Drawling a single boundary around multiple floating topics

[John Minton]

Hello,

I've seen others post this kind of topic before, but it appears that the message is never truly conveyed appropriately. I thought I would take a moment to clarify this particular point, and hopefully there is enough demand for this feature for the developers to notice.

A little info about me, I am in the IT / programming field. I use Xmind to illustrate many different things, from programming logic, to network and data flow diagrams. The issue I have, none of the default chart types really fit my needs. For example, I need to illustrate the varying components of a network in a dataflow diagram, and I use relationship lines to illustrate the direction data is flowing. I place floating topics apart from each other, and set the relationship lines as needed. But then, for example, I want to illustrate portions of the network that below to a security group. I would like to be able to drawl and label a nice colored box around the floating topics, maintaining the original relationship lines. This kind of boundary is not possible at the moment. Attempting to drawl a boundary results in boundaries around each individual floating topic, instead of grouping them together.

Since I can not illustrate dataflow in a network appropriately by placing items under subtopics, I have no ability to group common floating topics.

It is also extremely annoying, when moving floating topics near each other, and having them jump onto other floating topics as sub-topics. When I make a new floating topic, I should be able to right click and select an option "Do not magnet as sub-topic", which would prevent that Floating Topic from ever trying to nest under another floating topic (or even the main topic).


Perhaps this style of mind mapping would be better implemented into kind of "free style" Mind mapping mode, so as to not disturb the original behavior of the program. I imagine a free-style mind mapping mode, where I can explicitly drag, drop and arrange all elements of the map, without any automatic nesting or similar behaviors, as well as the addition of new element creating tools, such as a different kind of square boundary box that allows me to group any elements I wish without restriction. A line drawling tool, and similar, would be very useful.

Thoughts on this?

Thank you

[Judith Pilawa]

Hi John,
first for the simple answer to the floating topic - on the Mac you can prevent stickiness by holding down the cmd key as you drag. On Windows it is probably ctrl or maybe alt.

Xmind is very versatile, and great for many uses, but the use you want to put it to is really pushing the boundaries of what it was made for. There are a few freeform diagramming apps out there which are made for the purpose, and all have at least a Windows and a Mac version. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, so get the trials to find the best suited to your needs.

http://www.simplediagrams.com/ - easy to use, has icon library which you can extend with packages and your own creations - create boundaries with overlaid items which can be made to stick

https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php - requires a little more keyboard input, also better when more text involved, and for brainstorming - boundaries as above

http://vue.tufts.edu/ - free, but feels a bit more clunky

But do hang on to xmind, it has its own strengths and you may find it invaluable for other applications.