Existing users, 
 NovaMind Pro - 4.7.4Mind mapping software. |
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Feedback Summary:
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| Overall Rating: | Not rated (0.0) | Features: | Not rated (0.0) | Support: | Not rated (0.0) |
| Ease of Use: | Not rated (0.0) | Quality / Stability: | Not rated (0.0) | Price: | Not rated (0.0) |
Key to Types of Feedback:
Reviews 
Troubleshooting 
Usage Tips 
Developer Notes 
Commentary 
Featured Reviews
Switched to something else - Version: 4.1.1, 12/17/2007 12:56AM PST
(5 of 6 users found this comment useful)
epc
wonderful software 
- Version: 4.1.1, 12/16/2007 07:08PM PST
(0 of 3 users found this comment useful)
anechoic
I've been using this wonderful app for a little over a year now and use it for everything from project development to writing essays to screenwriting...
I cannot recommend this highly enough plus their customer service is the best I have ever experienced...
these guys are amazing!
I cannot recommend this highly enough plus their customer service is the best I have ever experienced...
these guys are amazing!
Wonderful software - Version: 4.0.5, 7/30/2007 08:30AM PST
(0 of 3 users found this comment useful)
michelarnould77
useful, powerful and easy to use. An extrordinary piece of software for teaching, learning, thinking, presenting, brainstorming. A must have.
Latest upgrade is fantastic! - Version: 4.0.4, 7/24/2007 04:43AM PST
(5 of 8 users found this comment useful)
JustinK
I've been using NovaMind for quite a while now, and have been enjoying the powerful features, great looking Mind Maps I can create and the excellent NovaMind support, but now they have taken everything to the next level.
In NovaMind 3, although they had the features there, the user interface took a while to learn, and sometimes even when you were reasonably familiar with it, you would need to look in several places to find out why something was behaving the way it was - especially with the inherited map settings.
Now with version 4, all that is gone, and has been replaced with the palettes which show only the options that are applicable at the time, which makes them very accessible - and in Pro, you can drag them off and stack them in a similar way to the inspectors in OmniGraffle. They have put the advanced options on the flip side of the palettes like Dashboard, so you don't need to search through all the detailed options to find the common settings. This makes everything pretty intuitive.
On top of this, they have removed the whole "inherited" properties concept from documents to maps, which took quite a bit of getting your head around, and have replaced it with the intuitive "document view" which lets you select the maps you want to change and make the changes to several (or all) of them at once, and the mini view of the maps updates so you see the changes you made.
Then you have all the other new features like the templates (basically Mind Maps that you save and can use as a starting point for your new documents), themes (which set the look and feel of an entire Mind Map), and styles (which are reusable ...um, styles... that you can apply to branches, or to maps). All this takes all the power of NovaMind and makes it accessible. In many ways I think of this like the difference between Office XP and Office 2007 - they can both do basically all the same functions, but in XP you would need to tie yourself in knots and read five books to know how to do some of the advanced formatting, whereas in 2007 you have a library of styles and you apply the one you want and all the magic happens behind the scenes. In Office though, I see lots of drawbacks with various aspects of the interface - by contrast, I love the new interface on NovaMind. One or two minor inefficiencies, but overall a wonderful job.
So what are the downsides of the new version? Well there are a couple of significant missing bits - in particular, the outline view is dumbed down, and the HTML export is missing completely.
When asked about these issues, they said that due to time constraints they included the Express outline view in Pro for the moment, and will be updating it to be "better than the one in NovaMind 3". The outline view in NovaMind 3 had all the features of a good outliner, but had quite a few bugs that could catch you out until you knew they were there. Apparently they are completely reworking it from the ground up and will be including at least the same functionality as they used to have. I'm very relieved about that.
And the HTML export is apparently being completely rewritten. Again, the old version was very powerful, but had a very complex user interface, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with in the new version.
