bubbl.us – Flowchart, mind map Web 2.0 application
Bubbl.us allows you to easily create a presentation-quality mind map of your thoughts. Here’s a demonstration that I whipped up quickly to show what a backup script would capture.
This is a screenshot of making the mind map.
Bubbl.us particularly excels at showing how things are organized in a hierarchy. Using Adobe Flash and AJAX, you can easily move entries around to where you want them. The simplicity of bubbl.us is really what sells the product. You can use keyboard shortcuts (Press ‘Enter’ to create something of a lower hierarchy and ‘Tab’ to create something on the same level.) or hover your mouse over any item to find out more information about it from the friendly help section in the bottom right corner of the screen. The site is also conscientious about the value of your screen space and allows you to maximize everything, getting rid of their logo, a space on the right that lists your saved images, and the help in the right corner with the click of a button in the top-right corner of the workspace.
One of the real strengths of this web app is that it allows collaboration. You can share files in read-only or full-access mode which would allow people to see your image on bubbl.us and with the latter, make changes. Getting away from just the application, you can also export your file to HTML, an image, or an XML file. The XML file would be mainly used for importing your data into other sheets on bubbl.us. The HTML page can be used to summarize your hierarchy, it doesn’t look quite as impressive but is still a worth-while function (with optional colors). You can see a screenshot below or the actual file.
In a more impressive fashion, you can export to an image. You have the choice of PNG or JPG formats. This looks much better than the screenshot that I took of it above.
With effects like shadowing and an explosion when a bubble is deleted, the presentation is top-notch. You can also turn off these effects showing that the developers thought things through and value performance above presentation. If you need to present a hierarchy or are having problems getting thoughts down on paper, bubbl.us might just make that process easier and better looking.
Check out bubbl.us.
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