Hi,
Today I released the third version of an Addon that shows tutorials in Freeplane. It has some interesting features. Please install it, so you can see where I am aiming to (or what this development is about.)
I tried to install it and it gave me "Installation cancelled. Current Freeplane version 1.9.7 is too old." So I went to FP update and it says that 1.9.7 is the latest version in the Update Check Dialog.
Am I missing something?
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First of all, this is amazing @edo_f ! Great job :D I think this is very much the way for the onboarding to exist. Though since this occupies the same space as the formatting panel as well as the other tabs, doing a tutorial for that section of freeplane might be hard. Maybe a way to undock this to its own window could solve that. Pretty darn advanced and I love that the current features tutorial cleverly shows the features too 😊
I'll start my feedback with "show me in the menu" is slightly unintuitive. I thought my menus got bugged but turns out I need to click "Close Menu" first. I think the reason is the user's eye is pulled into two different directions: the highlighted menu vs ToM panel, so it's not obvious that you need to click the close menu again, as the user isn't really looking at it.
I think clicking anything or pressing anything inside freeplane should automatically execute the action of the highlighted menu function. Or maybe just an automatic timer or showing it for 2 seconds then closing the menu automatically.
Select nodes doesn't work for me in the "bug tutorial" not sure if that's the bug you we're talking about? No "bug report" really showed up for me. The move nodes execute button worked fine for me actually.
Hopefully a way to make the size of the image "fit" the screen space could be integrated in the future? I think that could open up lots of options for the images we can use. Also, are videos supported? I was thinking maybe a looping 3 sec mp4 clip? GIF's are usually 5-10 times larger than the average mp4 of the same content, so video support could mean lighter tutorial maps.
I think there should be also a Previous Page button. And Stop Tutorial should let you go back to the "Choose the tutorial" menu instead of closing the entire Tutorial panel, then maybe rename it as "Change Tutorial". I don't think there's much value in closing the tutorial tab as the user can just change tabs or minimize the panel anyway.
Other than that, this is great. Looking forward to tinkering with this soon! Do you have any other resources to show how a tutorial can be made? I've seen your unlisted video regarding this but I unfortunately couldn't make out what you're saying from the background noise :(
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Hi,
I'm glad to read that you like it. It's still in WIP stage.
I'm not at my computer right now. But I think I have a newer version in my comouter that sokves some of the points you are mentioning. @quickfold gave me some feedback and ideas that I included.
Later today or maybe tomorrow I will look at the last version I have and answer your post innmore detail.
bye,
edo
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Hi @ rexelbartolome,
I uploaded the last version that I have to its Github repository (v0.0.4).
It can be found in the releases page
I don't remember if all the changes are reflected in the tutorial's documentation.
I haven't much time now to respond your post, but I can tell you some information that may be useful:
I did this add-on as a test. To see if such a tool could be made
I put the panel in the Tool panel, because I wanted to learn to use that panel. Also because I thought the tutorial would be to teach about another things and not (only) to learn to use Freeplane. For example to learn how to use a map or a certain add-on.
It is posible to put the tutorial in its own window or panel.
in the meantime Dimitry added the css functionality and I left developing this add-on and returned to the MarkdownHelper add-on where I added a window that shows a preview from the map as a Markdown document. What is nice in it is that it takes the css configuration from a user defined style and it uses as the preview panel style. I wanted to put the same logic in the tutorial add -on ( I wanted to ask @dpolivaev to create an api to get the css form an userdefined style, but first I wanted to understand it well and haven't had so much spare time)
I received no feedback till now, so I thought no one was interested in it and I left it in ice for a time
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Wow, that's crazy! I can't believe it's gone unnoticed, I personally think it's fantastic and hopefully becomes added to Freeplane as a native thing rather than an add-on :D Please take your time regarding my other questions, I won't be able to touch documentation stuff in the mean time anyway, just been reading the documentation quadrant that @quickfold shared.
I also realize what you mean by teaching how to use a map, it could be an awesome way to showcase a template mindmap where there's already a bunch of conditional stuff and scripts setup with it, kind of like a Trello board with scripts.
Knowing that the window can be undocked is great!
I had a hard time understanding what you said regarding CSS but once I saw the gifs of Markdown Helper, I understand it better now :) So this is what's going to be used to build those tutorials right? This also works in conjunction with the current github documentation, since that also uses markdown. Very exciting! 😁
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hopefully becomes added to Freeplane as a native thing rather than an add-on
I don't think so. In my opinion Add-ons are a great way to add functionalities to Freeplane without abusing from @dpolivaev's time.
