Mindjet Labs puts out several new add-ins for MindManager a year. I’d like to tell you about two of the newer ones: the Presenter Add-in and the Route Planner Add-in also known as is Trip Route Mapping with Microsoft Virtual Earth (quite a mouthful). Let’s discuss these add-ins…

Update: A video demonstration of the Trip Planner add-in can be viewed here

Also, don’t miss your chance to win some Google swag at the end of the article!

The Route Planner add-in is quite simple. All you do is put your starting point in one topic, your destination in another and add a relationship between them. You then right click on the relationship and click Get Route. A webpage launches to a Mindjet site with Virtual Earth embedded with a map and driving directions. In addition, a callout topic is created off of the relationship, which contains the directions (in the Notes field) and a hyperlink to the VE map. Take a look at the screenshots to see how this all works:

Pretty cool!

Features and Updates I’d like to see

• Automatic importing of both directions and the map, right now only directions are imported
• Ability to change the view of the map from the web page that comes up and click a button to have the newly framed map imported into the mind map
• Ability to store home and work addresses and create routes with them using just the destination as a topic
• Interface with Google Maps (though VE works fine)

The Route Planner Add-in is not available to the public yet. It will be released on Monday, 7/31 during the swank MindMapping Monday party in SF, which I should have some pictures of on Tuesday.

The Presenter Add-in While the Route Planner Add-in is just plain cool, the Presenter Add-in has a much more practical application, especially for students. Essentially it adds OneNote style audiosyncing to MindManager. For those not familiar with the audiosync feature here is what it does: As you are take notes, OneNote remembers what you were writing and links to whatever audio or video it’s recording. Later, when you review your notes you can jump straight to anywhere in the lecture just by clicking on what you wrote during that time. Also, as you listen or watch the recording, the notes you took at that time in the program are highlighted as you go along. This works really great for lectures especially in cases where you can lose your place or need to review exactly what the professor said.

With the Presenter Add-in, you can now do this with MindManager. The only caveat here is while the audio and video link to your notes it doesn’t work in the reverse. You won’t be able to click on a topic and go directly to that part of the lecture, but as you replay your recordings, the notes you took will be highlighted as you move along, including panning and zooming. This also works in pen mode.

Use of the add-in is pretty simple. It installs two tabs in the work pane, where things like Task Status and the Library are. One tab is for recording and the other is for playback. Just open the recording tab, select your audio and video inputs (you can leave video blank), and hit Start Recording. Once you’re done hit Stop Recording. The recording is encoded using Windows Media Encoder and then stored as an attachment in the map so there’s no way of misplacing the recording. Playback is pretty basic. Just open the playback tab and hit play. There’s a little Windows Media Player embedded within the tab to play both audio and video. See these screen shots for more info:

Features/Updates I’d Like to See

• Consolidate presenting and recording tabs into one. I have too many tabs as it is
• Allow recording of just audio instead of recording a blank WMV file (would save on file size)
• Link bothways between topics and audio for complete audio syncronization

The Presenter Add-in is available now for free from Mindjet Labs. You can download it here

You can also download my mind map using both of these features here

Note: You will need the Presenter Add-in to get the syncronized presenting to work, but you can still listen to my lecture on penguins

Contest

I leave you with a question… What other extensions and add-ins would you like to see in MindManager? Top 3 entries get some Google swag. Post them here in the comments. Winners will be decided August 5th.

Other posts that may interest you:

1. OneNote Planner Plug-In, v2.0 (with video!)
2. Sliding over to OneNote…again
3. “My One and Only OneNote”
4. Evernote? OK, I’ll give it a go.
5. 6 Simple OneNote 2007 Tips