WiseMapping: More Ajax Mind Mapping
Date : 2008 03 12 Category : Tech & Development
AjaxianWiseMapping is the latest Ajax mind mapping tool developed by Paulo Veiga and three friends.
Wise Mapping is a free web mind mapping tool that leverages the power of Mind Maps mixing new technologies like vectorial languages (SVG and VML) and the power of the whole Web 2.0 concept. The tools uses SVG and VML which allows straightforward vector graphics animation without the need of installing any plug-in.
We asked Paulo about the development experience.
The main challenge was to develop an abstraction layer between SVG and VML (there was no open source framework to do this at the time we started working on the project) in order to support multiple browsers such as IE and Firefox/Opera (some efforts are being made at the moment to support Safari 3.0.4+). Using this layer for the core for the client side, a very intuitive, simple, nice looking, full Drag and Drop enabled graphical mind map editor is provided.
All the UI is powered by Mootools using DWR for the Ajax interaction with a backend made with Java 1.6 with Web Spring for MVC layer and Hibernate.
There have been some reports that VML is broken on IE 8. Hopefully this is a beta 1 bug, as without that legacy support, a bunch of applications (including this one) will not work.
There seem to be many mind mapping tools in Ajax, second only to RSS readers.
