Windows Phone Thoughts: Mapping the Eureka Moments! -- Pocket Mindmap 1.3 reviewed

Installation
Installation of Pocket Mindmaps is straightforward, using the now familiar (to most users) PC-based executable which runs the Activesync application installation routines. Pocket Mindmaps requires about 960K of memory to run and can be installed to main memory or to a CF or an SD card. As they are created, the actual mindmaps themselves are typically stored in the My Documents folder, but can be redirected to any available folder.

Creating & Working with Mindmaps
The first time Pocket Mindmap starts up, it looks in My Documents to see if there are any existing mindmaps (signified by the .pmap extension).


Figure 3: Pocket Mindmap displays available Mindmaps.

If it cannot find any existing .pmap files, it will open in a new mindmap, with a central subject all ready for modification.


Figure 4: Opening a brand new Mindmap with its central subject.

You can use any of the available input methods (virtual typewriter, attached keyboard, letter recognizer, transcriber, etc.) to input the information for each of the topics. There are keyboard shortcuts provided for most of the major functions (much appreciated by us touch typers!). At the brainstorming stage, it’s best to just put in the topic name, and leave the details until later.

Almost anything you would want to do in the creation and modification of a mindmap is available in Pocket Mindmap. Once the topics have been entered, they become a short header-type label to which additional details can be added later. Pocket Mindmap provides a wide variety of tools for adding material to the topic label. A more extensive, textual description of the topic can be added via the text editor...


Figure 5: Adding descriptive text to a topic header.

This will be displayed when the magic symbol in the topic label is tapped. You can also add colour and graphics to the topic label and to the topic itself. You can even add scribbles which are freehand drawings or sketches.


Figure 6: Adding your own brand of creativity to the topic via Scribbles.