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Tracking changes on maps

Elisey C. shared this question 22 months ago
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Good afternoon!

How can I set up some kind of tracking of recent changes in maps. For example: I have a map with projects on my server and I have added a few more blocks. My colleague looks at the map after my changes and can't find them. Somehow you can make them stand out automatically.

Replies (4)

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Nick D.
MindManager Expert
● 21 months ago

I am pretty sure that MindManager for Windows does not keep any modification history in the topics or the map, so other platforms probably won't although I could be wrong about that.

Without any automatic feature, there are a couple of manual methods in MindManager for Windows that you could consider:

  • Maintain a "log" topic in the map. Each time you make a significant update, add a line to the topic notes of the log topic so that others can refer to it. Or,
  • When you update a topic, add a Comment to it from the Review tab. Other users can click through the comments to see which topics have changed and read a comment about the change. From time to time you may need to clear out old comments to keep the map clean.

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Alex G.
MindManager Expert
● 21 months ago

Another option is to create a text tag with the editing date as the label (along with optionally a different colour for each day), and apply this to topics as you add or change them. Your colleague can then simply filter the map to find the relevant topics. When he or she has finished they can delete the tag from Map Index and the map.

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Alex G.
MindManager Expert
● 21 months ago

Going back to Nick's suggestion regarding using the Comment option, you could also set up your editing session as a review. This will automatically add a comment to all new and edited topics, and a distinctive fill colour to new topics only as well as to new topic note text (you can change these options under Settings in the Tracking tab on the Review ribbon).

When you have finished, end the review, save the map and send it to your colleague. They can filter the map to show all commented topics. When they have finished they can filter the map again to show all commented topics, right click one of the comments and then delete them all.

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Nick D.
MindManager Expert
● 21 months ago

Thanks Alex, good suggestions. The workflow for tracking change in multi-user environments is non-trivial. Individually, people are interested in what is new since they last looked, which will be different for different people. If a map is edited by multiple users, it could get chaotic pretty fast. A last-modified date written to topics would be a great help. In the meantime it could be better to have a regime of central publishing of a map with a fixed version number, and a "what's new" delta between versions.

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Alex G.
MindManager Expert
● 21 months ago

Hi Nick, I agree that this approach of the original author using the review option could get messy in a multi-user environment, especially as some of the Settings options under Tracking seem to behave in strange ways. In this case though it might just work, especially if there really is only one colleague involved.

Ultimately, however, MindManager really needs a last-modified date option along the lines of your suggestion. This would open up a number of potential uses, especially if this date (along with start and due dates, etc) could be made available mathematically in topic properties and SmartRules.

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Andreas L.
MindManager Expert
● 21 months ago

Hi Nick and Alex,

I'm using the Review function in the Review tab.

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It's important that everybody activates the settings first.

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Changes will be tracked as comments after that.

Comments can be filtered by authors and dates in the Power-Filter


That's a great function and I truly hope that it will be updated very soon. Its necessary


Best regards,

Andreas

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Sven L.
Contributor
● 20 months ago

Hello everyone!

For me, this function is not sophisticated just yet. It only tracks new Paths/Blocks and does not track “text changes” or reorganisation of the Path. In addition, I am missing that I can set a password to force the function "Review on", as it exists in Word. Now I can hardly send my colleges the map, without fearing that I didn’t realise "bad or wrong" changes had been made.


If I am wrong with any statements, I would be delighted to hear any solutions.

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Andreas L.
MindManager Expert
● 20 months ago

Hi Sven,

thank you. I didn't know that changes in text are not tracked.

What changes are your colleagues making?

Do you know the "Content Control Settings"? Maybe this can support you.

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Alex G.
MindManager Expert
● 21 months ago

Hi Andreas,

Yes, as I said in my response to Nick, I think this works best in a small group environment with a small number of users. However, as you indicate, everyone has to set up the Review options properly.

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