h-m-m (hackers mind map)

h-m-m (pronounced like the interjection "hmm") is a simple, fast, keyboard-centric terminal-based tool for working with mind maps.

Key bindings

Adding, removing, and editing nodes:

o or enter - create a new sibling to the active node
O or tab - create a new child for the active node
y - yanks (copies) the active node and its descendants
Y - yanks (copies) the descendants of the active node
d - deletes (cuts) the active node and its descendants
D - deletes (cuts) the descendants of the active node
p - pastes as descendants of the active node
P - pastes as siblings of the active node
ctrl+p - appends the clipboard text at the end of the active node's title
e - edits the active node
E - edits the active node, ignoring the existing text

Relative navigating and moving:

h or ← - activate the parent of the previously active node
l or → - activate the middle child of the previously active node
j or ↓ - activate the lower sibling (or the nearest lower node if there's no lower sibling)
k or ↑ - activate the higher sibling (or the nearest higher node if there's no higher sibling)
J - moves the current node down among its siblings
K - moves the current node up among its siblings

Adjusting the view:

c - centers the active node on the screen
C - locks and always keeps active nodes on the center
~ or m - activate the root element
g - goes to the highest element
G - goes to the lowest element
w - increases the maximum node width
W - decreases the maximum node width
z - decreases line spacing
Z - increases line spacing

Collapsing and expanding:

space - toggles the active node
v - collapses everything other than the first-level nodes
b - expands all nodes
1 to 9 - collapse the nth level and expand those before
f - focuses by collapsing all, but the ancestors and descendants of the active node
F - locks focus as the active node changes (try it with the center lock)
i - collapses all the first level items except for the one that contains the active node
I - collapses the children of the active node

Search:

/ - searches for a phrase
n - goes to the next search result
N - goes to the previous search result

Save, export, and quit:

s - saves with the previous file name (or asks for one if there's none)
S - saves with a new file name
x - export as HTML
q - quits (if the changes were already saved)
Q - quits, ignoring the changes

Configuration

You can create an h-m-m.conf file in the same directory as the application and use it to change some or all of the following default values:

max_parent_width = 25
max_leaf_width = 55
line_spacing = 1
initial_depth = 1
active_node_color = "\033[38;5;0m\033[48;5;172m\033[1m"
message_color = "\033[38;5;0m\033[48;5;141m\033[1m"
center_lock = false
focus_lock = false

The colors are ASCII escape codes.

Data format

Mind maps are stored in plain text files (with hmm file extension by default) without metadata. The tree structure is represented by tab indentations; e.g.,

root (level 0)
   item A (level 1)
   item B (level 1)
      item Ba (level 2)
      item Bb (level 2)
      item Bc (level 2)
         item BaX (level 3)
         item BaY (level 3)
      item Bd (level 2)
   item C (level 1)

When you yank (copy) or delete (cut) a subtree, the data will be put into your clipboard with a similar structure, and when pasting, the data will be interpreted as such.

Most mind mapping applications use a similar format for copying and pasting. As a result, if you want to import a map from another application, you can probably select everything in that application, copy it, come to h-m-m, and paste it. The same usually works well when copying from HTML/PDF/Doc lists, spreadsheets (e.g., Calc and Excel), etc.

Installing

h-m-m is a single php file. You can download it from here, or clone it on your computer using git and add a scheduled job to update it once a week.

After downloading or cloning, you can run php h-m-m in your terminal to run the program with a blank map or php h-m-m filename to open an existing file. If you don't already have a php interpreter installed, you would need to install it as well. Note: You don't need to set up a "web server" to run it because it's not a web application, but rather a terminal application that works like those written in Python, Bash, etc.

Optionally, you can make the file executable by running the chmod +x h-m-m in your terminal, and afterward, you can run it as h-m-m filename (assuming that h-m-m is in your path).

In Linux, you need to have xclip, xsel, or wl-clipboard installed as well.

In Arch Linux, you can use the h-m-m-git AUR package to install it.

It's also possible to execute h-m-m through docker (or podman), just run:

# Build the image
docker build -t hmm .

# Run it
docker run --rm -it -v $(pwd):/app/ hmm

Troubleshooting

If it doesn't work, you probably need to install php7.2-mbstring (e.g., sudo apt install php7.2-mbstring in Ubuntu). Replace 7.2 with the version of php installed on your system. Just in case, you can find the version number by running php -v.

In general, upgrading to a newer version of php would help as well; at least 7.4.

Compatibility

I think the method I've used in this program to interact with the terminal emulator is general and standard enough to be cross-platform, but I've developed it in Linux and I don't have any other operating system to test it on. If you run into a problem in Windows or Mac, let me know, especially if you know how to fix it, and I'll try to make it work.

Feedback

Programming is not my career, but rather a hobby, and I developed h-m-m because I wanted to have something like this and couldn't find one. Therefore, what I've done here may have a lot of room for improvement. If you see an embarrassing problem in the program or have an idea for improvement, feel free to contact me; I'd be happy to receive your feedback.

Why php? It's simple: I only have a rusty knowledge of Pascal and a little familiarity with php. I thought about learning another language for this project (Haskell and Go were my top choices), but I didn't have time to do it. I'll probably do it later and convert it into a language I can compile :)

vc0sta/h-m-m