Corel continues to expand the features and functionality of the Mac version of MindManager. In its latest incarnation, MindManager 12 Mac, it has evolved into a powerful flexible tool for visualizing your ideas, data and projects. It has even picked up two productivity-enhancing capabilities that even the Windows version doesn’t offer.
Here are the most important and relevant business-focused features of MindManager 12 Mac:
Topic properties
Properties enable you to add fields to your topics in a value pair arrangement. In other words, field name and value. This enables you to create a simple visual database out of your mind map.
Smart shapes
MindManager 12 Mac enables you to create horizontal and vertical swim lanes and matrices with your desired number of rows and columns. Smart shapes also get enhanced editing controls, including the ability to align shapes, rotate text boxes (useful for creating labels for the vertical axes of charts) and apply transparency to objects.
SmartRules
This powerful tool is now available on the MindManager Mac platform. SmartRules allow you to set up triggers within your diagrams that can transform both a topic’s format and its data. They enable you to change the fonts, topic shapes, colors, icons, tags automatically when the conditions you specify are true. Combined with the program’s rich project management toolset, you can now set up rules for highlighting completed, past due and at-risk criteria for your project tasks.
Touch bar support
When Apple introduced the touch bar, a narrow programmable display strip between the keyboard and screen on its MacBook Pro laptops, it was widely panned as a useless innovation. But now that it’s been out several years, developers are figuring out how to employ it to enhance the user experience of their software. Corel is one of those companies.
When you’re using MindManager 12 Mac, the touch bar displays shortcuts that streamline common tasks in MindManager. For example, you can change the priority of topics, adjust topic text styles and even zoom in and out using a slider tool – all from the touch bar.
When you’re typing text into topic shapes, MindManager Mac even displays predictive text options – sort of like auto correct, enabled on the touch Bar. Very cool!
What’s even better is that some of the commands that appear on the touch bar are contextual. That is, they appear depending upon the task you’re performing in MindManager.
The way that Corel has implemented this functionality is very cool. Any time you can avoid having to mouse up to the toolbar to select a command, it’s a productivity improvement. Being able to perform common tasks with just a tap on the touch bar makes it even faster.
MindManager 12 Mac adds dark mode
Starting with MacOS 10.4 Mohave, applications can now appear in dark mode, with white toolbars and program elements against a dark background. Some people say this reduces eye strain and helps users focus more on the content they’re producing. One advantage for MindManager users is that it transforms the ribbon toolbar is into more of a background mode, so it doesn’t command as much attention.
Sorry, but I’m not a fan of dark mode in any application, on any platform. But that’s just me.
Make topics the same width
This tool causes all children of a topic to automatically become the same length. This makes for a neater-looking mind map – without the hassle of dragging topic edges to do this manually, one topic at a time.
Enhanced HTML 5 map export
MindManager 12 Mac gets the same powerful export engine as the Windows version, complete with filtered map views on priorities, resources and task progress.
Conclusion
Things are definitely looking up for Mac users of MindManager. They now have a kick-ass program that’s every bit as powerful as their Windows brethren. Plus, they have a few special capabilities to call their own: support for the touch bar on MacBook Pros and a new dark mode.
You can start a free, 30-day trial of MindManager 12 Mac or purchase an upgrade of your current version here. A single licensed copy of the program is US$179.
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