Freeplane: Style-Based Attribute Dropdowns

Hey guys! Ever felt like your Freeplane mind maps are getting a little cluttered? Especially when you're dealing with attributes? Let's dive into a common challenge and how we can make things a whole lot cleaner and more efficient. We're talking about customizing attribute dropdowns by style instead of getting a messy mix of all values. This will not only make your mind maps easier to navigate but also boost your overall productivity. Let's get started!

The Current Workflow's Messy Reality

Okay, so imagine you've got a mind map, and you're using Freeplane to organize different types of information. You've got nodes representing all sorts of things: requirements, measures, even human resources. You've cleverly used styles to visually differentiate these objects, making it easy to see at a glance what's what. Now, let's say you've got an attribute called "Status." Seems simple enough, right? You want to assign statuses to these different nodes.

The Attribute Dropdown Dilemma

Here’s where things can get a little tricky. When you go to pick a value from the dropdown list for the "Status" attribute, Freeplane currently shows you every value that's been used for any node with the "Status" attribute. This means you might see statuses related to requirements mixed in with statuses related to your human resources. The result? A dropdown list that’s a bit of a jumbled mess. Not ideal, right? This is a key area where we can really enhance Freeplane's usability.

Imagine the scene: you're trying to quickly update the status of a human resource node, but you have to sift through a long list that includes statuses related to requirements or other node types. This can definitely slow you down and increase the chances of selecting the wrong value. It's like having all the ingredients for a delicious meal, but they're all mixed up and unorganized. You spend more time sorting than cooking!

Proposed Solution: Style-Based Attribute Dropdowns

So, what's the solution? The core idea is simple: Give us the option to populate attribute dropdown lists based on the style of the node. Instead of a global pool of all "Status" values, we want a dropdown that is filtered by the style applied to the node. This would significantly improve the clarity and efficiency of using attributes.

How This Could Work

Think about it. If a node is styled as a "Requirement," the "Status" dropdown would show only statuses relevant to requirements. If it's a "Human" node, you'd see statuses that apply to your human resources. This way, you would have a much cleaner and more contextually relevant dropdown list.

This isn't just about aesthetics; it's about functionality. By filtering the dropdown options, we can avoid confusion and errors. You'd be able to find the right status much faster, which is a major win for productivity. This also makes the process more intuitive, as the options presented are directly tied to the type of information you're working with.

The Benefits: Use Cases and Expected Improvements

Implementing style-based attribute dropdowns would unlock a whole new level of organization and usability in Freeplane. Let's look at some real-world use cases and the benefits you can expect.

Use Case 1: Project Management

Imagine you're managing a project. You have different types of nodes representing tasks, milestones, and deliverables. You can use styles to distinguish between them. With style-based attribute dropdowns, the "Status" attribute could behave like this:

• Task Nodes: The "Status" dropdown might show options like "To Do," "In Progress," "Blocked," and "Completed."
• Milestone Nodes: The "Status" dropdown could show options like "Planned," "Achieved," and "Delayed."

This makes it easy to quickly understand the status of each element of your project, as the options are automatically tailored to the type of item you're working with.

Use Case 2: Human Resources

In an HR context, you could style nodes to represent different employees. The "Status" attribute could change based on the employee's role:

• Employee Nodes: The "Status" dropdown could include options like "Active," "On Leave," "Terminated."
• Project Nodes: The "Status" dropdown could include options like "Assigned," "Unassigned," and "Pending."

Expected Improvements

• Improved Clarity: Dropdown lists become much more focused and relevant to the context. This eliminates the need to wade through irrelevant options.
• Reduced Errors: By showing only the applicable options, the chances of selecting the wrong status are dramatically reduced. This means more accurate data entry.
• Increased Productivity: Quickly finding the right value saves time and boosts overall efficiency. Users can work faster and focus on the task at hand.
• Enhanced Organization: Mind maps become better organized, easier to understand, and more enjoyable to use. The visual organization of styles works hand-in-hand with the functional organization of the attribute dropdowns.

The Current Workaround: A Temporary Fix

Now, let's be real. Until this feature is officially implemented, we need a workaround. Currently, if you need to separate your attribute values by context, you have to create more attributes. This isn’t ideal, but it’s a way to get the job done.

Example: The "Status" Attribute

If you want the "Status" values to be separated by node type, you might create multiple attributes like this:

• Status.Req: for requirements
• Status.Human: for humans
• Status.Car: if you are tracking cars

The Downsides of the Workaround

• Increased Clutter: Having multiple, similar attributes can quickly make your mind map look messy.
• More Work: You have to manually create and manage multiple attributes, which increases the amount of setup time.
• Less Intuitive: It's not as clear or user-friendly as a style-based approach.

While this workaround does the job, it highlights the need for a more elegant and integrated solution. It's a temporary fix, not a sustainable one, and it underscores how much value we can get from a style-based attribute dropdown system.

Conclusion: Making Freeplane Even Better

Ultimately, the ability to tailor attribute dropdown lists by style is a feature that would greatly enhance Freeplane's usability. This would improve organization, reduce errors, and increase productivity for users across a wide range of use cases. While the current workaround can help in the meantime, a built-in style-based system would make Freeplane a much more powerful and intuitive tool for mind mapping and knowledge management. Let's hope the Freeplane community picks this up and implement this awesome feature!