Freemind mindmaps are saved as XML files. So it's possible to manage a collection of Freemind mindmaps with a version control system. Here we choose popular Git.
But Freemind mindmap xml file contains attributes like CREATED, MODIFIED which are timestampes. Such timestampes does not make too much sense for a knowledge mindmap, and bring noise to version control.
freemind-mmx solve this issue with a hacked version Freemind.
This project solves the issue through git clean filter. A program is used to apply filters on the mindmap xml file.
- Remove
CREATEDandMODIFIEDnode attributes.- Attribute
IDis also removed. It's not needed when there is no node link in the mindmap.
- Attribute
- Decode unicode characters which are encoded like
找.- This improves the readiblity of mindmap XML file.
It has been verified that Freemind can open the filterred mindmap file well.
echo "*.mm filter=freemind" >> .gitattributes
git config filter.freemind.required true
git config filter.freemind.clean bin/mmclean.tcl
git config filter.freemind.smudge cat
Default filter program is implemented with Tcl - my favourite script language.
My another Freemind related project freefind-plus which focus on Freemind mindmap conversion.