Show HN: New mind mapping tool for learners(brainio.com)
brainio.com
Show HN: New mind mapping tool for learners
http://brainio.com
55 comments
We are working on following features right now that are gonna be included in all plans:
1) Split view
2) Public ling sharing, embedded code
3) Kindle highlights sync (syncing the highlighted parts of yout books directly to the app)
4) AI for recommending online content (courses, books etc.)
Free plan is just limited by number of documents and storage because we need to cover the server costs for cloud solution.
Right now the solution is cloud based (but with SAML SSO and access provisioning for enterprises). It could be self-hosted it there is a demand for that.
Right now the solution is cloud based (but with SAML SSO and access provisioning for enterprises). It could be self-hosted it there is a demand for that.
As another daily Freeplane user, anything not self-hosted and behind a firewall is a no-go for me. Sensitive or not, having someone over your shoulder kills the creative juices. None of the things you mentioned except for split view sounds like an improvement over Freeplane which is an open-source serverless app and great for the power-user.
Perhaps a useful feature for someone like me would be the an online app where I could import a mind map from another program and then choose from a variety of presentation options, and be provided code for an interactive embedded mind map in a blog or website. That would be enticing to people who aren't ready to dump all the features they are used to, and that crowd is much more likely to jump on to something like this than the average person.
Perhaps a useful feature for someone like me would be the an online app where I could import a mind map from another program and then choose from a variety of presentation options, and be provided code for an interactive embedded mind map in a blog or website. That would be enticing to people who aren't ready to dump all the features they are used to, and that crowd is much more likely to jump on to something like this than the average person.
We believe that online collaboration is very important when building our knowledge. When dealing with complex topics you need inputs from other people. That’s the reason behind cloud solution that is not offered by freeplane.
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@OP pretty interesting work. Does it support markdown -> mindmap? i.e. Convert indented text to horizontal tree something like [this](https://github.com/dundalek/markmap)
Yes. Based on mark down we visualise the mind map. So if you use headers, bullet points etc. then it's converted and structured into mind map hierarchy.
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All gone unfortunately, but thanks for sharing.
If anyone wants promo code, please contact us at [email protected]. We will be glad to share it with you as the app is still in beta and we need feedback from early adopters.
Download our desktop app or check out the cloud version.
Desktop: https://brainio.com/#/download
Cloud: https://app.brainio.com
Mobile app (iOS, Android) is coming later. At first I need to verify, that the solution is working for users.
I like the simplicity but it's too buggy for me at the moment (at least the web version using mobile). It also keeps giving an invalid state which requires a hard refresh. It then jumbles the words and characters after a refresh which is super annoying.
Yeah, we recommend to use desktop app. The mobile version is still buggy right now as it's in beta and we focused mainly on desktop version as the main device. Nevertheless we will fix that soon.
I can't believe it! I wanted this for me and my software development team for so long! These are the mind maps Tony Buzan talked about in theory but this is a really practical way to apply them. Thanks.
We would love to hear your feedback ;)
Since we are on this topic, any good libraries to create diagrams? I have lots of python functions which one day would love to make available into an visual programming tool diagram type.
Graphviz and pygraphviz
not for diagrams but we are gonna use katex.org to support math formulas in the next release
FYI - the Free plan is limited to 10 notes/mind maps. However you can increase that quota by inviting new users - 3 documents per invitation.
Why use this over Trello or a Google doc? Feel like I'd be paying for some pretty markdown text.
Because we help you to organize and store your knowledge. The brain works better visually then verbally and that’s the reason we are combining the world of notes and mind maps together.
The lack of an iPhone app is killing it for me.
We are aware of that. Nevertheless we need to make sure that the solution is working for users. Mobile app is in our road map for sure. So far you can use the cloud version (app.brainio.com) even on your mobile (Chrome, Safari, Firefox).
Are you going to have a desktop downloaded app with one time payment no subscription with unlimited features?
It’s not in our road map right now but if there is a demand for that we can add that. We are mainly focused on subscription based model as we provide cloud solution (so there are server and computing costs we need to cover). However if you do not need the app for some time you can cancel the subscription (we will return your money for the rest of the mont/year) and you can still access your files. Only thing is that you can edit just the number of documents that you have in free plan (10 by default but you can increase the quota by inviting people - 3 documents per invitation), other documents are read only and you can’t edit them until you start the subscription or increase your free quota of documents.
Concept is nice. Name is too tacky, just can't take it seriously.
Thanks for the feedback
FYI - at support.brainio.com you can request new features :)
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Any feedback?
The examples on the homescreen simply aren't compelling.
Mindmaps get little traction imo because this first experience is usually dreadful: Simple examples (like you show) are just as well represented by a bulleted list. And complex examples need a really slick and intuitive UI, otherwise they are too painful to create.
My take on it is Markdown in a private Github repo provides 90% of the benefits and a lot of other features, with none of the worry about being locked in to a new company whose product is immature and doesn't have an established track record.
Finally, your posting those 20 free keys to the pro plan just reinforces in my mind the notion that the price-features balance isn't attractive.
Mindmaps get little traction imo because this first experience is usually dreadful: Simple examples (like you show) are just as well represented by a bulleted list. And complex examples need a really slick and intuitive UI, otherwise they are too painful to create.
My take on it is Markdown in a private Github repo provides 90% of the benefits and a lot of other features, with none of the worry about being locked in to a new company whose product is immature and doesn't have an established track record.
Finally, your posting those 20 free keys to the pro plan just reinforces in my mind the notion that the price-features balance isn't attractive.
Thanks for the feedback. The idea here is to let user take notes in mark down, then with one click convert it to mind map to make a structure to the text. After that collaborate with others (colleagues, friends, family...) in real time in note or mind map mode.
> The idea here is to let user take notes in mark down, then with one click convert it to mind map to make a structure to the text.
An interesting idea, although a bit counter-intuitive: in principle, a mind map helps you to visualize ideas better, in a way that lets you restructure them, etc. This visual outlining process is a tool, not the end goal. You'd expect to start with a rough diagram of idea nodes, not with a list. That said, starting with text could be useful in some cases.
An interesting idea, although a bit counter-intuitive: in principle, a mind map helps you to visualize ideas better, in a way that lets you restructure them, etc. This visual outlining process is a tool, not the end goal. You'd expect to start with a rough diagram of idea nodes, not with a list. That said, starting with text could be useful in some cases.
Yeah, I agree. And the app works both way. You can start to create note or mind-map and then switch between both modes.
What's your tech stack?
For collaboration we use a modified version of sharedb (https://github.com/share/sharedb). Its using the operational transformation algorithm (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operational_transformation). We will be publishing an article about tech stack at out blog within few days :)
The core is: electron, nestjs, sharedb, mongodb, angular, codemirror, aws and docker.
May I ask what, if any, features do you plan to add that supercede those of Freeplane?
As background: whenever I need to grok a larger concept or chomp through a large collection of material, I fire up Freeplane. (It's a fork of Freemind, a desktop application written in Java, it's under GPL and runs fully locally, see freeplane.org)
You already mentioned a Markdown to map input path. That is a good idea, since often things (at least for me) begin with a small list.
Collaboration was another thing you mentioned. Does that mandate uploading the maps to your cloud backend or can it be self-hosted? I ask because for some people it is not an option to use "other people's computers", as the domain being mapped can be of sensitive nature (under NDAs, or other things).