MindManager8 reads your databases!

I was playing with MindManager 8 for a few minutes last night and got it to browse and extract data from my Oracle database.  That was pretty slick, though there’s almost no documentation for it, so I was just bumbling around.

Browse got it to list the tables and their columns.  I couldn’t figure how to get it just show the rows I wanted, but it would extract column values and create them as custom properties in new topics or even a new map.  I don’t get it by a long shot but the promise is there.   The Custom Properties feature of MM has always been somewhat of a mystery/kludge to me, you define your own properties, but there’s no easy way to populate them (until this database functionality works?) .  I spent a couple hours messing with them a year ago but never saw the point.

But I’m still jazzed that I got my 2 favorite technologies to talk to eachother, even if they don’t completely understand eachother!  :-/

For example, when MM8 tried to read the list of tables using the Configure Databse Connection, it threw a lot of exceptions, I think because it was trying to read the system tables that my account doesn’t have permissions for.  That was pretty ugly!  But then I could identify tables it shouldn’t try to list, so hopefully I won’t have to go through that again.

And if I try to add a query clause in the provided field “Enter text to find”, it throws 2 exceptions saying “Illegal variable/number”.  So I’m thinking they need to get a bug release for this out pretty soon.  [sigh]

MindManager Version 7 announced

MindJet has (finally) officially announced the upcoming release of MindManager version 7 (aka MM7), so beta-testers like me are finally allowed to talk about it publicly! I take my beta-tester responsibilities seriously, so kept it under my hat.

They say it’ll be available for purchase on May 30th, for both PC and Macintosh.

This is the software tool I use the most at work, some days even more than email! It’s great for managing lots of information in various forms and places. If you’ve never seen a mindmap, think “graphical outline.” If you’ve never seen a MindManager mindmap, think “visual organizer with tons of power for integrating, sorting, finding and organizing your information”.

As for what’s in the upgrade…