ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY BLOG | INVENTIONS FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

NovaMind has announced the release of NovaMind 4 Platinum for Mac. NovaMind Platinum contains all the features of NovaMind Pro, plus it has resource handling, resource allocation, resource indicators, drag and drop addition of resources and resource groups from Address book, task allocation, task settings, task and resource reporting, screenwriting capabilities, and the NovaMind Presenter and various other additional features.

The NovaMind Presenter has the capability to make smooth presentations from your Mind Maps and works with either a single screen, or two screens or a screen and projector, and also works with the Apple remote. Please see the documentation for further information about the capabilities of the Presenter.

You can download NovaMind 4 Platinum by going to our downloads page: http://www.nova-mind.com/Downloads/

I hope that everyone has had a great summer! I have been busy blogging this summer and I hope I can keep up the pace as I move into my Fall schedule. It has been a lot of fun writing about new applications and having the opportunity to meet and talk to some of the developers of the programs. But along the way , I have met some great folks who not only have a vision as to how these programs can be utilized but are passionate about the work they do.

For those of you who may be new to this blog, I have spent a fair amount of time talking about assistive technology, mind mapping, visual learning, project management, as well as talking about Web 2.0 applications that are both innovative and useful. Along the way I have also written about some interesting programs which I would like to highlight for you. If you have the opportunity take a look at the Archived articles, I’m sure you will find something of interest.

Review of MindManager 7 Mac
MindSystems ThemeReader & Text to Speech
InspireData from Inspiration
Odiogo- Adding Accessibility to Blogs
Teacher’s Guide to Mindmapping
TouchGraph Visual Search Engine
FastTrack Schedule 9.2
NovaMind 4 for Mac Released
IntelliGantt Add-in for Mindmanager Pro 7
PersonalBrain 4 Macintosh Released
JVCGantt Pro 3 & MindManager 7-Perfect Together
Vernier’s Labquest Handheld Data Analysis Tool
XMIND for Mindmapping
Hyperstudio 5 to be Released this Fall
LiveScribe- This Isn’t an Ordinary Pen
theRealizer-Mindmanager Add-in
ConceptDraw Mindmap 5 for Macintosh Shipping August 28


Enjoy and let me know what you think-your comments are always welcomed!

I just received this communication from Gideon King about the upcoming release of NovaMind 4 Pro for Windows. Taking a look at the screenshots you can see that a lot of work has gone into the interface and making the program even easier to use. Take a look at this link to see some of the screenshots. You can see that NovaMind 4 Pro takes advantage of the Ribbon User Interface which puts all of the features just a simple click away.

We are pleased to announce that NovaMind 4 Pro for Windows is now in Beta testing. We are working through the remaining issues as quickly as we can. There have been some unforeseen technical issues along the way, but these have almost all been resolved (just one significant issue remaining), and the remainder of the work is bug fixes and putting the finishing touches to some parts of the functionality. The actual path from here to release depends to a large extent on the number of issues we encounter as we go through the testing and tidy up process, so we are hoping for a smooth path from here.

I have taken this opportunity to create screenshots of all the different tabs in the new ribbon bar, and write brief descriptions of the functionality. As you will see, it has changed dramatically since NovaMind 3, and our usability studies show that it is far easier to learn, navigate, and use. I have updated the pre-release information page to show the new features. Here is a link to the information page with the screenshots on it:

Gideon King had emailed me information in his NovaMind Newsletter to share with me all the exciting new features that will be in the release of NovaMind 4 Pro for Windows. You can see from the list below that the new feature set is considerable. Gideon is also looking for users who are interested in doing beta testing for NovaMind 4 Pro. It is a great opportunity to work with the application before it is released and get a chance to provide the company with valuable feedback.

Below are some of the new features of NovaMind 4 - the hyperlinks will open images showing you the items:

• Create new documents from templates
• A template chooser, showing you the templates available and with the ability to select themes and see instantly how it will change your selected Mind Map template, and then creation of your Mind Map using that template and theme.
• New ribbon bar with commands grouped into Home, Insert, Design, View and Format options, meaning that there is much less switching between tabs - most operations can be accomplished from the home tab.
• New text handling system so that the text commands can be used on branches even when you are not editing the text, and even handle multiple branch selections from the same interface.
• Instant preview of line weight, line style, fonts, and corner settings so you can see what it is going to look like before you apply it.
• Layout settings panel showing you a preview of how your Mind Map will look when you apply the selected branch spacing to the Mind Map
• Selection of themes, with instant preview of the theme applied when you mouse over a theme.
• Selection of map styles , again with instant preview when you mouse over the style.
• A special formatting floating panel which allows you to set the graphical attributes of the branch or graphic all from one place.
• Background settings floating panel with all the background settings in one place.
• Graphic style selector with instant preview of the style as applied to selected branches.
• New tabs for multiple Mind Maps, with preview of the Mind Maps as you move your mouse over the tabs, menu based selection of Mind Maps for documents with many Mind Maps, and the ability to scroll through the tabs, drag them into a different order, and drag them onto other documents to copy the Mind Map to the other document.
• Document View where you can work with the map settings of multiple documents at the same time.
• A new sidebar. The sidebar has multiple tabs, the first holding the graphic library with adornments and graphics available to be selected and dragged on to your Mind Map. The second tab is for branch notes, where you can type your notes - you can also drag graphics from the graphics library on to the notes tab to add them to your notes. The third tab is the outline view which allows you to work with your Mind Map outline directly.

Gideon King, the developer of NovaMind Mind Mapping application has released a wonderful resource for educators who are using mind mapping in the classroom. The book is visually very appealing and the content will certainly help teachers to think about how they can use mind mapping effectively in the classroom across the curriculum. A Teacher's Guide to Mind Mapping is generously packed with beautifully printed mind maps in full color and clearly shows the power of this tool for students. As someone who is a specialist in working with students with disabilities, I have been a real advocate of the power of these tools with students with a range of learning disabilities. Mr. King in his book talks about the advantages of mind mapping and how it can facilitate memory, comprehension, and learning in the classroom. Mr. King illustrates the many ways that mind mapping can be used across the curriculum and the power of using visuals to address the needs of students with varying learning styles. If you are new to mind mapping or need some new ideas of how to use mind mapping technique and strategies then you will want to pick up a copy of Teacher's Guide to Mind Mapping.

Gideon King recently emailed me about the release of NovaMind 4 for the Macintosh, one of the premier mind mapping applications on the Macintosh platform . Sporting a whole new interface users should find it easier to format and work with NovaMind 4. There are two new versions that were released NovaMind 4 Pro and NovaMind Express. Here is a screen shot of a mind map. A new Windows version is in the works as well.