Freemind is a mindmapping program that helps organise thoughts and plans. Like many opensource projects there are two versions, the stable for day to day use and the unstable work in progress version. The latter is not suitable for important work but is a great way to experiment and see what is coming up in the next version.

Make sure the Java Runtime Environment is installed on the computer before running this setup program.

Freemind documents starts like any other mind map with a central theme or idea. Related ideas are represented as branches from this central idea with as many sub topics as required.

Branches and topics can be marked with icons and surrounded with lines to show they are grouped. The topics in branches can be collapsed to stop the map from getting too crowded.

Finished maps can be exported in a variety of formats, including HTML, PDF, JPG and OpenOffice Writer. A full list of new features can be found on the Freemind Wiki.

Freemind 0.9 has a new file format so maps created with this version cannot be opened with the stable Freemind 0.8