[HN Gopher] H-m-m: Hackers mind map
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H-m-m: Hackers mind map
Author : makeitrain
Score : 233 points
Date : 2022-09-14 15:21 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| [deleted]
| tartoran wrote:
| Mmm, keyboard centric, Im loving it
| nborwankar wrote:
| Dave Winer of RSS and blogging fame created Think Tank, a text
| mode outliner, back in the 80's. Was a single binary for MSDOS.
| Haven't seen an outliner that came close.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Is this it?
| https://www.pcjs.org/software/pcx86/app/other/thinktank/1987...
| exoji2e wrote:
| Looks cool. A bit strange with a 2.4k single php-file
| implementation though. If it works, it works I guess.
| _steady wrote:
| Hey! love the thing. Quick suggestion to the README on the
| section "Relative navigating and moving" It looks like I have to
| press H <AND> <-, to move left - I am assuming that I can do
| either or, a la vim. A small copy edit would make that clearer.
| Kudos!
| nadrad wrote:
| Done :)
| dkaigorodov wrote:
| Love the idea, love the UI. I see same UI approach can give life
| to quite many new tools.
|
| I'll try it when they repair my Mac
| wpietri wrote:
| I keep trying mind maps and getting frustrated because my mind
| works differently. Anybody know of ones that let you start out
| non-hierarchical?
|
| For me, key nodes are often obvious long before relationships
| are. E.g., if I'm working with post-it notes, I might write a
| bunch of notes, cluster them, winnow, and only then want to start
| locking in relationships between items. Has anybody seen
| something that's pretty straightforward that supports that
| approach?
| iammjm wrote:
| Scapple is what you are looking for. Its from the same crew
| that made Scrivener. You can use it free for a month I think or
| pay like 20 bucks for a lifetime license. It lets you start
| anywhere and is very simple and intuitive. The only thing bad
| about it is exporting data out of it.
| https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple/overview
| ghaff wrote:
| This is sort of the problem I have with most things that
| aren't just a text editor. They may be better in some ways
| (and I do like Scrivener) but at the end of the day, when I'm
| done, I want everything to be in a universal format on my own
| filesystem.
| puchatek wrote:
| I am currently trying a big sheet of white paper, folded once
| in the middle and a pilot frixion pen.
|
| This is mostly for home stuff of which there is quite a bit for
| a home owner. It can just lie on since table or shelf and be
| updated easily. I put notes and todos together and the todos
| get a little check box in front of them. I'm in control of the
| hierarchy and it mostly mirrors the layout of the house.
| Doesn't get in the way for me.
|
| I also want to extend it to other areas but for now I'm trying
| things out with the house domain.
|
| Of course the downside is that i cannot easily edit it when I'm
| out and about and have some idea. And it's not really possible
| to have any automated reminders or integrations. (Not sure if
| there are open source alternatives to what rocketbook is
| offering; that might be a way to hook this into some digital
| setup)
| Cryptonic wrote:
| What I really like to prepared D&D games are Entity
| Relationship Diagrams. A very handy app for from the Android
| Play Store is "Draw Express Diagram Lite" - the touch UX to
| create diagrams is unmatched in usability if you ask me.
| jjslocum3 wrote:
| The best tool I've ever used for this no longer exists, as far
| as I'm aware. It was circa 1991, a spectacular lightweight
| Macintosh application called "Inspiration." There currently
| exists software in the same lane with the same name - but if
| there's any blood relation between the two, the current bears
| little resemblance to its progenitor.
|
| I will mangle the terminology since it's been so long, but the
| basic idea was that on an infinite canvas you would create
| nodes representing concepts; these nodes were just UI "bubble"
| objects, like the ovals you might find in slide deck software.
| Relationships could be added after the fact by linking these
| nodes, and there was a fast way to create linked "sub-nodes"
| from an existing node. Also, very strong UI for arranging the
| node diagram.
|
| Maybe the big problem with mind mapping tools these days is
| feature creep. A complex UI with too many options will
| absolutely get in the way of the thought process it serves.
| homarp wrote:
| a review of Inspiration: https://archive.org/details/TNM_Insp
| iration_30_visual_thinki...
|
| Inspiration : the thought processor Authors: Donald Helfgott,
| Mona Helfgott, made by Ceres Software, Inc
|
| History of the company:
| https://psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Inspiration_Software
| shrubble wrote:
| The software is still around and old vintage software sites
| have the earlier versions that you can run in a MacOS8
| emulator. I last played with version 6 I think about 4 years
| ago; at that time you could have both an outline view and a
| mind map and switch between them.
