The results were a mixed bag. I found Vue to be difficult as things became complex. I assigned colors and shapes to different themes in the novel and found that I spent an awful lot time with that little box that assigns these qualities to nodes. Every time I added a chapter or removed one or moved one, I had to adjust the numbering manually.

One the other hand, I was able to use different colored and patterned lines to differentiate between the types of relationships among the characters, secret, antagonistic, etc. And I could create lines that showed where a piece of information became known to the sleuth.

Overall, it had great potential for this sort of use, but was so ponderous in its many fiddling requirements that it became as much a burden as a useful tool. I would love to tind a simpler software and will check out the options suggested here. I’d also love to find a way to change Vue so that it could be what I need. There is a lot of great stuff in it.

Try compendium. Also a concept mapper like VUE. I only used the basic functions, but creating nodes and linking is less stress than in VUE. I like the colour scheme better as well. For example you press A to create in Idea node, then left click to place on your workspace. To link nodes you simply rightclick drag to link. I find this quicker than VUE, at least the version I tried.

Others: Freeplane, a Freemind Fork which offers a slightly different UI. A little quicker to use.

Sciplore: Designed for academic use, with the ability to build a reference database, and interface with programs like Jabref etc. Cannot comment as I did not delve into it. I can imagine using something like Anki for memorisation and a concept mapper for the course logic would make a killer student learning combo.

If you want to skip the registration, just search on Google. The download page is indexed.

Using the “site:” search operator is your friend.

That, or, use bugmenot

Cheers…

Tom

What I have found is that mapping and data visualization are not the same as a Visio-style flowcharting. You can do anything you want with a mind map, while there’s a certain methodology you have to follow to create a flow chart of a process.

The only thing that I can say is try it if it seems that it would be useful. If you don’t feel that you need it then you probably don’t.