I use FreeMind in different ways, for example as an outliner, to structure my thoughts for writing. There is an ODF plugin for FreeMind that allows for its structures to be exported to odt documents (OpenOffice.org), where they appear as headings. This plugin is still kind of rough around the edges as is FreeMind itself in the beta version I use (0.9 series), although I haven't had any problems using maps I've created within FreeMind itself.
So, for me, what would be useful would be to have a way to get notes and annotations (on web snapshots) from Zotero and into FreeMind, so that I could move them around and create an outline from them.
FreeMind uses a version of XML internally and it can parse HTML, so this already is possible to an extent. That is, it is possible to generate a Zotero report, copy the output from Firefox, and paste it into FreeMind. The result is that FreeMind creates a new "node" (or branch) for each reference. The reference data fields branch off from this node, with the reference data itself appearing as child nodes. Likewise for tags and notes (as opposed to annotations). File attachments get a child node as well, but links to the files are not preserved. It's basically a graphical representation of the HTML report.
This is a good beginning, but it's not that useful yet because, as far as I'm concerned, there's too much information. I'd find it more useful to have only the notes appear with maybe something like author/title attached to them. I'm not wanting to see all of the bibliographic fields in FreeMind because I'm eventually going to do the writing in OOo and actually put the references in there directly from Zotero via the OOo extension. I instead want to be able to reorder the notes and add a structure, while retaining a clue about which bibliographic references the notes concern.
I think it would be possible to look into making some kind of XSLT filter for the Zotero report data to achieve the kind of results I described. I haven't done this for several reasons. First, I'd need to learn a lot of new things since I've only ever done very rudimentary editing of stylesheets and so on. Further, I think it's a little premature to make that kind of time investment since Zotero and FreeMind are both changing as they work towards 1.0 release. And, for Zotero, there are indications that it will become possible to make customized reports at some point, in which case a filter for FreeMind might not be needed at all.
In short, I think it would be better to wait until there's a 1.0 release of Zotero and FreeMind before exploring the question of their integration. But ultimately, I do think that Zotero + FreeMind + OpenOffice.org Writer will be an amazing set of tools that can work together for the writing process.
So, I don't know if the use case I've described corresponds to your interests. In any case, maybe you will find it useful to copy from a Zotero report and paste into FreeMind, as is possible at present.
Exporting Zotero to Freemind would be great. I also thought of writing an XSLT to convert the XML report to a Freemind .mm map, and held off for the same reasons.
At this point though, Freemind 0.9 is at beta 13 and I expect will last a long while. Zotero is at 1.0 RC3 so the reporting format won't change anytime soon. So maybe there's not much to be gained by waiting any longer.
Who else wants a Freemind export for Zotero? I would be willing to write the initial XLST but only if others will keep the ball rolling after that.
I'd also like to be able to interoperate between Zotero and Freemind. But I'm not sure in exactly what way. I'm uncomfortable with copying/pasting as I don't want two versions that would get out of sync.
One thing which would help here (and for other purposes) would be to have a zotero:// protocol handler available to create direct links to zotero items. (I suspect this has been raised before in the forums, but I can't find it).
Perhaps the ideal level of Freemind/zotero integration would be the ability to drag/copy zotero items or collections into freemind, and have it create zotero://xxx links, with short (possibly configurable) link descriptions. Or perhaps a freemind import/export of entire maps/collections.
I'd also like to be able to interoperate between Zotero and Freemind. But I'm not sure in exactly what way. I'm uncomfortable with copying/pasting as I don't want two versions that would get out of sync.
I think it's important to decide on the purpose of using Zotero data in FreeMind at the outset.
For the use case I described, having synchronization between a particular mind map or section thereof and Zotero isn't so crucial. In fact, I'd prefer to have Zotero manage my "note cards," to use FreeMind to work out relationships, and to explicitly bring the two together in relation to a project myself.
That's simply a reflection of how I've used FreeMind when writing, and of course there are many other possible use cases. For example, when I use FreeMind for course planning, I use it more like a knowledge base or organizer, with links to local files and so on. That seems to correspond more to how you're thinking of using FreeMind with Zotero.
It's just a question of making the use cases explicit, so that, for example, it's possible to decide what a filter should do.