| personjerry wrote:
| Not mine, I am not affiliated with this tool, but I thought
| along the same lines as you and found this tool, could you
| give it a try and let me know what you think?
|
| https://kinopio.club/
| dageshi wrote:
| That looks like it's worth trying out, also I like the
| pricing model, god damn am I sick of monthly subscription.
| efnx wrote:
| But it looks like it is monthly (or yearly with a two
| month discount).
| dageshi wrote:
| I think a yearly price of $60 is reasonable for a tool
| like this.
| nomoreusernames wrote:
| william-at-rain wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of Graphviz and git. Text is easily diffable!
|
| Try SketchViz.com and see what you think.
|
| Also a shoutout to yEd Graph Editor (free).
| collaborative wrote:
| The one I created supports force diagrams as well as
| hierarchies. You can add nodes and later rearrange them
| ("move")
|
| Feel free to try. Works on all platforms, can be used as a
| collaboration tool, and has a ton of other features
|
| https://6groups.com
| neovive wrote:
| I tend to work this way with a tool called Markmap
| (https://markmap.js.org/repl). I start with one heading and a
| list then begin moving items and adding new
| headings/subheadings as the relationships form. For example:
| // Start with: # Ideas - Item 1 - Item 2
| - Item 3 - Item 4 - Item 5 - Item 6
| // Move to: # Ideas ## Group 1 -
| Item 1 - Item 2 - Item 3 ## Group 2
| - Item 4 - Item 5 - Item 6
| timeon wrote:
| MindNode is good for this. Unfortunately they went for
| subscription model.
| throwoutway wrote:
| Usually the non-hierarchical is an option to toggle on/off in
| the tools I've used.
|
| With hierarchy you can still achieve it though. If the topic is
| "alphabet" I might create major nodes A B C D without linking
| them. I then play with A B C and D and add more nodes in a
| brain dump and then re-arrange later and map the relationships
| Terretta wrote:
| Perhaps iThoughtsX from https://www.toketaware.com/
| jehna1 wrote:
| miro.com works great for this kind of thing.
|
| Edit: Or if you want an open source alternative, check out
| ourboard.io
| brightball wrote:
| The only time I ever use them is when I'm making notes about
| something and realize that there are a lot of cross references.
| Helps to see them.
|
| Also I like to use them in new organizations to map out the
| people I meet to make sense of who knows what about a topic.
| Especially in big orgs.
| nadrad wrote:
| Depending on the topic I'm working on, sometimes I need an
| approach similar to what you explained. I still use a mindmap,
| open a first-level node called 'temp' and start adding
| everything there and keep sorting them. As soon as a structure
| starts to emerge, I create other nodes and move those items to
| their new places. This is based on the assumption that your
| final output would be a tree with one-to-many relationships
| rather than a graph with many-to-many relationships. I've seen
| tools for organizing many-to-many relationships, but I never
| had the need to use one.
| captaincaveman wrote:
| Yeah this is a common problem that pops up all the time,
| typically a tree, or taxonomy etc aren't sufficient and you
| need an ontology. But they aren't so easy to grasp
| intuitionally so we try to dumb it down and then hit problems,
| imho.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| I'm the same as you. Obsidian[0] is non-linear and has worked
| for me.
|
| 0. https://obsidian.md/
| mempko wrote:
| Looks great is this Free Software? I want to hack on this
| thing, where is the code?
| runevault wrote:
| If you want opensource and local storage look up Dendron.
| It is a VSCode extension in a similar vein, uses markdown
| so easily track changes in git/etc as well.
| SahAssar wrote:
| Or Foam.
| shakezula wrote:
| Additionally, the Obsidian plug-in for mind maps is amazing
| and very similar to how the tool in the root post behaves.
| michaelwww wrote:
| I want this too. I found some answers in HN comments:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32536780
| phailhaus wrote:
| Have you considered aligning sublists to the parent node? Right
| now, your eyes have to leap upwards from a node to get the first
| child of the list. And since each list has a different length,
| you have to scan upwards a different amount every time. If every
| list was aligned with the parent, you could just read left-to-
| right.
| nadrad wrote:
| Would you mind explaining a little more?
| phailhaus wrote:
| In the screenshot in the repo, there's a node with the text
| "a mind mapping tool". It has 5 children, but the first child
| "text-based (terminal application)" is _above_ it. So the
| more children a node has, the further above it the first
| child is. What if it was aligned so that the first child is
| at the same height as its parent? Then it might look more
| natural like a list, and read easier since the children start
| at the same height as the parent rather than at some
| arbitrary point above it.