For the last couple of years at least I've thought that they had underpriced the product - though you don't usually say this to someone you're purchasing from ;-) so it came as little surprise to see the prices go up. I have got myself a Platinum license and am eagerly awaiting the release of Platinum which will have all the things I have mentioned above, as well as improved task information recording and reporting, and their presentation system - don't know exactly what that will include, but if the quality of what I have seen already in Pro is anything to go by, I think I will find it extremely useful in my business. Apparently they are also rewriting the screenwriting system for Platinum too, but as I'm not a screenwriter, that's not my reason for going with the Platinum license.
It must be a massive task going from one product to three, as is evidenced by the progressive rollout of the different versions, but I'm sure they'll get there. They are also going through the same process on their Windows versions of NovaMind although that's a bit behind the Mac version in their release schedule. I'm certainly glad to be able to use a Platinum license in Pro while awaiting the Platinum release - having become familiar with Pro now, I would hate to be back working with NovaMind 3.
So enough raving. Essentially, for me the few minor drawbacks are massively outweighed by the new user interface, simplified Mind Map creation and editing, and the styles etc.
In NovaMind 3, although they had the features there, the user interface took a while to learn, and sometimes even when you were reasonably familiar with it, you would need to look in several places to find out why something was behaving the way it was - especially with the inherited map settings.
Now with version 4, all that is gone, and has been replaced with the palettes which show only the options that are applicable at the time, which makes them very accessible - and in Pro, you can drag them off and stack them in a similar way to the inspectors in OmniGraffle. They have put the advanced options on the flip side of the palettes like Dashboard, so you don't need to search through all the detailed options to find the common settings. This makes everything pretty intuitive.
On top of this, they have removed the whole "inherited" properties concept from documents to maps, which took quite a bit of getting your head around, and have replaced it with the intuitive "document view" which lets you select the maps you want to change and make the changes to several (or all) of them at once, and the mini view of the maps updates so you see the changes you made.
Then you have all the other new features like the templates (basically Mind Maps that you save and can use as a starting point for your new documents), themes (which set the look and feel of an entire Mind Map), and styles (which are reusable ...um, styles... that you can apply to branches, or to maps). All this takes all the power of NovaMind and makes it accessible. In many ways I think of this like the difference between Office XP and Office 2007 - they can both do basically all the same functions, but in XP you would need to tie yourself in knots and read five books to know how to do some of the advanced formatting, whereas in 2007 you have a library of styles and you apply the one you want and all the magic happens behind the scenes. In Office though, I see lots of drawbacks with various aspects of the interface - by contrast, I love the new interface on NovaMind. One or two minor inefficiencies, but overall a wonderful job.
So what are the downsides of the new version? Well there are a couple of significant missing bits - in particular, the outline view is dumbed down, and the HTML export is missing completely.
When asked about these issues, they said that due to time constraints they included the Express outline view in Pro for the moment, and will be updating it to be "better than the one in NovaMind 3". The outline view in NovaMind 3 had all the features of a good outliner, but had quite a few bugs that could catch you out until you knew they were there. Apparently they are completely reworking it from the ground up and will be including at least the same functionality as they used to have. I'm very relieved about that.
And the HTML export is apparently being completely rewritten. Again, the old version was very powerful, but had a very complex user interface, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they come up with in the new version.
For the last couple of years at least I've thought that they had underpriced the product - though you don't usually say this to someone you're purchasing from ;-) so it came as little surprise to see the prices go up. I have got myself a Platinum license and am eagerly awaiting the release of Platinum which will have all the things I have mentioned above, as well as improved task information recording and reporting, and their presentation system - don't know exactly what that will include, but if the quality of what I have seen already in Pro is anything to go by, I think I will find it extremely useful in my business. Apparently they are also rewriting the screenwriting system for Platinum too, but as I'm not a screenwriter, that's not my reason for going with the Platinum license.
It must be a massive task going from one product to three, as is evidenced by the progressive rollout of the different versions, but I'm sure they'll get there. They are also going through the same process on their Windows versions of NovaMind although that's a bit behind the Mac version in their release schedule. I'm certainly glad to be able to use a Platinum license in Pro while awaiting the Platinum release - having become familiar with Pro now, I would hate to be back working with NovaMind 3.
So enough raving. Essentially, for me the few minor drawbacks are massively outweighed by the new user interface, simplified Mind Map creation and editing, and the styles etc.
