First look: NovaMind 4 Platinum offers cool new features, excellent ease of use

By Chuck Frey

NovaMind continues to get better and better with each new release. It’s newest flagship is NovaMind 4 Platinum for Windows, released in late 2007. Gideon King and his team continue to offer a steady stream of simple but effective interface improvements that enhance usability for first-time users and experienced mappers alike.

Debuting along with version 4 of NovaMind is a new nomenclature for versions of the program: An Express version is aimed at first-time mappers and students. A Pro version is designed to meet the needs of more advanced users and for general business applications. And finally, a top-of-the-line Platinum version (the focus of this review) is for power users; it includes task management and presentation tools, screenwriting tools that were formerly available separately, and also accommodates the Suggesterator, an optional free add-in that helps users to brainstorm new words, which they can add to their maps.

In this first look review, we’ll take a brief look at what’s new and improved in version 4 of this well-designed program:

Improved ribbon toolbar: The ribbon toolbar, which was introduced in version 3.2, has been significantly improved and streamlined. The developer did extensive usability testing, which helped them to regroup some of the toolbar functions in ways that are more logical to users.
 
Live preview of map formatting: NovaMind 4.0 offers some neat "preview" capabilities. If you mouse over a map theme, for example, NovaMind 4 will temporarily apply it to your map, so you can get a "full size preview" of the visual impact it will have on your map. I tried this by clicking on the “map design” tab, and it worked great. As I moused over a set of large visually-oriented buttons containing map themes and background styles, my map was immediately and temporarily transformed. In other words, a full-screen preview. I really like this functionality, and am a little bit surprised that no one has thought of it until now.

Feedback when moving branches: When you’re moving branches within your map, when you drag the branch you’re moving over the one to which you want to attach it, a red circle appears. This indicates that when you release the mouse button, your branch will attach itself to its new parent. Simple but very nice feedback!

Show/hide map elements: The program’s “view” ribbon toolbar contains a very nice show/hide panel that contains checkboxes for map elements – everything from link lines and boundaries to notes indicators and outline numbers. Unchecking any of them removes them from view in your active map – a great way to reduce visual clutter in a complex map!

The Suggesterator: This neat, free add-in for NovaMind 4 Platinum enables you to brainstorm words that are related (synonyms, antonyms and other related word forms) to the word or phrase on your currently-selected map branch. It sounds like a thesaurus, but Gideon King explains that there’s a lot of linguistic derring-do going on behind the scenes, so that words near the top of the list are more conventional, while others further down the list are more “off the wall” (and therefore more likely to stimulate breakthrough ideas). You can easily add any word on the list to your map; an “include definitions” checkbox, when turned on, also inserts the definitions of the words you select as text notes into your map – very cool!

Map orientation: Most, if not all, mind mapping software programs give you the option of placing your maps on pages that are in either a portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) orientation. But most of them bury the command to control page orientation deep in the their preferences dialog box, or in a print setup menu. Not NovaMind 4 – it’s right out there on the “map design” ribbon toolbar. Simple but nice!

Color mode wheel: One of the nice things about NovaMind has always been that it doesn’t create boring branches. By default, they are randomly colored – unless you opt to turn that functionality off in the program’s settings – and they have a nice-looking, tapered, “swoopy” look to them. But a new enhancement in version 4 is a color mode wheel. If you grab its control and rotate the color wheel, your map’s branches shift color, sort of like a kaleidoscope. When you see a set of colors that looks attractive to your eyes, stop dragging. Very simple but much appreciated, especially since most other programs create black branch lines by default, and you must select each branch, one and a time, to give it a separate color. NovaMind does all of this for you, and even makes it easy to modify the colors of all of your branches at once. Very cool!

Presentation mode: The presentation mode of NovaMind 4 Platinum (which is not available in the Pro or Express versions of the program) is simple but very well designed. Clicking on the presentation mode button in the “view” ribbon toolbar displays your map with a set of control buttons at the bottom of the screen, including overview, start, previous, next, center and close buttons. When you click start, the presentation mode places a gray background around the perimeter of your map, as if the entire map is selected. Clicking “next” highlights the first major topic of your map with a white background, while the rest of your map is muted with a medium gray background. Successive clicks of the “next” button highlights each major topic in turn, walking clockwise around your map. It’s a very straightforward visual presentation of your map’s topics, but it does a remarkably good job of directing the audience’s eye to the highlighted topic, while ignoring the rest of it. Clicking the “close” button returns you to a normal map view. Kudos to NovaMind Development for coming up with such an elegantly simple presentation view.

Conclusion

NovaMind 4 Platinum continues to improve with each new release. I don’t know how Gideon King and his development team do it – they continue to push the envelope in terms of new features and functionality that no one has thought of before. This program is a pleasure to use, and I really like the Suggesterator.

NovaMind 4 Platinum is available in the developer’s online store for US$249 (the Pro version is $149). A 30-day trial version is also available for download.

Published on 3/11/2008

Rating:
Summary NovaMind 4 Platinum offers a great set of well-designed tools that will really enhance your mind mapping experience.
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