@sybille: I don't have distinct use cases in mind, and was just prematurely voicing ideas. I'd actually prefer, like you, to have my info primarily organised in Zotero, spinning out to Freemind for specific purposes. But I still would like to be able to link back to Zotero items for the detail (too much of which I don't find that useful in the mind map format).
Actually I'm not sure about the whole user-driven 'use cases' idea, however well-established it is in software engineering. Part of what distinguishes a really fine tool is that it suggests to the user ways of doing things they might not have thought of ("affordances", "discoverability" etc). It's up to software designers to come up with better ideas than the habit-formations users are already encrusted with.
I was using the term "use case" just as a way of trying to talk about what kind of Zotero data would be useful to have in FreeMind (and vice versa?), I'm not attached to it for other reasons.
For example, I'm not sure what kind of data it would be useful to export from FreeMind to Zotero, which is something you've mentioned. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be useful, but rather that I'm not seeing how it would work in a general way or what the aim would be, yet.
I do think it would be great if there were an API using something like a zotero:// protocol that would allow other applications to access Zotero data. I'm specifically thinking of desktop search (I use Beagle) - it would be great to have Zotero items appear when searching and to be able to open them from Beagle. An indexing backend would be limited to read-only access to the Zotero database, though.
@sybille: I was being a bit sloppy, and didn't have anything very specific in mind on the Freemind -> Zotero front. I suppose the more facilities there are, the more creative ways people will find to use them.
If I were dreaming, I'd say it would be nice to export a collection to Freemind, and have any of the notes worked on in the latter to be reflected in Zotero. That wouldn't so much be 'export' as embedding (if only Microsoft had kept up their original database-filesystem plans for Vista; this sort of app integration would be easy. Though I have long-since jumped the MS ship).
Anyway, my main wish here is the zotero:// protocol and handler, perhaps having the 'quick copy' being able to copy this url, along with some minimally-formatted summary information (title etc).
You've probably seen that there already is a zotero:// protocol. It's displayed in the Firefox address bar when a report is generated. I think it's only internal now, but maybe it will become accessible at some point, although I wonder whether write-access will ever be included since that's problematic for sqlite databases.
I have found myself sometimes wishing to take notes in Freemind and then import as trees into the place where the rest of my notes are. Hence I think it would be nice if Zotero had the ability to easily 'refresh' its own searchable version of a local file, in a process I described with HTML files here.
Summary: A useful way Zotero could integrate with other writing/pre-writing/research/presentation tools would be to add the following:
1. A way to easily throw an existing snapshot or attachment to an external program. 2. A way to 'replace' that web snapshot/attachment with the new version, preserving important Zotero stuff (ideally: tags, collections, children, relationships, attachments, creation date and even child notes created by Z's builtin editor). 3. Ideally, a keyboard shortcut to make it easy to begin a new such "external note" from within Zotero.
This would make it easier for Zotero to cooperate (on the receiving end) with outliners, HTML (even XML?) editors, mind mapping programs, or charting applications, anything that can generate a 'view' that Zotero can store.
Wow, I didn't realize this would generate so much interest.
To add my two cents, I would like to use Freemind to map not only my writing projects but also my notes on the various sources I'll integrate into the final project. It would be extremely useful to have Zotero reference these mindmaps and perhaps even to be able to index them. I would also liek to be able to draw on Zotero for introducing properly cited material in the mindmap. And, as long as I'm dreaming, it woul be great to be able to copy the cited passages, put them in a Word document and preserve the citation information.
Freemind should be integrated with Zotero so that:
-Notes in Zotero can be exported to Freemind, but retain a link so that changes in notes in Freemind would be updated in Zotero's corresponding note and vice versa.
-Exporting freemind notes that are linked to Zotero would generate automatic citations according to the style chosen, such as MLA. If the export was to Openoffice it would generate footnotes or end notes for the citations as required by the style.
In this way Freemind would become an outliner for Zotero notes.
My opinion regarding Zotero and Freemind was that folder or tag navigation wasn't enough to embrace all the data stored in Zotero.
Freemind would help me moving inside the data.
To achieve this goal I didn't need to modify my data with freemind nor syncing them.
I used the superb work done with timeline to add a freemind integration.
This integration is based on the Freemind flash viewer: http://www.efectokiwano.net/mm/
Right now, it's just a proof of concept, screenshot available here: http://labebda.free.fr/PoC.png
It just displays all the items in the library. What needs to be done is... everything.
