One of our best friends, an XMind Pro daily user from South Africa, reminds that XMind not only can organize our ideas but all our work as well, for example, manage all your files in Project Management.
This friend told us that, most of time, he was drowned in numerous files, notes, spreadsheets, quotes, web links. Until one day, he found XMind can be used to manage all these files. Most people just think of mind maps as a way of organizing sparkles or ideas. However, XMind, as a mind mapping software, indeed, can help us as a great files management tool.
One significant way is to use the attachment. It’s very handy. We can directly drag and drop any required files into XMind as a subtopic of the exiting topic, or a floating topic. Double-click will open these attachments. Fast and simple. But this may not be the best solution. Because:
XMind will save a copy file. Then, after editing them in XMind, the original version in your local computer will not be updated.
After inserting many files, esp. file with big size, your XMind file will become bigger. And it will use more time to open, save and close.
So here is the second way, Hyperlink, a better solution. You can build a hyperlink between any topic and any a local file/folder. It’s very simple.
Select a topic, Click “Ctrl+H” or hyperlink icon on toolbar, Select file, and here choose the file/folder and link type, “Absolute or Relative”. That’s all. And with one simple click, we can view and edit these linked files/folders in XMind directly.
BTW, if you usually move XMind files in your computer, such as from “D driver” to “E driver”, it’s better to use Absolute link. It can works after moving it. Note that this absolute links will be invalid if being moved to another computer.
If using Relative link, please do not change the relative position between XMind file and the linked files/folders. Then, you can bring them together, and work with this linked files anywhere. For example, if they are in one same folder, the links will work no matter where this folder is. This is very useful for working on airplane, doing presentation to clients, and etc.
Then all the files in the map present themselves to us. We can navigate the files within the map, organize and arrange them by changing the structure, color, line shape, and even use label, boundary, and theme.
With XMind, time will be saved, meanwhile, both ideas and files will be well organized.
P.S. here, we want to share another usage from a Chinese daily user. Hope this is useful.
He told us that they have many files (they are not allowed to save in other computers.) in their LAN server, and needed to link them in XMind. He hopes that the link in map will be available while he open linked files and show them to manager. He called us, because Absolute link and relative link neither worked.
After testing, we find Web link (select Web in Hyperlink dialog) is feasible. Instead of using “http://”, paste the target file position in to field, such as “\\venus\D\xmind-portable-3.1.1″, at last fill “\”+”file name”. Then inside their LAN, work goes fluently again.
Now, please enjoy our XMind Pro XMAS family package!
Whenever you need this, do not hesitate to give it a try.