MindNode icon MindNode 6 is out today, and having been a part of the beta I thought it was high time I shared some of the many ways I use

Lots of things for me start as vague ideas, this often happens in Drafts, but for multi faceted ideas that need exploration - like this blog post, I then move things over to MindNode - specifically I do this using an action which makes use of MindNode’s URL schemes - you can get the action from the Drafts Action Directory.
Focus Mode in MindNode on the Mac
I’ve been doing a lot of things at work recently that involve hierarchies - one thing branching into more, which in turn branch into more. I’ve been showing this as we progress throughout a meeting with MindNode, so we start the meeting with the centre point, or main node, and progress from there. This means as people are discussing ideas I can reflect it visually on the whiteboard, and I have a pretty graphic to send them afterwards! The enhanced presentation mode in MindNode 6 has been very helpful for this, letting me show off notes that I’ve made on areas, or even to lock the view while I zoom in on something else and tweak a spelling mistake.
A few features of MindNode 6 have been game changers though - first of all, multi select. You can do this with a finger or an Apple Pencil - and it’s exactly what it sounds like, letting you select multiple nodes. You can then move them all, copy them, or do whatever you want or need to do with them.
Searching for stickers in MindNode
I also love how you can search for stickers, the team was smart and assigned multiple keywords to each sticker - so searching for “sign” gets me, among other things, the warning sign - as does searching for “warning”!
Outline Mode
Another way I use MindNode is to give me a good overview of projects, the folding and unfolding of nodes comes in handy here, allowing me to zoom in and out as needed. Add to this the new ability to hide connections and I have a great way of looking at everything, or just the key areas - helped by the focus feature which lets me fade out everything else. I love the ability to switch to outline view too - while I tend to prefer visuals, sometimes you just need a list - like when you’ve planned out a packing list! Being able to switch to the outline view also shows me things from a new perspective - which often helps me to fill in gaps in my plans.
It’s hard to describe use cases for MindNode unless you’ve previously used a mind mapping application - but when you need to structure keywords, and text it’s a great place to start.
MindNode 6 is out now and is a free upgrade for all MindNode 5 users. The Mac app is also part of Setapp.