I would like to use the collections as node of my mind map, items as children of the nodes, display tags as items attributes, etc...
But maybe it's not the best way to display Zotero content : any better ideas ?
PS: of course this new function dumps the data in an xml file (just like timeline) that is used right now for the viewer but it can also be used directly under Freemind...
I don't know anything about FreeMind, but a few comments:
- There's already functionality for selecting an item in Zotero via a zotero://select link, e.g. zotero://select/items/6023. (This is currently limited to local itemIDs, but we'll be switching to a global URI system soon.) I'm not sure what would be involved in making zotero:// links works in external programs. Firefox obviously has a way to take over existing protocols (to make itself the default browser), but the zotero:// protocol handler might need to be registered with the OS somehow first... Alternatively this could probably happen through http://zotero.org URLs that a Zotero-enabled Firefox handled in a special way.
- What would probably be more useful would be an API for external apps to actually communicate with Zotero rather than just trigger one-way select events. This would likely use an internal web server similar to the SOAP server used for word processor integration. We hope to offer such functionality eventually, but unfortunately to be useful it would require abstracting much of the internal data API, so it's no small feat...
- Laurent: That proof-of-concept looks great. I'd definitely be interested in seeing more of it. If you want to post a note and/or some code on the dev list, you may also find other people willing to get involved.
Hi Dan, I transfered in the Google groups my modified Zotero extension zipped. All I did was copying/replacing Timeline by Freemind :), so the modification is a little bit raw... I also modified the html file provided by the freemind flash viewer (hardcoded the call of the flashobject: no need to test for IE). As I told in my previous post, translation of the zotero structure to the freemind one needs to be studied. Right now chrome\content\zotero\xpcom\freemind.js is just like the timeline.js but modified to output a freemind xml file.
As I don't have a deep knowledge in zotero API, I'm not fluent in using it, maybe someone else can help. I'll try the google group. Thanks again, and wait and see...
I use both Zotero and Freemind, what i would love to able to do is have all off my Zotero items appear in Freemind under there own node maybe called Zotero Items and then be able to drag copies of these items into other parts of the mind map. That way i can link other new ideas with the sources that inspired them.
Would be nice if the Freemind Node that the Zotero item was placed under could also be represented back in Zotero perhaps as a tag or something like that.
Had a bit more time to have a look at this and come up with these thoughts
Free mind does not seam to have any way of addressing a dynamic data source so i think fully linking Zotero and Freemind together is quite a way off, however i dont think it would be hard to create an export function in Zotero to be import into FreeMind.
FreeMind files are XML and with quite a simple layout.
eg,
<map version="0.8.0"> <!-- To view this file, download free mind mapping software FreeMind from http://freemind.sourceforge.net --> <node TEXT="Zotero References"> <node TEXT="Title of Node"> <node TEXT="title of an embedded node"></node> </node> <node LINK="http://www.google.com" TEXT="Link to google"></node> <node TEXT="information attached as free text"> <hook NAME="accessories/plugins/NodeNote.properties"> <text>Free text here</text> </hook> </node> </node> </map>
Perhaps an extra function like the report.js could be made that would export a correctly formatted file could be made?
If so i would suggest that the title of the article be used as the node title, the authors combined names used as another node title, with a hyperlink that can be clicked on to bring up the report for that entry in Zotero. Might also be cool to have a complete citation attached as a note to the Authors node.
I think the file layout for that would look something like this,
<map version="0.8.0"> <!-- To view this file, download free mind mapping software FreeMind from http://freemind.sourceforge.net --> <node TEXT="Zotero References"> <node TEXT="Paper Title"> <node LINK="http://link to Zotero report here " TEXT="Authors Names"> <hook NAME="accessories/plugins/NodeNote.properties"> <text>Full details from Zotero here</text> </hook> </node> </node> </node> </map>
My coding skills are not up to implementing this though :(
I vote for the zotero:// protocol as explains CB above: this way from Freemind (or any other application) you can create a link that opens Firefox with Zotero opening a specific reference. Probably it would be easier when the unique ID of the citation exists (https://www.zotero.org/trac/ticket/763), then the url would look like zotero://unique_ID_to_Citation.
