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Graphmind: a mindmap UI for Drupal

CEO, Co-Founder
Aug 29, 2009

In February I wrote a blogpost on how Drupal Freemind 2.0 could be turned into a relational (semantic) data interface. So many months later we've abandoned the Java plugin in favour of a Flex plugin and with what result...

After I shared my ideas on the project, our Flex/services guru, Peter Arato, started working last week on what has become the Graphmind project. It's a module that allows you to work with mindmaps in Drupal that are compatible with Freemind. With building mindmaps I mean full CRUD, you can:
  • create a mindmap node from scratch
  • paste an existing .mm mindmap
  • do CRUD on the nodes in the mindmap (yes that's namespace collision, but we can't help it)

But it is much more than a mindmap tool: the module integrates with Drupal services.

  • it can render any view into mindmap branches
  • you can add individual users, nodes or comments as a freemind branch
  • if you use a view with an argument it will try to fill that argument using the data from the mindmap node for which you are trying to add that branch
  • a freemind node that was created from a Drupal object has a hyperlink to that Drupal node

I am really excited about this module and I think that it holds an enormous potential. Some of the things you'll be able to use this for in the future:

  • (re)organize/build taxonomies in a mindmap
  • do project brainstorms/planning on a mindmap that uses data from your Open Atrium project management system
  • display relationships between data objects in your Drupal database
  • refresh or reuse a graph, to build a new mindmap with different data, but with the same relationship tree (e.g. most active user in the last 24 hours > posts of these users > comments on these posts > people that posted these comments)
  • and somewhere not to far in the future: display SPARQL queries in mindmaps

You can find a screencast on the module on which Peter is still working on as part of a development sprint sponsored by Eureka! Ranch. So watch out for even more cool features.

Kristof Van Tomme is an open source strategist and architect. He is the CEO and co-founder of Pronovix. He’s got a degree in bioengineering and is a regular speaker at conferences in the API, developer relations, and technical writing communities. He is the host of the Developer Success & the Business of APIs and the API Resilience podcasts.

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