Text-to-Freemind

A simple text to freemind conversion program

Overview

This program converts tab-indented UTF-8 text files into an XML format suitable for display by Freemind. It was written out of annoyance with the Freemind user interface, and the lack of 'merging' capabilities when collaborating with other people.

Copyright 2006–2017 Wouter Bolsterlee <[email protected]>

This program is distributed under the GPL v2 (or later) license.

Usage

To convert a single text file into a Freemind file, use:

$ text-to-freemind input-file.txt.mm > output-file.mm

You can use it as a filter (using shell pipes) as well:

$ cat some-text-data.mm.txt | text-to-freemind > output-file.mm

A Makefile snippet is also included to convert all *.mm.txt files into their *.mm counterparts. First copy or symlink the makefile, than run make:

$ cp /path/to/text-to-freemind/text-to-freemind.make Makefile
$ make

Alternatively:

$ ln -s /path/to/text-to-freemind/text-to-freemind.make Makefile
$ make

Or execute the makefile directly if you don't want to copy files around:

$ /path/to/text-to-freemind/text-to-freemind.make

Requirements

The conversion program is written in Python (tested with 2.4 and 2.5) and requires an ElementTree implementation. Install python-elementtree or python-celementtree (included in Python 2.5) if you run into programs.

The Makefile snippet obviously depends on the make utility. GNU/Make is known to work.

Issues, problems, and feedback

This program is a quick hack, so don't expect too much of it. If you feel like contacting me with problems or suggestions, please mail me. Thanks.