An in-depth TheBrain app-praisal !

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Aug 18, 2014 at 11:02 AM

OutlinerBill wrote:
>Given the complexity of the software and the years of development behind
>it, providing users with export capabilities such as OPML, or even
>directly into other popular mindmapping / concept mapping / outlining
>tools would be a trivial job.. especially considering the enormous
>benefit that would arise in many, many use cases. I can only conclude
>that the reason for this is a conscious strategy and decision to lock-in
>their customers.
> >If I knew that I could easily export my “brain” into other products, up
>to the level of their capabilities, I would happily continue building my
>brain to the level of having it be my primary knowledge management
>system, knkw that I could, for example, export a tagged subset into, for
>example, Mind Manager, iThoughts, Omni Outliner, MS Word, or even Excel
>(providing some rules to direct the info flow according to my needs).
> >As it is, I don’t trust the program and it remains but a peripheral tool
>to my workflows.
>

It’s true that you cannot directly export a Brain as OPML, but I don’t want to leave people with the idea that the Brain uses some sort of proprietary database that locks your information in forever. You can export a Brain in a few different ways if you want to make sure your information is accessible to you should the Brain go away. For instance, you can export a Brain (or any part of one) into a folder system that reflects the hierarchy in the Brain, with each Thought being one folder in the export. Notes and links are included in the export as .html pages. Attachments are not technically exported, since they remain in their original format even when stored in the Brain, but they are included in the folders. You do lose your meta data in the form of tags, etc.

Likewise, you can export a Brain as a web site, which maintains the structure of your Brain.

You can also copy a Brain or any subset of a Brain as text with or without the notes, which can be pasted into a Freeplane or similar mind mapper. You don’t take all your meta data and attachments this way, but you can transfer the hierarchy.

Steve Z.