|
| This would help with flow, because then you can read left to
| right and scan downwards. Right now you have to keep jumping
| up to find the first child and _then_ scan down to read all
| the children.
| makeitrain wrote:
| Terminal based mind map, with vim keys!
| przemub wrote:
| Written in PHP! That's a cool language, not these Rusts, Gos,
| Carbons...
|
| _get off my yard_
| nyxtom wrote:
| Vim keyboard mapping in the terminal. This is a great project.
| Now I can finally replace some of my web-based mind map tools
| koheripbal wrote:
| Should integrate with orgmode headings.
|
| ...but mapping everything is just step one. Step two is getting a
| prioritized list of todos for the day.
| OliverJones wrote:
| This is great. Especially because it's the work of a highly
| motivated and gifted person who doesn't crank code for a living.
| I'd say "gifted amateur" except the only thing amateurish about
| this is that it's a labor of love.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| I don't really get the point of a hierarchical mind map. Why not
| just use a nested list? (Seems to be standard for mindmaps, so
| I'm criticizing this project specifically.)
| nadrad wrote:
| It's basically a nested list, but you get specific features
| that makes it easier and faster to navigate such a list. Mind
| mapping is a facilitator for the thinking process. When you're
| trying to solve a problem or design a concept, you need to
| switch between the high-level aspects and details all the time,
| and your tool shouldn't get in the way.
| felipelalli wrote:
| I am making a new proj and this tool will be really useful for
| me! Thank you.
| s3r3nity wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember when pockets of the Freemind[1]
| community aspired for that application to reach something of this
| state. Sadly, development forked and work on the original project
| stalled pretty hard.
|
| Great stuff - thanks for sharing!
|
| [1]http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
| penguin_booze wrote:
| Its fork, freeplane, is what I use:
| https://docs.freeplane.org/.
| choletentent wrote:
| Nice tool.
|
| A question to others who enjoy similar tools:
|
| What is the difference between this (or other) tool to a simple
| document on Gdocs with multilevel bullet lists?
| nadrad wrote:
| This type of application makes it easier and faster to navigate
| the tree, collapse and expand to focus on various aspects, etc.
| hansvm wrote:
| The most obvious benefit is easily handling non-tree
| interactions.
|
| The fact that it's terminal-centric is also situationally an
| advantage as opposed to gdocs, but that could easily be solved
| by vim or something, so I don't think that's quite what you
| were asking.
| Minor49er wrote:
| This is really cool. Adding, editing, and navigating nodes is
| pretty intuitive (reminds me of working in a spreadsheet). I kind
| of wish that it would auto-center as you're editing, and it might
| be nice to be able to hit Escape to cancel out of creating a new
| node. The ability to export as HTML is simple and gives a nice
| result. I'm going to incorporate this into some of my workflows
| kobalsky wrote:
| > I kind of wish that it would auto-center as you're editing
|
| press shift+c
| oehpr wrote:
| I love this. Honestly if this had the same tasking capabilities
| as minder https://github.com/phase1geo/Minder I might just make
| the jump to it. Using mind maps as a tasking app has worked out
| well for me.
|
| This project looks very very hackable. Might do a pull request
| scastiel wrote:
| Wow, a single PHP file, I wasn't expecting that ^^
|
| Looks cool though, I'll try it soon :)
| rcarmo wrote:
| Yeah. I do wonder if it is possible to pack this into a
| standalone binary so that I don't have to install PHP - not due
| to language bias, but so it might be run without any package
| installation steps.
| elwell wrote:
| The use of PHP makes it truly a hacker's mind map.
| thoughtpalette wrote:
| Love the idea. Their website is full of goodies. The graphic for
| the p3 express framework is pretty cool.
| https://p3.express/manual/v2/
| nadrad wrote:
| I'm glad you like it :) To be clear, this mind mapping
| application is my personal project and P3.express is a group
| effort and I'm one of its contributors.
| tiberriver256 wrote:
| Built by a product manager?! I didn't know they could make
| things!
| nadrad wrote:
| Not a product manager, my area is project management :)
| Terretta wrote:
| There are no stupid questions, except maybe this one:
|
| Q. Why is a wide horizontal tree superior way to work with a mind
| map that's a pure outline (not a DAG) than a simple outline?
|
| See the Data Format here, it's an outline. Keystrokes are about
| moving nodes and descendants, that can work on an outline. And
| then why not have a portable outline format.
|
| I do understand this is terminal/text. Yet there are plenty
| terminal/text outline editors, and being able to see a narrow
| outline instead of a wide tree feels more usuable.
|
| That said, I use and really enjoy iThoughtsX which can
| import/export OPML and Markdown etc., and provides ability to
| control visual layout per 'information geography' or
| 'cartography'. So not averse to visual graph depiction of a DAG,
| just asking why folks like this for pure outline format instead
| of outline editing?
