WriteMapper is a new innovative app that integrates the flexible workspace of a mind map with the linear word processing of a markdown editor. While short on features, the app is a successful proof of concept and worth trying, or buying — in a subsequent iteration.
A look at the UI of the mind-mapping/text-editing combo app WriteMapper.
While the idea is not new, I’ve never seen it presented within a single package. Some mind mapping software features easy linking from nodes to screenwriting files in an external app. And just about all mind mappers allow for notes of unlimited length. But WriteMapper offers a full-screen editor that enables all the formatting you would find in any markdown text editor, without having to leave the application.
While it’s not ideal for the heavy formatting requirements of script writing, WriteMapper can smooth the workflow for documents that require brainstorming, intricate structure, and lengthy prose, such as in-depth articles or even novels.
In its current state, WriteMapper frankly is not great at either mind-mapping or prose composition. It’s simply not full-featured. One can’t position map nodes freely, nor automatically adjust them: there’s just a few preset skeletal structures available. Limited, too, are the selections of map colors and formatting, crippling the visual variety that is key to mind mapping.
When one writes text, the app enables only those formats permitted by common Markdown languages, such as bold, italics and a handful of headings. There’s no highlighting, font selection, pre-set tabs, and so on. You’ll wind up exporting your text to a word, book or script processor, making WriteMapper almost beside the point.
But these shortcomings can be fixed, and the developer says they will be. If so, WriteMapper will remove one more impediment to the writer’s pipeline: the necessity of pulling out an entirely new tool when transitioning from brainstorming to outlining, and from outlining to drafting. Empirical evidence has backed up the conventional wisdom that says, each time you put one tool down and pick up a different one, you pay a price in the state of your flow.
As with many books and movies, the concept is solid. The success of the product remains to be seen in its future execution.