The link in the opposite sense (from Zotero to Freemind) can be already done with the tab Attachments->Add->Link to file. This opens a specific file in Freemind. An improvement for that would be opening a specific node in the Freemind graph. This needs two changes: 1) that Freemind accepts a specific node as a parameter in the command line (which I think it does not support yet but would be easy). 2) a text field in Zotero to specify extra parameters when opening the file linked.
I think that this small changes are useful for the integration with many other applications (OpenOffice for example) and they can be easy to implement.
I don't know about Freemind but it would be very useful to have some kind of concept mapping tool integrated into Zotero. That way resources could be organized within a Zotero collection into a project based outline for sorting and guiding writing.
I don't follow the technical ins and outs of the above discussion, but I think integration with Freemind could be a real leap forward. In particular, while tags are a nice feature, they would be even better if one could arrange them hierarchically, and perhaps use Freemind to organise them (I think this is the concept-mapping which the above post refers to).
P.S. While freemind is great, it is not without its glitches.
today we released FreeMind Scholar which might be the first step in what you are looking for. We modified FreeMind so you can add BibTeX entries to the knots of a mind map and - if you like - import PDF bookmarks.
However, currently FreeMind Scholar does not directly support Zotero but only BibTeX. If anybody here wants to help us to integrate FreeMind with Zotero... contact us :-).
I have no Jabref installed. So I can't test this functionality of Freemind Scholar. But I believe, that's the way I like to use freemind and zotero together.
My use case is the following. When I have a new research project, on a first stage I gather information all around the world. For this task I use zotero. I attach files, make notes to the entry,... In the next stage of the research project, I evaluate the information I gathered according different questions I have to answer to fullfill the research task. For this part of the work, freemind is my favorite application.
What I'm missing, is a kind of freemind-zotero plugin (like the zotero word or openoffice plugin) where I have the possiblity to add citations to references to the single freemind node, to fix the original source of my writen statement. This plugin should also make a "Literature node" into the mindmap where the cited references are listed. Ideally a direct link to the corresponding zotero database entry should be included too.
A second use case for me is (as mentioned previously) copy-paste or export option for zotero entries as a mindmap. Perhaps the title as the central node. Does such an export filter exist meanwhile?
A third use case, also mentioned previously would be to directly link from a freemind mindmap to a single zotero database entry. Using syncing and the zotero-server library this works using the entry on the zotero-server (normal http link in freemind).
I do not know, whether freemind_scholar could be used (or extendend to work) as such a freemind-zotero plugin, I mentioned in my first use case. I think, it would be very usefull.
I have no Jabref installed. So I can't test this functionality of Freemind Scholar.
This statement is not clear to me. This is the first mention of JabRef I see in this thread. The FreeMind Scholar page mentions JabRef, but it also mentions Zotero. So I don't see why you single JabRef out as being needed for something. In any case, JabRef is free and cross platform, so there should be little hurdle to try it if you think it is needed for something (but I don't think it is needed).
What I'm missing, is a kind of freemind-zotero plugin (like the zotero word or openoffice plugin) where I have the possiblity to add citations to references to the single freemind node, to fix the original source of my writen statement.
Zotero can quick copy either BibTeX or formatted citations to FreeMind. Why would an exclusive plugin be needed (assuming that FM S's architecture would even allow it)?
...copy-paste or export option for zotero entries as a mindmap. Does such an export filter exist meanwhile?
Zotero is not mind-mapping software & it isn't clear to me how you'd be able to use Zotero to make one (much less export what you've made).
your right. Some information I found on the Freemind Scholar page. And your right also, that all tools are opensource and free to use. According the Freemind Scholar page, Jabref is actually supported and Zotero not. Zotero support is only planned.
Concerning the freemind-zotero plugin. I'm not looking for the quick-copy possibilty to import to freemind a node containg a hand-made literature listing. I'm looking for a plugin, where I'm able to make in-text citations on different nodes, as it works for word or openoffice and the function which gather all in-text citations in the mindmap to automatically generate a well formated bibliography (as a separate node in the mindmap).
Concerning the direct export option for zotero entries into freemind format. It's clear that zotero is no mindmapping software. But for me it would be usefull if I could simple drag an item to a freemind mindmap to have the same item in a structure form in the mindmap. At the moment I can drag&drop formated output according a special style. That is not what I want. Or according some export formats. But I do not like the bibtex @ and the { in my mindmap. A simple tree-structered view of all fields of the entry, that's what I want in my mindmap.