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I haven't tried this yet, but from the look of it, it expands
| both horizontally and vertically, and one of the more important
| features is collapsibility/expansion of subnodes.
|
| Note that in the image there, they've got some subnodes
| expanded deep horizontally, while their sibling nodes might be
| even deeper but are collapsed.
|
| The difference with a simple vertical outline is that this
| format is focused on pruning/unpruning parts of the tree, pair
| with an expectation of arbitrarily "deep" nesting. I find that
| in outline format, I'm unlikely to go deeper than a couple
| levels, and will at that point either switch to narrative or
| use some sort of referencing scheme.
| Terretta wrote:
| OK, makes sense. I think most "outliner" tools I know of do
| exactly those adds, with the benefit of also being relatively
| flush left.
|
| As I help our firm select knowledge management tools, I'm
| just trying to understand the use cases that differentiate
| this approach from a fully fledged outliner.
|
| Note that I ask the same thing of people who do outlines in
| MS Word manually as plain bullet lists instead of using, you
| know, the outliner. :-)
| birriel wrote:
| I'm getting a 255 return code when I try to run it. php v.7.4.3.
| Permissions are all ok. Anybody else have this problem?
| birriel wrote:
| Standard error said there was a call to undefined function
| mb_strlen(), which apparently isn't available by default on
| php.
| vincentkriek wrote:
| Not trying to hate on PHP, but deployment is one of the
| features that is so great with Go. It's about on the same
| level of abstraction as PHP and it's just a breeze to deploy
| stuff.
| birriel wrote:
| sudo apt install php7.4-mbstring # Fixed it. There's also
| package php-mbstring
| gavinray wrote:
| This is why you take a few seconds to be considerate to your
| users and potential contributors and put a 5 line Dockerfile in
| the repo
|
| You can either run the code or develop on the code with no more
| "works on my machine" that way
|
| Something like this should have done it: FROM
| php:8 # install that mbstring library CMD
| ["however", "you", "start", "php", "apps"]
| rcarmo wrote:
| I went back and tried this and it is pretty awesome. Very, very
| good navigation and quick editing experience (and I use mindmaps
| a lot!)
|
| I do wish it was in a compiled language like C or Go (or a more
| common CLI scripting language like Python) so I didn't have to
| install PHP at all.
| trafnar wrote:
| I made a video overview of this tool if you want to see it in
| action. I also compared its philosophy to my tool TaskTXT
| (http://www.tasktxt.com).
|
| Hmm video overview: https://youtu.be/mRbaXHlhwUI
| bilekas wrote:
| Thanks for the video really clear, not sure why but my mind
| just couldn't figure out what this project was from the github.
| nadrad wrote:
| Thanks for the review! Try the focus feature (the 'f' key) and
| focus lock (shift+f) as well if you've not done so already; it
| can be very useful.
| gaetgu wrote:
| Awesome. I am using PHP for some college classes and I can
| certainly say that I would never want to use it for something
| like this, but the fact that someone did is pretty awesome. I
| will definitely be using (probably a fork that I rewrite in a
| language that I will be willing to maintain) a lot for sure.
| Awesome work!
| IceDane wrote:
| OK, cool idea, but..
|
| - Why is this written in PHP? Who builds CLI applications in PHP?
| Everything looks like a nail, I guess? - Why did you choose your
| own custom serialization format instead of using something
| universally supported, like JSON? It's literally more effort for
| you and everyone else involved for zero benefit. - I love CLI
| applications and CLI navigation(vim-style, etc) but it really
| feels like a missed opportunity for this to not have any sort of
| web UI, since it would be very natural to click, zoom and pan
| around.
| syntheticnature wrote:
| Near the bottom of the README, it says:
|
| _Programming is not my career, but rather a hobby, and I
| developed h-m-m because I wanted to have something like this
| and couldn 't find one. Therefore, what I've done here may have
| a lot of room for improvement._
|
| It makes sense to me that a hobbyist might well build a CLI in
| whatever is convenient for them, and not know to look for
| standard serialization formats.
