MindGenius 3 review

MindGenius 3 lets you create mind maps to help you organise your thoughts.

Ideas are held in Nodes, which are connected using Branches. Creating a map for any project is quick and easy. You can choose from a set of pre-defined templates or create your own look by applying different styles and adding images.

Navigating around large maps is a bit clumsy, but the map explorer helps and can quickly isolate a section of your map. Nodes can contain extensive hidden notes, so you needn't have large chunks of text visible. Annoyingly, there was a lag when typing text directly into the notes editor.

MindGenius has a wealth of features for organising projects. Tasks can be assigned resources, dates, costs and quantities and placed in user-defined categories such as location, for example. You can then search and filter your map by category and use the results as the basis for new maps - so you could instantly create a map featuring all the tasks for a specific location. This makes it easy to keep track of a project, while the Microsoft Excel export function lets you create progress reports. Individual tasks can be exported to Outlook, and tasks that have personnel allocated to them are added to that person's task list. Entire projects can be exported to Microsoft Project, but unlike MindManager 8, it's not possible to show live Excel data, drawn automatically from spreadsheets, in Nodes.

The office export functions make it easy to share information from your maps with colleagues. You can also export maps as images, PDF text documents or basic HTML web pages. This is sufficient, but falls short of the map sharing options in MindManager 8, which include an excellent online collaboration workspace and interactive PDF output.

Although it's not as polished as MindManager 8 and lacks its advanced sharing options, MindGenius 3 is a useful business and personal organisation tool. It's also about half the price of MindManager 8, and if you work or study at a school, college or university, the identical £65 education edition is a bargain.

Author: David McKinnon