According the Freemind Scholar page, Jabref is actually supported and Zotero not. Zotero support is only planned.
It says that they only support BibTeX, which can be created by either JabRef or Zotero. It isn't clear to me that they do anything that would be better-supported in JabRef or other reference managers that use a native BibTeX backend.
Concerning the freemind-zotero plugin....
I doubt this would ever be a GMU plugin, given the lack of popularity of FreeMind Scholar (but I don't speak for the developers & I could be wrong). If Freemind is extendable through an API (and it is not clear to me that it is), a third-party plugin could be developed. But it looks from their page like the FreeMind Scholar devs want to improve integration, themselves, anyway (so you should talk with them about how to help & their plans on doing this).
I could simple drag an item to a freemind mindmap to have the same item in a structure form in the mindmap.
What does that mean? Zotero items can be linked via "related," but the majority of zotero items are completely un-related from one-another. What would a map look like?
In any case, this would require FreeMind Scholar to be able to accept dropped/pasted formats & it isn't clear to me what those formats are (if any even exist).
But I do not like the bibtex @ and the { in my mindmap. A simple tree-structered view of all fields of the entry, that's what I want in my mindmap.
Again, you should refer to FreeMind Scholar support on this issue. From their documentation, it appears that you can import a BibTeX file into FMS & that this doesn't pollute your tree with BibTeX markup.
You wrote:
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...I'm looking for a plugin, where I'm able to make in-text citations on different nodes,...
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We will implement that as soon as possible (with Zotero support)
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.... to automatically generate a well formated bibliography (as a separate node in the mindmap).
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That's a nice idea but I think we will not implement that very soon, since other features have a higher priority for us.
Anyway, we appreciate any kind of feedback and information about use cases (how do you use mind maps and reference managers in your daily work). It would be great if you could use our contact form or email adress http://www.sciplore.org/contact_en.php for further suggestions :-).
I just wanted to inform you that a new version of FreeMind Scholar has been released (under the name SciPlore MindMapping). You can add now an arbitrary reference key to any node you want. And you can copy reference keys easily to third party applications. Import of PDF bookmarks also has improved and as before BibTeX keys are automatically assigned to nodes if the node links to a PDF which is also linked from your bibliographic database.
Upgrade Storage
FreeMind is a cross-platform, Free (GPL) mind-mapping application written in java. It's really excellent. More info, screenshots, and a gallery of examples can be found here:
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Mind_Map_Gallery
I use FreeMind in different ways, for example as an outliner, to structure my thoughts for writing. There is an ODF plugin for FreeMind that allows for its structures to be exported to odt documents (OpenOffice.org), where they appear as headings. This plugin is still kind of rough around the edges as is FreeMind itself in the beta version I use (0.9 series), although I haven't had any problems using maps I've created within FreeMind itself.
So, for me, what would be useful would be to have a way to get notes and annotations (on web snapshots) from Zotero and into FreeMind, so that I could move them around and create an outline from them.
FreeMind uses a version of XML internally and it can parse HTML, so this already is possible to an extent. That is, it is possible to generate a Zotero report, copy the output from Firefox, and paste it into FreeMind. The result is that FreeMind creates a new "node" (or branch) for each reference. The reference data fields branch off from this node, with the reference data itself appearing as child nodes. Likewise for tags and notes (as opposed to annotations). File attachments get a child node as well, but links to the files are not preserved. It's basically a graphical representation of the HTML report.
This is a good beginning, but it's not that useful yet because, as far as I'm concerned, there's too much information. I'd find it more useful to have only the notes appear with maybe something like author/title attached to them. I'm not wanting to see all of the bibliographic fields in FreeMind because I'm eventually going to do the writing in OOo and actually put the references in there directly from Zotero via the OOo extension. I instead want to be able to reorder the notes and add a structure, while retaining a clue about which bibliographic references the notes concern.
I think it would be possible to look into making some kind of XSLT filter for the Zotero report data to achieve the kind of results I described. I haven't done this for several reasons. First, I'd need to learn a lot of new things since I've only ever done very rudimentary editing of stylesheets and so on. Further, I think it's a little premature to make that kind of time investment since Zotero and FreeMind are both changing as they work towards 1.0 release. And, for Zotero, there are indications that it will become possible to make customized reports at some point, in which case a filter for FreeMind might not be needed at all.
