Peter's Blog

Redefining the Impossible

The Brain

The Brain

Submitted by Peter on Thu Apr 21 2005 20:08 over 4 years ago

Next in my Outliner quest is TheBrain. This is a radical looking outliner:

images/TheBrain.jpg

Each node in the diagram is called a 'thought' and it can have multiple parents, children and peers (not siblings, they can have different parents). This allows incredibly complex mappings of relationships to be created. For an idea of what it is like to use, try the WebBrain which needs java enabled in your browser. The mappings form more of an amorphous blob than a tree and so can model all kinds of things. It is more of a brainstorming tool than an outliner.

Review:

  • it is fun to use
  • it is easy to get lost
  • you can assign web pages, applications etc to thoughts, so they launch when you click on them
  • I tried mapping mail addresses to people thoughts but the mailto link was broken by the time it reached outlook.
  • A folder can be assigned to a thought, in which case 'virtual thoughts' representing the files in the folder appear in the map.
  • can export data as XML, although I haven't tried that yet to see how complete it is.
  • RTF notes can be assigned to thoughts. Unfortunately these cannot contain hyperlinks but they can contain OLE objects (remember OLE?).
  • It is easy enought to search for items or assign keywords and types to them. Tell the difference between people and computers in your map.

TreePad seems more a way of organising articles that TheBrain, which is a way of arranging thoughts and pushing them around as a way to see new relationships. It is interesting putting a family tree or company organisation chart into it and examining it from all angles.

I'm having fun playing with it. I came across other Mind Mapping tools in my exploration but TheBrain's totally unique UI appeals to me.

3 Comments

Dan V. Says:

Sun May 08 2005 04:26 over 4 years ago

Hi Peter. I remember the Brain - this software has been available for years but never really took off in a mainstream way. I think the problem with this software is that you have to be very dedicated to enter all the relevant information and link between them consistently. If you're not doing this, you don't get the full value out of the software. On the other hand, outliners like TreePad make this organization simpler by enforcing a structure with high visibility - it is harder to get lost this way.

You might be interested in my recently started blog and wiki that track outliner developments - http://www.expandingbrain.com.

Peter Says:

Sun May 08 2005 19:29 over 4 years ago

Thanks Dan, interesting looking site (only criticism: I think Kubrik theme is getting a little over-exposed, wordpress default I know).

When I use TheBrain I find I spend a lot of time trying to make the relationships sensible, especially when a node has multiple parents. Sometimes two parents are entirely different concepts and the way TheBrain displays them the same can be confusing.

Also, I see other mind mapping software allows you to define types of relationship (supervises, contains, provides etc) but in TheBrain you can only give the links colour codes.

Peter

PeterH Says:

Sun Aug 31 2008 16:42 about 1 year ago

Hi - i read your excellent artickle about the brain.

"Peter Says: Also, I see other mind mapping software allows you to define types of relationship (supervises, contains, provides etc)"

I am intrested in other mapping software where you can define different types of relationships.

Do you have any suggestions.?

/Peter

Sorry but comments on this post are now closed.