1. Mind42 in general

1.1 Mind42 as mind mapping application

Mind42 is a browser based online mind mapping application. Mind mapping is about collecting ideas in a graphical way. Ideas get arranged in a tree like diagram to show and manage connections between ideas. A more precise description of what mind mapping is, is available at Wikipedia. Mind42 is an application, which supports you creating such mind maps. It has a specialized interface to enter and arrange ideas very quickly. It's not a multiple purpose diagramming tool, which supports multiple types of elements to get arranged in various ways. It's really just about entering ideas, arranging them in a tree like structure and refining and deepening ideas with colors, links and other attributes.

1.2 Mind42 as web application

As mentioned before Mind42 is a browser based online application. This means, that it is basically a simple web page. You don't have to download anything - you don't have to install anything - you really only have to point your web browser to Mind42.com This also means that it is available everywhere where Internet is available. It also means that it can be used on any operating system on any computer if one of the supported browser is isntalled. But it also means that you can't access it without Internet, and that the documents are stored in the Internet and not on your computer. So being a web application causes advantages as well as disadvantages. One of the biggest advantages is collaboration.

Mind42 allows you to share and collaborate on your mind maps. You may publish mind maps in a read-only way to everyone on the Internet, or you may invite others to edit a map with you. When collaborating with other editors you'll see their changes within seconds as well as they'll see yours. And since Mind42 runs on the Internet there are no boundaries of where the other editors are - whether they are in the same room, or on another continent.

Since Mind42 only uses techniques available in the supported browser it was a technical challenge to implement such a graphical demanding application like mind mapping. So don't expect Mind42 to feature stunning animations or 3d effects. Also be aware that the performance of Mind42 varies from browser to browser and from computer to computer it runs on. During the initial implementation of Mind42 we really concentrated on the basic features needed for mind mapping. We also tried to make the user experience Mind42 offers as good as it would be with a downloaded and installed application (concerning interactivity, feedback, mouse and keyboard support). To sum it up: Mind42 tries to get the best experience out of a web application, as it is technically possible today. We are constantly working on new features Mind42 gets more and more powerful with every update. If you have any concrete suggestions of what features we should implement next, please just drop a line using the mail form.

1.3 Supported Browsers

We currently support the following browsers:

• Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and above (Version 2.0 and above recommended)
• Internet Explorer 6 and above (Version 7.0 and above recommended)
• Safari 3 and above

Mind42 is not tested on the following browser, and probably only works limited:

• Opera
• Konqueror

Currently there is no mobile browser version of Mind42 available. Also we currently don't support Offline-Enabling toolkits like Google Gears.