| [deleted]
| halostatue wrote:
| _Programming is not my career, but rather a hobby, and I
| developed h-m-m because I wanted to have something like this
| and couldn 't find one. Therefore, what I've done here may have
| a lot of room for improvement. If you see an embarrassing
| problem in the program or have an idea for improvement, feel
| free to contact me; I'd be happy to receive your feedback._
|
| I'm not fond of it being in PHP, either (mostly because I doubt
| I have it installed to use this), but that doesn't make this a
| bad tool, just one that solves someone's problem.
| nadrad wrote:
| Do you mean json for saving the data? I wanted the file to be
| human-readable. You can simply have a markdown list and open it
| in this application and work with it as a mind map. Also, most
| of the content one may paste into a mind map is an indented
| list, and when they copy something from the map, they expect it
| to be like that. Therefore, the application must be able to
| process from and to indented lists anyway.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| A terminal-based mind mapping tool with Vim keybindings? Count me
| in!
|
| The fact that the name immediately made me think "Hamlin-McGill-
| McGill" is only a bonus :)
| placebo wrote:
| I never really understood the advantage of a mind map tool over a
| good tree-oriented note taking/task organizing tool. In fact I
| prefer the use of screen real-estate in a simple tree than a
| mind-map. Is this just a matter of personal taste or is there
| some functionality/concept am I overlooking?
| nadrad wrote:
| Easier and faster navigation of the tree
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| It looks cool, but I'm looking for a mind map that can represent
| cyclic graphs and multi-dimensional hierarchies.
| falkd wrote:
| Can anybody point to some resources that would help someone who's
| interested in trying to use mind mapping?
|
| I often see these mind map things and I'm interested in learning
| what benefits they can provide me, but I have no idea how they're
| actually used. My searches have only yielded people using them as
| study aids.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| The Mind Map Book by Tony Buzan is a good place to start. As
| are his video interviews and lectures that can be found here
| and there.
|
| https://youtu.be/VP-OoIqoEa4
|
| Essentially they are all about creating a breadth-first outlay,
| when there are lots of things to cover, think about, or
| discuss. Then you can tack your additional needs on around
| that.
|
| Tony was also obsessed with learning, memory, and memorization
| as general aims in life, so he tried to map natural patterns
| like sensory factors, fractals, and meaningful branches onto
| his mind map scheme. In his view, this merge with the
| mystically-natural was in effect a merge with the best one
| could achieve in taking notes.
|
| IMHO however, those are some of the least interesting parts in
| terms of day to day note taking utility, and the capture of a
| broad set of ideas as if it's all owned by one central topic is
| basically fantastic enough for most uses. This is also known as
| a concept map.
| cush wrote:
| Looks like a mind tree. Can it do proper graphs?
| jcutrell wrote:
| Not nearly as hacker-y as this, but I'll plug Reflect here.
| Probably my favorite tool for this so far. Best continually-
| improving UX, but there's a subscription cost. I happily pay
| it.
| leetrout wrote:
| Do you have a link?
| Tomte wrote:
| Mindmaps are trees. Maybe you're looking for concept mapping
| software like cmaptools?
|
| This isn't a real Buzan-style mindmap, though, because the
| words aren't on the lines.
| hinkley wrote:
| I showed up to a company wide strategy offsite with an iPad and
| whipped out a mind mapping tool. For the first ten minutes I
| could see my boss vibrating because he thought I was fucking
| around.
|
| By the end of the meeting he wanted a copy, and for me to CC his
| boss and a couple of his peers.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Why would a mind mapping tool cause such a reaction? Are
| diagrams considered not serious where you work? Was the tool
| heavily ornamental/stylized? Or was it seen as writing down
| things that are obvious?
| spiderice wrote:
| Pretty sure it's the fact that GP was on an iPad that made
| boss unhappy
| dylan604 wrote:
| If the boss can't see what is being done on the iPad, it just
| looks like someone playing candy crush.
| hinkley wrote:
| He was sitting right next to me. He was just a control
| freak, who also projected on other people. His ego took out
| a whole office. Best layoff I ever had.
| creativenolo wrote:
| I have experienced this hate
| sachin_m wrote:
| Which tool are you using on iPad?
| rcarmo wrote:
| Best ones I've used are MindNode and XMind. I actually used
| MindNode for personal stuff and XMind for work, but now I've
| been gravitating towards XMind alone because it also runs on
| Linux (besides Mac and Windows) and I can sync my mindmaps to
| the iPad with SyncThing.
|
| XMind does have a couple of irritating bugs on Fedora around
| keyboard input (I can't move focus with the cursor keys, it
| creates a new node) but it might be specific to my setup.
| Their support/developers don't seem to care much, though.
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(page generated 2022-09-14 23:00 UTC)