In short, I think it would be better to wait until there's a 1.0 release of Zotero and FreeMind before exploring the question of their integration. But ultimately, I do think that Zotero + FreeMind + OpenOffice.org Writer will be an amazing set of tools that can work together for the writing process.
So, I don't know if the use case I've described corresponds to your interests. In any case, maybe you will find it useful to copy from a Zotero report and paste into FreeMind, as is possible at present.
At this point though, Freemind 0.9 is at beta 13 and I expect will last a long while. Zotero is at 1.0 RC3 so the reporting format won't change anytime soon. So maybe there's not much to be gained by waiting any longer.
Who else wants a Freemind export for Zotero? I would be willing to write the initial XLST but only if others will keep the ball rolling after that.
One thing which would help here (and for other purposes) would be to have a zotero:// protocol handler available to create direct links to zotero items. (I suspect this has been raised before in the forums, but I can't find it).
Perhaps the ideal level of Freemind/zotero integration would be the ability to drag/copy zotero items or collections into freemind, and have it create zotero://xxx links, with short (possibly configurable) link descriptions. Or perhaps a freemind import/export of entire maps/collections.
For the use case I described, having synchronization between a particular mind map or section thereof and Zotero isn't so crucial. In fact, I'd prefer to have Zotero manage my "note cards," to use FreeMind to work out relationships, and to explicitly bring the two together in relation to a project myself.
That's simply a reflection of how I've used FreeMind when writing, and of course there are many other possible use cases. For example, when I use FreeMind for course planning, I use it more like a knowledge base or organizer, with links to local files and so on. That seems to correspond more to how you're thinking of using FreeMind with Zotero.
It's just a question of making the use cases explicit, so that, for example, it's possible to decide what a filter should do.
Actually I'm not sure about the whole user-driven 'use cases' idea, however well-established it is in software engineering. Part of what distinguishes a really fine tool is that it suggests to the user ways of doing things they might not have thought of ("affordances", "discoverability" etc). It's up to software designers to come up with better ideas than the habit-formations users are already encrusted with.
For example, I'm not sure what kind of data it would be useful to export from FreeMind to Zotero, which is something you've mentioned. That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be useful, but rather that I'm not seeing how it would work in a general way or what the aim would be, yet.
I do think it would be great if there were an API using something like a zotero:// protocol that would allow other applications to access Zotero data. I'm specifically thinking of desktop search (I use Beagle) - it would be great to have Zotero items appear when searching and to be able to open them from Beagle. An indexing backend would be limited to read-only access to the Zotero database, though.
If I were dreaming, I'd say it would be nice to export a collection to Freemind, and have any of the notes worked on in the latter to be reflected in Zotero. That wouldn't so much be 'export' as embedding (if only Microsoft had kept up their original database-filesystem plans for Vista; this sort of app integration would be easy. Though I have long-since jumped the MS ship).
Anyway, my main wish here is the zotero:// protocol and handler, perhaps having the 'quick copy' being able to copy this url, along with some minimally-formatted summary information (title etc).
You've probably seen that there already is a zotero:// protocol. It's displayed in the Firefox address bar when a report is generated. I think it's only internal now, but maybe it will become accessible at some point, although I wonder whether write-access will ever be included since that's problematic for sqlite databases.
Summary:
A useful way Zotero could integrate with other writing/pre-writing/research/presentation tools would be to add the following:
1. A way to easily throw an existing snapshot or attachment to an external program.
2. A way to 'replace' that web snapshot/attachment with the new version, preserving important Zotero stuff (ideally: tags, collections, children, relationships, attachments, creation date and even child notes created by Z's builtin editor).
3. Ideally, a keyboard shortcut to make it easy to begin a new such "external note" from within Zotero.
This would make it easier for Zotero to cooperate (on the receiving end) with outliners, HTML (even XML?) editors, mind mapping programs, or charting applications, anything that can generate a 'view' that Zotero can store.
To add my two cents, I would like to use Freemind to map not only my writing projects but also my notes on the various sources I'll integrate into the final project. It would be extremely useful to have Zotero reference these mindmaps and perhaps even to be able to index them. I would also liek to be able to draw on Zotero for introducing properly cited material in the mindmap. And, as long as I'm dreaming, it woul be great to be able to copy the cited passages, put them in a Word document and preserve the citation information.
