Tips for using Freemind

## Tips

### Graphical links

- You can create graphical links between two nodes, like this:

To do so, mark a node and drag to another node holding both shift and control keys, and releasing the mouse button first.

- You can edit some properties of this link by right-clicking on the line between them.
- You may choose the color and the arrow positions.
- Go directly to one of the nodes (even if it's folded) by using the link in the right-click menu.

#### File locking

The current version of FreeMind has experimental file locking, which is disabled by default. The current implementation (0.7.1) does not really prevent race conditions, but it should be fine for the most practical purposes. What does file locking mean? It makes sure that multiple users do not edit the same map at the same time, preventing them from accidentally overwriting each other's information.

You can enable experimental file locking if you are a technical user and are willing to edit user.properties, as described in Customizing FreeMind.

#### Browsing mind maps

You can browse the mindmaps in browse mode. Why is there a separate mode for browsing? That's because browsing is the only thing you can do in the FreeMind applet, which can be put to your website. Normally, you would not use browse mode in FreeMind.

#### Browsing the files on your computer

You can browse the files on your computer using file mode. To enter file mode, in menu: Modes > File.

You can then browse the file tree as if it was a mindmap. You can make any folder the root of the map by chosing "Center" from the node menu. To view or execute a file, follow the link of the node.

The file mode is currently not very useful; it is a demonstration that it's not too difficult to feed data into the tree from other source than the mindmap. There is no evidence that people would really use this mode.

#### There is a concept of mode in FreeMind

Although Freemind is primarily a tool for editing mindmaps, it is designed to be able to view data coming from different data sources. To make a specific data source available for viewing in FreeMind, a programmer has to write a so-called mode for that data source. In the standard, there is an example of such a mode, namely file mode. We do not know of any other modes implemented. It is not clear if anyone would really want to make use of this architecture, but it's here to be exploited if someone wants to.

Furthermore, there is code almost ready for Scheme Mode which enables you to edit scheme programs. Again, the usefulness is far from clear. While the mindmap mode is clearly a real thing, other modes seem to be more a demonstration of what is possible than something really used by people.