NovaMind user interface and feature set - Version: 4.0.4, 7/23/2007 09:31PM PST
(2 of 2 users found this comment useful)
NMDev
[Developer comment - in response to the previous 2 comments]
User interface
-------------------
When we introduced NovaMind 3 with the tabbed interface, we had about half our customers who loved it and about half who hated it - it caused a bit of a rift, and although we improved it in various ways over time, we kept getting feedback from some users that it was not "Mac-like".
We were interested when in January this year, Microsoft showed a pre-release version of Office in which they had implemented the ribbon bar concepts that they use in Office 2007 for Windows. My understanding of the feedback they received is that the Mac users told them in no uncertain terms that that concept did not fit with the Mac user experience, so Microsoft went back to the drawing board to update the interface. At the same time we were already well on the way with our own user interface design.
In designing the new user interface, we used the following sources of inspiration:
- Apple's i-apps
- Keynote and Pages
- Omni applications
- Winners of Apple Design Awards, such as Comic Life
and the user feedback during development and testing to refine the user interface.
As with any major change in an application like this which is in wide distribution, we have had a lot of feedback following the release, and approximately 98% of this feedback has been positive.
We are therefore very happy with the response from the market.
Feature set and Editions
---------------------------------
So why did we decide to product three different products at different price points and with different feature sets?
As Guy Kawasaki says, if you try to create a single product that will please everyone, you will end up with something that is bland, confusing, and will not fully satisfy any portion of your market completely.
Obviously with a Mind Mapping product, we have a very diverse user base, from primary students, to teachers, lecturers, tertiary students, business analists, project managers, business owners, creative thinkers, writers, screenwriters, presenters and many others. The number of different uses to which people put NovaMind has astounded us.
In order to best cater to the different markets, we have created three different applications with different feature sets to cater to the differing needs of the different user groups.
All three editions of NovaMind 4 have a number of brand new features such as templates, themes, map styles, graphic styles etc.
NovaMind Express is designed to be a very affordable ($49) entry level product which provides excellent Mind Mapping capabilities for primary and secondary school students, classrooms, and for beginning Mind Mappers.
NovaMind Pro ($149) is designed as a very powerfull Mind Mapping application for secondary and tertiary students, business professionals etc, and has many capabilities that are not available in the Express version, like hyperlinks, multiple Mind Maps in a single document, checkboxes etc. It also has other brand new features like the document view which makes it much easier to manipulate the map settings for multiple Mind Maps at once.
NovaMind Platinum ($249) is designed to be the ultimate Mind Mapping application for power Mind Mappers, people who need to make powerful presentations, screenwriters, project planners, business consultants, serious business people, and the people who need the absolute best.
Platinum comes with the NovaMind Presenter - a powerful presentation feature that allows you to glide over your Mind Map, zoom into the points of interest, and give complete, highly professional presentations from within NovaMind.
The screenwriting module will be completely rewritten to take into account the many feature requests of our screenwriter users - note that the initial version of 4.0 will have the current screenwriting capabilities, and the new screenwriter will be added a little later on. Part of the reason for this is that some of the functionality we are building for the Mac version requires MacOS X 10.5.
There are extensive features for adding task related information to your Mind Map, and reporting on the information that is there. You can add your own custom information to branches.
All of these features are either brand new or extensively updated from the old versions.
In order to effectively cater for the different markets with the new products, we needed to look at the different user groups and make sure that the right set of features was included in each edition. None of the new products is a direct upgrade from a previous product. For instance if you were to compare NovaMind 3 to NovaMind 4 pro, you would see that while there are many new features, in version 4 such as the templates, themes, map styles, graphics styles, new user interface, draggable palettes etc, there are also some things that were not appropriate to have in a product aimed at that audience.
This is especially true of features where we wanted to produce specialist features that were best of breed, like the rewritten screenwriting system, and the rewritten task information recording and the new task reporting and custom attributes on branches. It was not appropriate to put these in the Pro product because of the target audience, and also because of the economics of producing it for that size market, so it needed to go in the Platinum version.
