Today we released RC3 (Release Candidate) of Docear 1.0 (not yet on the official download page but here in the Blog only). It has one major change compared to previous Docear versions, namely we got rid of the “Incoming” mind map. In the past, most users never really got used to the idea why there was an ‘Incoming’ mind map and a ‘Literature & Annotations’ mind map. Now, there is only the ‘Literature & Annotations’ mind map but it has a special “incoming” node in which new PDFs are added. We hope that this concept is easier to understand. It also means that when you move a PDF from the incoming node to any other node in the mind map, and you create new annotations in the PDF, the new annotations are directly added to the PDF node in the mind map and there won’t be any new node in the incoming node. However, if you prefer the old concept, don’t worry. You can keep your old incoming mind map and use Docear as you were used to be.

Screenshot of the new Docear

When you look at the screenshot you will also realize another change: We made the node-icons context sensitive. Instead of displaying these nasty red arrows for anything that links to something, Docear now displays PDF icons if a node links a PDF, and annotation-icons if the node links to an annotation in a PDF. If a node has some reference data assigned to it, also a new icon is shown. Although this was just a matter of a few hours to implement, we really love the new look and think it’s a huge improvement with respect to usability.

Maybe you realized that in RC2 there were no demo maps. They are now available again with complete new content. Hopefully, there are easier to understand :-).

In addition to these enhancements we did many bug fixes (many thanks to all of you who tested RC2 so thoroughly). For a detailed list of the bug fixes check out GitHub but we think we fixed almost anything you reported.

Download (It’s still an experimental version. Do not use it for productive work. Or make backups regularly!!!)

Windows Installer
Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, SuSE, Red Hat, …)
Mac OS
All OS (all other operating systems supporting Java 1.6 or higher)
Source code


Joeran Beel

Please visit https://isg.beel.org/people/joeran-beel/ for more details about me.

6 Comments

Wincent · 11th September 2013 at 03:27

I can’t launch Docear successfully (I am using Java 1.7).

The log says:

Sep 11, 2013 10:24:58 AM net.sf.jabref.plugin.PluginCore initialize
WARNING: Error in starting plug-in system. Starting without, but some functionality may be missing.
java.io.File

STDOUT: JabRef exception suppressed by Docear: nullSep 11, 2013 10:24:58 AM org.freeplane.core.util.LogUtils info
INFO: class org.freeplane.plugin.workspace.WorkspaceController.addAction(): action workspace.action.project.new not added! (action workspace.action.project.new already registered)
Sep 11, 2013 10:24:58 AM org.freeplane.core.util.LogUtils info
INFO: class org.freeplane.plugin.workspace.WorkspaceController.addAction(): action workspace.action.project.import not added! (action workspace.action.project.import already registered)
Sep 11, 2013 10:24:58 AM org.freeplane.core.util.LogUtils info
INFO: class org.freeplane.plugin.workspace.WorkspaceController.addAction(): action workspace.action.node.open.location not added! (action workspace.action.node.open.location already registered)

STDOUT: Framework launched
STDOUT: REMINDERHOOK: org.freeplane.features.mode.mindmapmode.MModeController@15c7a55Sep 11, 2013 10:24:59 AM org.freeplane.core.util.LogUtils info
INFO: requesting mode: MindMap

GHK · 5th September 2013 at 14:20

Hi,
my enquiry concerns the new Literature & Annotations (L&A) mmindmap and the Demos.
In my new L&A the “Incoming” node does not have any branches leading to other nodes. On opening the MM or refreshing, it seems to load all the documents designated to form the repository. They don’t show up, though. The separate “Incoming” MM (which still exists) shows all documents.

Where do I find the new demo MMs?

Best regards and keep up the good work!

Gerd

    Stefan [Docear] · 6th September 2013 at 16:01

    Hello GHK,

    The monitoring node in your L&A map scans all your PDF files from your literature repositories for new (and unused) annotations. To identify which annotations are already used in your project, it uses all annotations from your other Library nodes on resfresh.
    Since you already have the Incoming map linked in your Docear project, which already contains all (or nearly all) of your PDF annotations, nothing (or nearly nothing) is left to be imported.

    There are two ways to completely switch to the new Monitoring concept:
    * Either you cut all annotations from your Incoming map and paste them to the L&A map, or
    * You delete all nodes in your Incoming map, and import them again, using the monitoring feature of your L&A map.

    Please also note that you need to disable the “Update monitoring folder automatically on opening a mind map” feature in Docear’s preferences (see the “Folder Monitoring” tab). If you leave it enabled, Docear will refresh the Incoming map whenever you open it.

    The demo mind map files are visible when you create a new project. To do so, please use the “Project > Main > Import project” action from the ribbon.

    Thanks for your nice words! If you have any more questions or if you run into any trouble, please let us know, preferably at our support forums: http://www.docear.org/support/forums/

    Best regards,
    Stefan

Rafael · 28th August 2013 at 08:18

I like the new look. The maps and the interface. I used to use the Incoming map but is ok if you think that literature and annotations map is enough. The only think that I am a bit worried is when a map has many branches. The software becomes slow. Is difficult to do pan and Zoom. So if the Incoming node is in the same map that could produce a map with a lot of nodes.
Anyway, thanks for this wonderful program.

    Joeran [Docear] · 29th August 2013 at 11:03

    If you have too many nodes in one mind map (e.g. in the incoming node), you could just select all the PDFs in it, and move them to your temp.mm mind map. then you could open docear a second time, open temp.mm in one instance, and literature & annotations.mm in the other instance and move nodes between the two instances.

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