Dimitry has told us how he has to prioritize his time and correcting bugs and assuring Freeplane's stability comes always first. Having a simple Freeplane base program helps to this. Anything that tends to be more specific should be considered as an add-on (again, that's my opinion).
I have the feeling that helping in the central development of Freeplane can be more complicated. Starting by helping in the development of add-ons can be less stressful:
you learn about the internal structure of Freeplane without messing with it
if you suddenly can't continue helping, then it is just an add-on that stays unfinished, not the central program
In the last case, is Dimitry who will have to handle with the new functionalities and take care of them in the future and surely that can become overwhelming.
In my opinion, if we look the current status of the Freeplane team, where Dimitry is almost alone dealing with the base program, the future development of Freeplane should be based in a stable central program and a powerful API.
This way Dimitry has the possibility to decide if a new asked feature should be part of Freeplane in the near future (gifting his time to it) or to ask the interested community to add this feature as a new Add-on.
Markdown Helper: So this is what's going to be used to build those tutorials right?
Yes. That's why I jump from coding in one Add-on to the other and back. and both are still unfinished ;)
I want to add that I do these add-ons in my spare time and mostly because I have fun solving the problems that they involve. They are a kind of Sodokus puzzles to me.
I have learned a lot in the meantime, about Groovy and about Freeplane, but I have no formal programming education. Java is still kind of black magic to me.
cheers,
edo
Last edit: Edo Frohlich 2022-02-27
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Ohhh I see, I never really thought about it that way but yeah it does make sense. I have no clue regarding API's and software development and stuff 😅 But I guess it's kind of like how in Blender there's lots of powerful add-ons that aren't necessarily built inside the program but instead just comes pre-added or pre-installed when you install the base program, so you just need to enable them if you need their functionality (or sometimes if the addon is well maintained, it's pre-enabled already). I guess that's more close to what I imagine this could be. Looking forward to the development of both of them.
Cheers! 😊
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I like the add-on too. I think it works better as add-on than as a part of the core Freeplane because it uses proprietary styles in mind map and there can be independent modifications in both the format and the content. However we can think about distributing it with Freeplane. I have submitted a PR fixing an issue on MacOS.
Regards, Dimitry
👍
1
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I also agree on having new functionality be put into add-ons in cases where integration with current UI is not essential. There is a lot of improvement that could be made in making add-ons work more easily with FP, with a goal of having them install/update/etc. more like browser extensions.
I'll mention that there is actually a lot of information in the FP documentation (across all of its locations) about APIs. I don't know enough about APIs to help much with it, but that might be a good project for someone who is more knowledgeable about it or who wants to help with a more manageable chunk of documentation.
👍
1
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Hi,
Today I released the third version of an Addon that shows tutorials in Freeplane. It has some interesting features. Please install it, so you can see where I am aiming to (or what this development is about.)
The repo can be found in GitHub
And the addon file can be found in the releases page
Instructions:
All other information is contained in the tutorial itself.
Please comment back. Any feedback is welcome and appreciated.
bye,
edo
edit: link to file now points to latest version
Last edit: Edo Frohlich 2022-02-26
an image
I tried to install it and it gave me "Installation cancelled. Current Freeplane version 1.9.7 is too old." So I went to FP update and it says that 1.9.7 is the latest version in the Update Check Dialog.
Am I missing something?
Not really sure but the latest we have now is 1.9.12 so you can just install it manually from the Files section of Sourceforge.
First of all, this is amazing @edo_f ! Great job :D I think this is very much the way for the onboarding to exist. Though since this occupies the same space as the formatting panel as well as the other tabs, doing a tutorial for that section of freeplane might be hard. Maybe a way to undock this to its own window could solve that. Pretty darn advanced and I love that the current features tutorial cleverly shows the features too 😊
I'll start my feedback with "show me in the menu" is slightly unintuitive. I thought my menus got bugged but turns out I need to click "Close Menu" first. I think the reason is the user's eye is pulled into two different directions: the highlighted menu vs ToM panel, so it's not obvious that you need to click the close menu again, as the user isn't really looking at it.
I think clicking anything or pressing anything inside freeplane should automatically execute the action of the highlighted menu function. Or maybe just an automatic timer or showing it for 2 seconds then closing the menu automatically.
Select nodes doesn't work for me in the "bug tutorial" not sure if that's the bug you we're talking about? No "bug report" really showed up for me. The move nodes execute button worked fine for me actually.
Hopefully a way to make the size of the image "fit" the screen space could be integrated in the future? I think that could open up lots of options for the images we can use. Also, are videos supported? I was thinking maybe a looping 3 sec mp4 clip? GIF's are usually 5-10 times larger than the average mp4 of the same content, so video support could mean lighter tutorial maps.