-Notes in Zotero can be exported to Freemind, but retain a link so that changes in notes in Freemind would be updated in Zotero's corresponding note and vice versa.
-Exporting freemind notes that are linked to Zotero would generate automatic citations according to the style chosen, such as MLA. If the export was to Openoffice it would generate footnotes or end notes for the citations as required by the style.
In this way Freemind would become an outliner for Zotero notes.
Freemind would help me moving inside the data.
To achieve this goal I didn't need to modify my data with freemind nor syncing them.
I used the superb work done with timeline to add a freemind integration.
This integration is based on the Freemind flash viewer: http://www.efectokiwano.net/mm/
Right now, it's just a proof of concept, screenshot available here: http://labebda.free.fr/PoC.png
It just displays all the items in the library. What needs to be done is... everything.
I would like to use the collections as node of my mind map, items as children of the nodes, display tags as items attributes, etc...
But maybe it's not the best way to display Zotero content : any better ideas ?
PS: of course this new function dumps the data in an xml file (just like timeline) that is used right now for the viewer but it can also be used directly under Freemind...
- Frank
- There's already functionality for selecting an item in Zotero via a zotero://select link, e.g. zotero://select/items/6023. (This is currently limited to local itemIDs, but we'll be switching to a global URI system soon.) I'm not sure what would be involved in making zotero:// links works in external programs. Firefox obviously has a way to take over existing protocols (to make itself the default browser), but the zotero:// protocol handler might need to be registered with the OS somehow first... Alternatively this could probably happen through http://zotero.org URLs that a Zotero-enabled Firefox handled in a special way.
- What would probably be more useful would be an API for external apps to actually communicate with Zotero rather than just trigger one-way select events. This would likely use an internal web server similar to the SOAP server used for word processor integration. We hope to offer such functionality eventually, but unfortunately to be useful it would require abstracting much of the internal data API, so it's no small feat...
- Laurent: That proof-of-concept looks great. I'd definitely be interested in seeing more of it. If you want to post a note and/or some code on the dev list, you may also find other people willing to get involved.
All I did was copying/replacing Timeline by Freemind :), so the modification is a little bit raw...
I also modified the html file provided by the freemind flash viewer (hardcoded the call of the flashobject: no need to test for IE).
As I told in my previous post, translation of the zotero structure to the freemind one needs to be studied. Right now chrome\content\zotero\xpcom\freemind.js is just like the timeline.js but modified to output a freemind xml file.
As I don't have a deep knowledge in zotero API, I'm not fluent in using it, maybe someone else can help. I'll try the google group.
Thanks again, and wait and see...
I use both Zotero and Freemind, what i would love to able to do is have all off my Zotero items appear in Freemind under there own node maybe called Zotero Items and then be able to drag copies of these items into other parts of the mind map. That way i can link other new ideas with the sources that inspired them.
Would be nice if the Freemind Node that the Zotero item was placed under could also be represented back in Zotero perhaps as a tag or something like that.
Thanks again
Had a bit more time to have a look at this and come up with these thoughts
Free mind does not seam to have any way of addressing a dynamic data source so i think fully linking Zotero and Freemind together is quite a way off, however i dont think it would be hard to create an export function in Zotero to be import into FreeMind.
FreeMind files are XML and with quite a simple layout.
eg,
<map version="0.8.0">
<!-- To view this file, download free mind mapping software FreeMind from http://freemind.sourceforge.net -->
<node TEXT="Zotero References">
<node TEXT="Title of Node">
<node TEXT="title of an embedded node"></node>
</node>
<node LINK="http://www.google.com" TEXT="Link to google"></node>
<node TEXT="information attached as free text">
<hook NAME="accessories/plugins/NodeNote.properties">
<text>Free text here</text>
</hook>
</node>
</node>
</map>
Perhaps an extra function like the report.js could be made that would export a correctly formatted file could be made?
If so i would suggest that the title of the article be used as the node title, the authors combined names used as another node title, with a hyperlink that can be clicked on to bring up the report for that entry in Zotero. Might also be cool to have a complete citation attached as a note to the Authors node.
