Reorder Marker Groups

Alex G.

MindManager Expert

● 10 days ago

MindManager 24 has the ability to sort tag and icon groups separately alphabetically, both A-Z and Z-A and by topic count number high-low and low-high.

If you can't upgrade there is a workaround but it is laborious and you have to be careful doing it. These are the steps:

In the Map Index, right click on the marker group name that you want to demote in order and copy it.
Right click on the group name and delete it. Remember - if you don't copy it first you won't be able to get the group and all its member markers back after deletion.
Click on the ADD icon at the top of the Index and then click on Paste, The group should reappear at the bottom of either the Tag group or Icon group list respectively.

You should start with the group you want to demote the least. So for example if you have the following groups:

Pears
Apples
Oranges
Bananas

And you wanted to put them in alphabetical order you would move the Oranges to the bottom first, and then Pears.

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william b.

New User

● 10 days ago

Thank you, Alex -- I see now the option to copy it. I will remember it for next time. I'm still using MM 21 because I just use MM on a personal basis and it's gotten quite expensive. If the subscription was in the $60/yr range I'd probably do it.

I did find another clever way to do it that worked very much to my liking. This involves first saving the marker list externally to the MM file you're working on: Design > Theme Organizer > Marker Lists > Add New Marker List > From Current Map.

(1) Navigate to C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mindjet\MindManager\21\Library\ENU\Map Marker Lists -- this is where saved marker lists are stored.
(2) Identify the Map Marker List file that you want to reorder - mine was named "Workpiece Classification.mmms"
(3) I was quite pleased to discover that the .mmms file is, in fact, a zip file.

(4) Make a copy of that file just in case an accident corrupts the one you're working on.
(5) Open the .mmms file with a Zip archive tool. I used 7-zip
(6) In the root of the Zip archive there is a file called Document.xml. Copy this file out of the zip archive to another location.
(7) Open the Document.xml file with a text editor like Notepad++. Make sure you have the XML plugin for Notepad++ because you'll have to pretty-print the XML file in order to work with it.
(8) Inside the XML file you'll find an element tag <ap:IconMarkersSets>;
within that element will be multiple elements called <ap:IconMarkersSet ...>;
within that element you'll find an element called <ap:IconMarkers>; and
within that element you'll find multiple elements called <ap:IconMarker...>
- <ap:IconMarkersSets> is the set of all Marker (Icon) Groups in the Map Index
- <ap:IconMarkersSet> is a single Marker/Icon Group in the Map Index; you'll see the name of the Marker/Icon Group in an element called <ap:Name Name="Importance"/> ("Importance" is the name of one of my marker groups.)
- <ap:IconMarkers> is the set of all Markers/Icon's in a Group
- <ap:IconMarker...> is a single Marker/Icon in the Group; you'll see the name of an individual marker/icon is an element called <ap:Name Name="Very Important"/>

(9) I located the individual <ap:IconMarkersSet>'s that I wanted to move and literally just cut-and-pasted the entire <ap:IconMarkersSet> elements into the order that I wanted them to appear in the Map Index. In other words, reorder the <IconMarkerSet> elements within the <IconMarkerSets> element into the order you want.

(10) Be careful to check/validate that the XML file is still syntactically correct - if you mismatch element tags you're probably hosed.
(11) Save the XML file with the reordered IconMarkersSet elements.
(12) Copy the XML back into the .mmms archive file and you're done.

I was quite happy to find that when I created a blank mindmap, went to the Design tab, selected Theme Organizer drop down, selected Marker Lists, chose my custom marker list "Workpiece Classification" and hit Apply, the ordering of the Icon/Marker groups was the same as the way I ordered them in the XML file. Problem Solved!!!

Although the process I describe above seems very long, it did not take very long to do in real time. The process is long because I've tried to describe it in enough detail so that others can do it successfully.

Thank you, Alex -- I see now the option to copy it. I will remember it for next time. I'm still using MM 21 because I just use MM on a personal basis and it's gotten quite expensive. If the subscription was in the $60/yr range I'd probably do it.

I did find another clever way to do it that worked very much to my liking. This involves first saving the marker list externally to the MM file you're working on: Design > Theme Organizer > Marker Lists > Add New Marker List > From Current Map.

(1) Navigate to C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Mindjet\MindManager\21\Library\ENU\Map Marker Lists -- this is where saved marker lists are stored.
(2) Identify the Map Marker List file that you want to reorder - mine was named "Workpiece Classification.mmms"
(3) I was quite pleased to discover that the .mmms file is, in fact, a zip file.

(4) Make a copy of that file just in case an accident corrupts the one you're working on.
(5) Open the .mmms file with a Zip archive tool. I used 7-zip
(6) In the root of the Zip archive there is a file called Document.xml. Copy this file out of the zip archive to another location.
(7) Open the Document.xml file with a text editor like Notepad++. Make sure you have the XML plugin for Notepad++ because you'll have to pretty-print the XML file in order to work with it.
(8) Inside the XML file you'll find an element tag <ap:IconMarkersSets>;
within that element will be multiple elements called <ap:IconMarkersSet ...>;
within that element you'll find an element called <ap:IconMarkers>; and
within that element you'll find multiple elements called <ap:IconMarker...>
- <ap:IconMarkersSets> is the set of all Marker (Icon) Groups in the Map Index
- <ap:IconMarkersSet> is a single Marker/Icon Group in the Map Index; you'll see the name of the Marker/Icon Group in an element called <ap:Name Name="Importance"/> ("Importance" is the name of one of my marker groups.)
- <ap:IconMarkers> is the set of all Markers/Icon's in a Group
- <ap:IconMarker...> is a single Marker/Icon in the Group; you'll see the name of an individual marker/icon is an element called <ap:Name Name="Very Important"/>

(9) I located the individual <ap:IconMarkersSet>'s that I wanted to move and literally just cut-and-pasted the entire <ap:IconMarkersSet> elements into the order that I wanted them to appear in the Map Index. In other words, reorder the <IconMarkerSet> elements within the <IconMarkerSets> element into the order you want.

(10) Be careful to check/validate that the XML file is still syntactically correct - if you mismatch element tags you're probably hosed.
(11) Save the XML file with the reordered IconMarkersSet elements.
(12) Copy the XML back into the .mmms archive file and you're done.

I was quite happy to find that when I created a blank mindmap, went to the Design tab, selected Theme Organizer drop down, selected Marker Lists, chose my custom marker list "Workpiece Classification" and hit Apply, the ordering of the Icon/Marker groups was the same as the way I ordered them in the XML file. Problem Solved!!!

Although the process I describe above seems very long, it did not take very long to do in real time. The process is long because I've tried to describe it in enough detail so that others can do it successfully.

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Alex G.

MindManager Expert

● 10 days ago

Thanks William.

That's interesting, though it still seems to be too much work!

It could be handy though if it exported the marker count as there still doesn't seem to be a way to do that within MindManager. I couldn't quite tell though from the XML file if it did so - or if does there doesn't seem to be an easy way to extract this.

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william b.

New User

● 10 days ago

It really isn't too much work - you just need to be careful.

From what I can tell, there isn't a lot of useful information in the XML file. There are no sequencing mechanism for markers or marker groups as far as I can tell; sequencing is either a matter of programmatic choice (e.g., priority markers always first) or the sequence in which they appear in the XML file. You could always write a simple script to count the markers within the marker group in the XML file - that might be too much work for too little value, though.

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william b.

New User

● 10 days ago

And I just used the same technique to rearrange markers within an icon-marker group!

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Reorder Marker Groups

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