I think there should be also a Previous Page button. And Stop Tutorial should let you go back to the "Choose the tutorial" menu instead of closing the entire Tutorial panel, then maybe rename it as "Change Tutorial". I don't think there's much value in closing the tutorial tab as the user can just change tabs or minimize the panel anyway.
Other than that, this is great. Looking forward to tinkering with this soon! Do you have any other resources to show how a tutorial can be made? I've seen your unlisted video regarding this but I unfortunately couldn't make out what you're saying from the background noise :(
Hi,
I'm glad to read that you like it. It's still in WIP stage.
I'm not at my computer right now. But I think I have a newer version in my comouter that sokves some of the points you are mentioning.
@quickfold gave me some feedback and ideas that I included.
Later today or maybe tomorrow I will look at the last version I have and answer your post innmore detail.
bye,
edo
As user I never thought to feedback to Edo about this addon: compliments I use it every single day.
Thankyou.
SFPC
Sorry I confuse it, It is the MenuO matic.
Great
Hi @ rexelbartolome,
I uploaded the last version that I have to its Github repository (v0.0.4).
It can be found in the releases page
I don't remember if all the changes are reflected in the tutorial's documentation.
I haven't much time now to respond your post, but I can tell you some information that may be useful:
Wow, that's crazy! I can't believe it's gone unnoticed, I personally think it's fantastic and hopefully becomes added to Freeplane as a native thing rather than an add-on :D Please take your time regarding my other questions, I won't be able to touch documentation stuff in the mean time anyway, just been reading the documentation quadrant that @quickfold shared.
I also realize what you mean by teaching how to use a map, it could be an awesome way to showcase a template mindmap where there's already a bunch of conditional stuff and scripts setup with it, kind of like a Trello board with scripts.
Knowing that the window can be undocked is great!
I had a hard time understanding what you said regarding CSS but once I saw the gifs of Markdown Helper, I understand it better now :) So this is what's going to be used to build those tutorials right? This also works in conjunction with the current github documentation, since that also uses markdown. Very exciting! 😁
I don't think so. In my opinion Add-ons are a great way to add functionalities to Freeplane without abusing from @dpolivaev's time.
Dimitry has told us how he has to prioritize his time and correcting bugs and assuring Freeplane's stability comes always first. Having a simple Freeplane base program helps to this. Anything that tends to be more specific should be considered as an add-on (again, that's my opinion).
I have the feeling that helping in the central development of Freeplane can be more complicated. Starting by helping in the development of add-ons can be less stressful:
In my opinion, if we look the current status of the Freeplane team, where Dimitry is almost alone dealing with the base program, the future development of Freeplane should be based in a stable central program and a powerful API.
This way Dimitry has the possibility to decide if a new asked feature should be part of Freeplane in the near future (gifting his time to it) or to ask the interested community to add this feature as a new Add-on.
Yes. That's why I jump from coding in one Add-on to the other and back. and both are still unfinished ;)
I want to add that I do these add-ons in my spare time and mostly because I have fun solving the problems that they involve. They are a kind of Sodokus puzzles to me.
I have learned a lot in the meantime, about Groovy and about Freeplane, but I have no formal programming education. Java is still kind of black magic to me.
cheers,
edo
Last edit: Edo Frohlich 2022-02-27
Ohhh I see, I never really thought about it that way but yeah it does make sense. I have no clue regarding API's and software development and stuff 😅 But I guess it's kind of like how in Blender there's lots of powerful add-ons that aren't necessarily built inside the program but instead just comes pre-added or pre-installed when you install the base program, so you just need to enable them if you need their functionality (or sometimes if the addon is well maintained, it's pre-enabled already). I guess that's more close to what I imagine this could be. Looking forward to the development of both of them.
Cheers! 😊
Hello Edo and folks,
I like the add-on too. I think it works better as add-on than as a part of the core Freeplane because it uses proprietary styles in mind map and there can be independent modifications in both the format and the content. However we can think about distributing it with Freeplane. I have submitted a PR fixing an issue on MacOS.
Regards, Dimitry
Fix added in new release:
https://github.com/EdoFro/Freeplane_Tutorial_AddOn/releases/tag/v0.0.5
I also agree on having new functionality be put into add-ons in cases where integration with current UI is not essential. There is a lot of improvement that could be made in making add-ons work more easily with FP, with a goal of having them install/update/etc. more like browser extensions.
I'll mention that there is actually a lot of information in the FP documentation (across all of its locations) about APIs. I don't know enough about APIs to help much with it, but that might be a good project for someone who is more knowledgeable about it or who wants to help with a more manageable chunk of documentation.