So to summarize, the new products are new products, not just a simple upgrade from the previous version of the same product. Sure, they build on the foundation of NovaMind 3, but we needed to put the extra work in now to build 3 new products in order to better provide for the needs of our different user groups.
I hope this clarifies the versions, the user interface, and directions. If you want further information, please visit our web site www.nova-mind.com and contact our sales or support staff as appropriate.
Gideon King
CEO, NovaMind Software
User interface
-------------------
When we introduced NovaMind 3 with the tabbed interface, we had about half our customers who loved it and about half who hated it - it caused a bit of a rift, and although we improved it in various ways over time, we kept getting feedback from some users that it was not "Mac-like".
We were interested when in January this year, Microsoft showed a pre-release version of Office in which they had implemented the ribbon bar concepts that they use in Office 2007 for Windows. My understanding of the feedback they received is that the Mac users told them in no uncertain terms that that concept did not fit with the Mac user experience, so Microsoft went back to the drawing board to update the interface. At the same time we were already well on the way with our own user interface design.
In designing the new user interface, we used the following sources of inspiration:
- Apple's i-apps
- Keynote and Pages
- Omni applications
- Winners of Apple Design Awards, such as Comic Life
and the user feedback during development and testing to refine the user interface.
As with any major change in an application like this which is in wide distribution, we have had a lot of feedback following the release, and approximately 98% of this feedback has been positive.
We are therefore very happy with the response from the market.
Feature set and Editions
---------------------------------
So why did we decide to product three different products at different price points and with different feature sets?
As Guy Kawasaki says, if you try to create a single product that will please everyone, you will end up with something that is bland, confusing, and will not fully satisfy any portion of your market completely.
Obviously with a Mind Mapping product, we have a very diverse user base, from primary students, to teachers, lecturers, tertiary students, business analists, project managers, business owners, creative thinkers, writers, screenwriters, presenters and many others. The number of different uses to which people put NovaMind has astounded us.
In order to best cater to the different markets, we have created three different applications with different feature sets to cater to the differing needs of the different user groups.
All three editions of NovaMind 4 have a number of brand new features such as templates, themes, map styles, graphic styles etc.
NovaMind Express is designed to be a very affordable ($49) entry level product which provides excellent Mind Mapping capabilities for primary and secondary school students, classrooms, and for beginning Mind Mappers.
NovaMind Pro ($149) is designed as a very powerfull Mind Mapping application for secondary and tertiary students, business professionals etc, and has many capabilities that are not available in the Express version, like hyperlinks, multiple Mind Maps in a single document, checkboxes etc. It also has other brand new features like the document view which makes it much easier to manipulate the map settings for multiple Mind Maps at once.
NovaMind Platinum ($249) is designed to be the ultimate Mind Mapping application for power Mind Mappers, people who need to make powerful presentations, screenwriters, project planners, business consultants, serious business people, and the people who need the absolute best.
Platinum comes with the NovaMind Presenter - a powerful presentation feature that allows you to glide over your Mind Map, zoom into the points of interest, and give complete, highly professional presentations from within NovaMind.
The screenwriting module will be completely rewritten to take into account the many feature requests of our screenwriter users - note that the initial version of 4.0 will have the current screenwriting capabilities, and the new screenwriter will be added a little later on. Part of the reason for this is that some of the functionality we are building for the Mac version requires MacOS X 10.5.
There are extensive features for adding task related information to your Mind Map, and reporting on the information that is there. You can add your own custom information to branches.
All of these features are either brand new or extensively updated from the old versions.
In order to effectively cater for the different markets with the new products, we needed to look at the different user groups and make sure that the right set of features was included in each edition. None of the new products is a direct upgrade from a previous product. For instance if you were to compare NovaMind 3 to NovaMind 4 pro, you would see that while there are many new features, in version 4 such as the templates, themes, map styles, graphics styles, new user interface, draggable palettes etc, there are also some things that were not appropriate to have in a product aimed at that audience.
This is especially true of features where we wanted to produce specialist features that were best of breed, like the rewritten screenwriting system, and the rewritten task information recording and the new task reporting and custom attributes on branches. It was not appropriate to put these in the Pro product because of the target audience, and also because of the economics of producing it for that size market, so it needed to go in the Platinum version.