I think the file layout for that would look something like this,
<map version="0.8.0">
<!-- To view this file, download free mind mapping software FreeMind from http://freemind.sourceforge.net -->
<node TEXT="Zotero References">
<node TEXT="Paper Title">
<node LINK="http://link to Zotero report here " TEXT="Authors Names">
<hook NAME="accessories/plugins/NodeNote.properties">
<text>Full details from Zotero here</text>
</hook>
</node>
</node>
</node>
</map>
My coding skills are not up to implementing this though :(
What do people think??
The link in the opposite sense (from Zotero to Freemind) can be already done with the tab Attachments->Add->Link to file. This opens a specific file in Freemind. An improvement for that would be opening a specific node in the Freemind graph. This needs two changes: 1) that Freemind accepts a specific node as a parameter in the command line (which I think it does not support yet but would be easy). 2) a text field in Zotero to specify extra parameters when opening the file linked.
I think that this small changes are useful for the integration with many other applications (OpenOffice for example) and they can be easy to implement.
P.S. While freemind is great, it is not without its glitches.
However, currently FreeMind Scholar does not directly support Zotero but only BibTeX. If anybody here wants to help us to integrate FreeMind with Zotero... contact us :-).
FreeMind Scholar URL: http://sciplore.org/software/freemind_scholar/
Best,
Jöran
My use case is the following. When I have a new research project, on a first stage I gather information all around the world. For this task I use zotero. I attach files, make notes to the entry,... In the next stage of the research project, I evaluate the information I gathered according different questions I have to answer to fullfill the research task. For this part of the work, freemind is my favorite application.
What I'm missing, is a kind of freemind-zotero plugin (like the zotero word or openoffice plugin) where I have the possiblity to add citations to references to the single freemind node, to fix the original source of my writen statement. This plugin should also make a "Literature node" into the mindmap where the cited references are listed. Ideally a direct link to the corresponding zotero database entry should be included too.
A second use case for me is (as mentioned previously) copy-paste or export option for zotero entries as a mindmap. Perhaps the title as the central node. Does such an export filter exist meanwhile?
A third use case, also mentioned previously would be to directly link from a freemind mindmap to a single zotero database entry. Using syncing and the zotero-server library this works using the entry on the zotero-server (normal http link in freemind).
I do not know, whether freemind_scholar could be used (or extendend to work) as such a freemind-zotero plugin, I mentioned in my first use case. I think, it would be very usefull.
your right. Some information I found on the Freemind Scholar page. And your right also, that all tools are opensource and free to use. According the Freemind Scholar page, Jabref is actually supported and Zotero not. Zotero support is only planned.
Concerning the freemind-zotero plugin. I'm not looking for the quick-copy possibilty to import to freemind a node containg a hand-made literature listing. I'm looking for a plugin, where I'm able to make in-text citations on different nodes, as it works for word or openoffice and the function which gather all in-text citations in the mindmap to automatically generate a well formated bibliography (as a separate node in the mindmap).
Concerning the direct export option for zotero entries into freemind format. It's clear that zotero is no mindmapping software. But for me it would be usefull if I could simple drag an item to a freemind mindmap to have the same item in a structure form in the mindmap. At the moment I can drag&drop formated output according a special style. That is not what I want. Or according some export formats. But I do not like the bibtex @ and the { in my mindmap. A simple tree-structered view of all fields of the entry, that's what I want in my mindmap.
In any case, this would require FreeMind Scholar to be able to accept dropped/pasted formats & it isn't clear to me what those formats are (if any even exist).Again, you should refer to FreeMind Scholar support on this issue. From their documentation, it appears that you can import a BibTeX file into FMS & that this doesn't pollute your tree with BibTeX markup.
You wrote:
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...I'm looking for a plugin, where I'm able to make in-text citations on different nodes,...
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We will implement that as soon as possible (with Zotero support)
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.... to automatically generate a well formated bibliography (as a separate node in the mindmap).
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That's a nice idea but I think we will not implement that very soon, since other features have a higher priority for us.
Anyway, we appreciate any kind of feedback and information about use cases (how do you use mind maps and reference managers in your daily work). It would be great if you could use our contact form or email adress http://www.sciplore.org/contact_en.php for further suggestions :-).
Best,
Jöran
Import of PDF bookmarks also has improved and as before BibTeX keys are automatically assigned to nodes if the node links to a PDF which is also linked from your bibliographic database.
Website: http://www.sciplore.org/software/sciplore_mindmapping/
best,
jöran