Area 10 [archive] - BUILD YOUR OWN WEBSITE

Michael Tipper's guide to "Mind Manager"

To generate an entirely different style of website from the pages you are currently reading, you may wish to look at programs such as "Mind Manager" - which will generate a mind-map style website quickly and easily (according to Michael Tipper, who wrote the guide you'll find below).

Click here to access Michael's review of this software (which is linked to his website, built as an electronic mind map, and from which you can download a 21-day free trial version of the software to try it out for yourself, or order the full package to use long term) - or just click here to reach the free-trial-version software download page.

Michael's guide to using Mind Manager is below; pages 1-12 in our Build Your Own Website guide were written whilst using Corel WordPerfect Suite 8 software, with which the Project HappyChild website was originally generated. Project HappyChild is now built primarily in html (see the "traffic building" guide, below).

1. It is important that before you begin designing your website you have a clear idea of its structure and the name of the pages that you wish to hyperlink to. A hand drawn Mind Map is a great way of planning how to do this.

2. Once you have your structure planned out, start generating your mind maps in Mind Manager. First of all select 'New' from the 'File' Menu and choose 'Standard Mind Map'. This will give you a central image.

3. You can change the central image by exchanging it with a different title block or by using one of the graphics in the symbol gallery. To do this select "Symbol Gallery" from the 'View' menu. This normally opens a window called "My Favourites" but if you click on the little blue arrow at the top left hand side of the window it will take you to the symbol gallery folders. Simply open a folder and drag and drop your chosen image over the title page. A warning message about not having a text area will appear. Click on Yes. All this means is that you'll not be able to type the title in the image. You'll only be able to do that with images out of the "Title Classic" or "Title Enhanced" folders. You can change the size of the image by placing your cursor over it and holding down the left mouse button as you move the mouse.

4. If you want to add graphics anywhere else on the Mind Map just drag and drop as described above.

5. To create branches, the easiest way is to right click the mouse and select "insert main topic" from the menu that appears then move the mouse to the desired position and right click. To edit the text, simply select the branch and begin typing. Use of intuitive icons on the tool bar gives you control of text size, font and colour. You can also highlight the text if you wish.

6. You can move your branches by clicking on the white node nearest the central image and then just drag and drop.

7. To create sub branches simply select the main branch and then pick "Insert Main Topic or Branch" from the insert menu. Once you become more familiar with the icons you can use the tool bar to achieve this.

8. So by following the above process you can very quickly generate quite a complex map.

9. To generate hyperlinks, select the branch you want for the hyperlink and right click. Select "Define Hyperlink" from the drop down menu and then type in the URL in the appropriate box. This is where it helps to know your directory structure and file name format in advance. Good planning will make this an easy process.

10. Now that you have your mind map, make sure that you save it before generating the HTML file.

11. To generate the HTML document, ensure your Mind Map is open and then click on 'Export' in the 'File' Menu and select "Webpage(HTML)..". This will give you four options for HTML Export format. To see your mind map as a graphical mind map you need to select the bottom button marked "Imagemap" but before you do, cancel the tick in the "Create Drop Shadow (white background)" box. (The Drop shadow makes the map look blurred, in my opinion.)

12. When you select "Image Map" it will ask you to name the HTML and .gif file you are creating. I suggest that you leave the name the same as the Mind Manager File (.mmp) for ease of management when you come to make changes later.

13. If the HTML & .gif files already exist from a previous version of the Mind Map, Mind Manager will ask you if you want to overwrite the existing files. Choose Yes or No as is appropriate to your needs. Then preview your mind map in your browser.

14. Once you have done this a couple of times it will become automatic. Now all you have to do is load the .htm and the .gif file onto your web space and it is as simple as that.