So to summarize, the new products are new products, not just a simple upgrade from the previous version of the same product. Sure, they build on the foundation of NovaMind 3, but we needed to put the extra work in now to build 3 new products in order to better provide for the needs of our different user groups.
I hope this clarifies the versions, the user interface, and directions. If you want further information, please visit our web site www.nova-mind.com and contact our sales or support staff as appropriate.
Gideon King
CEO, NovaMind Software
2007 sees the return of the Edsel 
- Version: 4.0, 7/21/2007 01:37AM PST
(0 of 1 users found this comment useful)
pginc
If you enjoy the Windows experience then this is the mind mapper for you! Novamind's approach to design put's the u and the i in the word unintelligible. If you're seeking an Edsel for OS X, look no further than Novamind.
Most Recent Replies: View All 1 Replies
- NovaMind User Interface and feature set
New License and Feature scheme - Version: 4.0, 7/18/2007 03:26AM PST
(5 of 5 users found this comment useful)
songliner
I've been a happy customer for quite some time (since 2004, I believe), but the new pricing did it for me - I just purchased a MindManager 7 license.
Features that have been previously available with my NM 3 version are only in NM 4 "Platinum" now. And I would have to pay close to US $ 200 to get there??? Sorry guys, the project management data I need I can put in MM 7 without further ado, and it's by far cheaper even for a new customer.
It was great while it lasted, but this prohibitive pricing/feature scheme won't do any longer for me.
Features that have been previously available with my NM 3 version are only in NM 4 "Platinum" now. And I would have to pay close to US $ 200 to get there??? Sorry guys, the project management data I need I can put in MM 7 without further ado, and it's by far cheaper even for a new customer.
It was great while it lasted, but this prohibitive pricing/feature scheme won't do any longer for me.
Most Recent Replies: View All 1 Replies
Confused review - Version: 3.2.12, 3/3/2007 09:54AM PST
bobcarr1
Perhaps the reviewer meant MindManager http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/30009. I haven't tried it, but from the developer web site it seems to charge twice the price of NovaMind without twice the features or ease of use. Or as the previous reviewer suggested, the reviewer is running Windows on an iNtel Mac may prefer MindMapper's MS integration.
Not "MindMapper" . . . - Version: 3.2.12, 3/3/2007 06:47AM PST
greglawhorn
MindMapper is a Windows only program. This gentlemen either means "MindMap" or is a secret Microsoft promoter. Whether or not MindMap is a better program than NovaMind each user must decide. I've tried the several mind mapping programs available for the Mac, and NovaMind, to this point, is my own preference. Try them and decide for yourself.
Go for the gusto and buy MindMapper - Version: 3.2.12, 3/2/2007 09:01AM PST
jschau
I started using this NovaMind because of the great reviews. Right from the start I kept saying to myself - this isn't Mac software - all those buttons - the Help that is straight from Windows - on and on. But I put up with all the uglyiness because I bought t with Merlin (BTW - why is scripting extra??? It is so poorly executed they should pay you for using it - get Scrivner if you want something decent for scripting). Then one day I tried MindMapper - a lot more expensive but a lot more Mac friendly and a lot easier to use. It took me 2 minutes to fork over the extra bucks. Anyone want to buy my NoveLoserMind license?
NovaMind is a good application, but the upgrade prices are out of touch with alternative solutions. I still have version 3, but don't use it anymore.
The last mind maps I did were created with XMind Pro. Not very Mac-like, but it got the job done and currently costs less than a NovaMind upgrade.
Another great option that I will keep in mind is Mindjet's MindManager. Since the time I purchased NovaMind I liked MindManager's look and feel. NovaMind looks a bit cartoonish and MindManager has a more professional look. Still, I decided to go with NovaMind, mainly due to its integration with Merlin (and the idea of supporting a good Mac developer), but I was happy to find that MindManager integrates with FastTrack Schedule, which I also use from time to time.
This one is definitely not for me. I was shocked at the jump from 3.2 to 4.0, and then shocked further by the upgrade fees.