Flo is a mind mapping application that is focused on building content quickly. It follows the stream of and then allows the user to organize their thoughts into a coherent outline. This outline can then be used to generate various output formats where they can be polished and create full documents.
Flo has many features to help create and organize thoughts so that they can be used productively.
Flo strives to be minimalist and tries to facilitate the dumping of a stream of consciousness into a document.
Flo allows users to organize their thoughts as they please or it supplies a packing method to organize the mind map automatically.
Flo uses the same spell checker and dictionaries as Firefox and Open Office.
Every action is able to be undone or redone.
Any image can be attached to an idea via the "Edit Emblems" dialog.
Flo is a great starting point for content but it is not the end. Documents can be created in Flo and then continued in word processors, and other markup formats such as wikis and docbook.
Flo can save wiki text to the file system. WikiRPC? support is planned so it can save to remote Wikis that support the WikiRPC? 1.0 specification.
Flo can export mind maps to docbook format for easy transformation into print ready documents.
Flo can export a mind map to basic ASCII text with minimal formatting. This allows for easy import into any word processor.
Flo can export images of the mind map to any graphics format that Qt supports. Examples are PNG, BMP and even vector formats like SVG.
Flo can even be used to generate PDF slides for use with a projector or a normal computer screen. Since it is PDF it will look identical on all platforms it is viewed on.
Because Flo is written with the Qt toolkit it can run on various platforms. Currently Flo has only been tested on a few of these platforms.
Flo has been tested on Feisty, Gutsy, Hardy, and Intrepid.
Flo has been tested on Etch, Sid and Lenny.
The XML format is documented and can easily be transformed into other XML formats.
Flo automatically creates auto-save and backup files to keep from loosing data.
Flo has quite a few powerful features to help users organize their ideas.
When Flo starts it provides the options to create new content or to open an existing file.
Flo provides all of the standard editing operations to the user. All of these actions work between different instances of Flo.
Copies currently selected ideas to the clipboard and removes the selected items from the mind map.
Copies currently selected ideas to the clipboard.
Pastes one or more previously copied or cut ideas. These ideas will be free floating and will need to be attached to other ideas as supporting ideas.
Selects all of the ideas for group operations.
Group operations are cut, copy, delete, and the alignment operations.
This button will add a new supporting idea to the currently selected idea.
Pressing this icon will cause the currently selected idea to be deleted.
Each idea can be annotated with a few visual and informational properties to help organize the mind map.
Every idea need to have at least a title. This is the only mandatory field.
There is a choice of three shapes for every node. These shapes can help visually differentiate different ideas and how they support each other. These shapes are also used by the various export formats to generate richer outlines.
Currently Flo differentiates shapes in three categories.
The display font for the idea can be changed to help certain ideas stand out from others. Be careful when sharing documents that the fonts are available on all of the systems that will view the mind maps. Flo includes a small set of fonts so that there are a set of common fonts across different machines.
Each idea has an order relative to its parent. This order can be changed to reorder the items in the exported outlines.
Each idea can have an image attached it. There are built in vector based images but custom bitmap images can be added to the individual mind map.
To add custom bitmaps to the mind map use the "Edit Emblems" dialog. These images are custom to each mind map.
Each idea can be marked with various colors to help visually organize ideas in the mind map.
Every idea can be annotated with Unicode text. This text flags spelling errors automatically. The spell checker/corrector can be invoked by using the right mouse menu.
The mind map can be automatically sorted and arranged so that all nodes are organized and visible.
To help organize parts of the mind map Flo offers a variety of ways to align ideas on the screen.
Selected ideas can be repositioned with the keyboard arrow keys.
Ideas can be be reorganized by re-parenting nodes at will. Each idea save for the root idea can must have exactly one parent.
Ian Reinhart Geiser <geiseri@yahoo.com>