrows/relationships, e.g. grouping, change propagation, composition.

I'll try the app at some point, currently using iThoughts (for fast layout speed on complex maps) on iPad, EccoPro & ConnectedText on PC (supports dependencies and facets). An interesting open-source app is http://treesheets.com, which is a cross between outliner & spreadsheet.

I love iThoughts also, but more for classic mind-mapping on a certain topic rather than outlining or keeping a "life document" like Workflowy or OrgMode, which is closer to the typical usage scenario of Mindscope.

Quick feedback:

- couldn't find the "share button" after long-pressing a board

- breadcrumbs at top of page are useful, might be useful if long-press on a parent or grandparent breadcrumb brought up a list of peers

- could there be an option to disable transition animation? Rollover on selection of item is good, but the whole-page zoom animation makes me dizzy.

- need template support to reuse "forms" created by drawing lines

Overall feels promising. Scapple also looks cool, too bad it's only on OSX.

I wrote this app first and foremost for myself, and intended it to be the sweet spot between a mind-mapping tool and an outliner. On the one hand you can quickly enter thoughts, drag them around and sort them visually (kind of like Scapple in that regard). On the other hand, you can zoom into an entry to focus on it and you get a new space for new entries (kind of like Workflowy in that regard).

Would love to hear any feedback or thoughts on future developments you'd all recommend. I'm currently planning on adding search, sync, and alarms for entries.

Direct App Store link for the lazy: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mindscope/id901513028?ls=1&m...

Thanks for making this. I've always wanted one myself (just didn't have time to make it). You're awesome. Thanks!

I'm looking forward to getting home and trying this out; this looks like the exact kind of tool I've always wanted! :)

It would be helpful to read about the vision behind this app, e.g. how it differs from iThoughts HD, MagicalPad HD, TheBrain, etc.

Sure - just posted a little description above, but would love to answer any other specific questions. From the three apps you mention, it's probably most like TheBrain, but I like to describe it more as what would happen if Scapple and Workflowy created a love child. ;)

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