Powerful and free mind mapping software under Linux to visualize your ideas

Preface

Structured thinking allows us to map our thoughts in a structured way, allowing us to identify which areas require the most thinking. Mind mapping is a fairly free-flowing concept. This means you need software that is versatile and adaptable to your needs. Maps can concentrate very complex content into a small space. This helps to use both sides of your brain: the logical side and the creative side. This is a technique that helps organize your thinking and stimulate your creativity. It can help you develop, classify and remember your ideas.

The competition for mind mapping software is quite fierce. Today, we introduce a mind mapping software under Linux, that is Minder, because it provides an efficient, easy-to-use and highly customizable way to organize thoughts.

Minder is a powerful, open source and free mind mapping software that allows you to create, develop and visualize your ideas. It is written in Vala and released under an open source license.

Although Minder is a mind mapping application designed and developed by Trevor Williams for Elementary OS, it also runs well on Ubuntu, Fedora, and Arch.

How to install Minder under Linux:

1. Source code compilation and installation:

We need to install the following dependencies to build Minder:

• ninja-build
• python3-pip
• python3-setuptools
• meson
• valac (version 0.48.x - anything higher will cause a segfault, earlier versions have issues with libarchive)
• debhelper
• libcairo2-dev
• libgranite-dev
• libgtk-3-dev
• libxml2-dev
• libgee-0.8-dev
• libarchive-dev
• libgtksourceview-4-dev
• libmarkdown2-dev
• libhandy-1-dev
• libjson-glib-dev

Next clone the project's repository and change to the project's directory:

linuxmi@linuxmi:~/www.linuxmi.com$ git clone https://github.com/phase1geo/Minder.git
linuxmi@linuxmi:~/www.linuxmi.com$ cd Minder

We can build and run the program using the following commands:

linuxmi@linuxmi:~/www.linuxmi.com/Minder$ ./app run

install software

linuxmi@linuxmi:~/www.linuxmi.com/Minder$ sudo ./app install

2. Direct installation:

The Minder packages available in the following distribution repositories can be installed directly.

Arch Linux users can find Minder in the official community repo:
[linuxmi@linuxmi www.linuxmi.com]$ sudo pacman -S minder

Debian/Ubuntu packages are also available:
linuxmi@linuxmi:~/www.linuxmi.com$ sudo apt install minder

3. Use Flatpak to install

Since Minder is already available as a Flatpak application, you can also easily install it on any GNU/Linux distribution from Flathub.

Install:

linuxmi@linuxmi:~/www.linuxmi.com$ flatpak install flathub com.github.phase1geo.minder

run:

linuxmi@linuxmi:~/www.linuxmi.com$ flatpak run com.github.phase1geo.minder

use

When you first launch the Minder app, a main idea node will be displayed in the center of the mind map canvas. As shown below:

A small title toolbar sits at the top of the screen, providing quick access to certain program features.

From left to right, these icons allow you to create new files, open files, save files as, and undo/redo functions. The icons on the right provide focus mode, zoom, search, export, shortcut cheat sheet, and properties.

With Minder we will be able to create visual mind maps easily and quickly, thanks to the automatic layout system and the large number of tree layouts to choose from. You can add images and tasks to nodes, create node-to-node connections with alternative text and annotations, add stickers and node groups, and style nodes, links, and connections, or color node branches.

The interface is very simple and intuitive, with colorful node branches, built-in and customizable themes. You can open multiple mind maps using tabs, quickly search for nodes, connect titles and notes, zoom in and out, infinitely undo/redo any changes, and focus mode to focus on certain ideas and better see and understand you various parts of the mind map.

One of the advantages of Minder is that the software has a very shallow learning curve. And the program automatically saves your current work in the background so you don't have to keep saving or worry that you might lose your progress. It also supports Markdown format, comes with built-in and customizable themes, and offers gorgeous animations.

Last but not least, Minder has powerful import and export functions. It allows you to import from popular mind mapping formats, including XMind 8, XMind 2021, Freeplane, FreeMind, OPML, PlantUML, PlainText, Outliner, and Portable Minder.

On the other hand, Minder can export your mind maps to a variety of formats, including CSV, FreeMind, Freeplane, JPEG, Markdown, Mermaid, OPML, Org-Mode, Outliner., PDF, PNG, PlantUML, Portable Minder, SVG, PlainText, XMind 8 and Yed formats. and printer support.

Summarize

Mind mapping software provides us with an excellent way to capture your thoughts in a structured way and brainstorm new ideas. Move away from simple lists and use this software to link ideas in different ways. We can capture our big ideas by thinking creatively, rather than linearly.

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