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Inspiration 7, the latest upgrade to the popular mind-mapping program, was launched in early September, and features a host of productivity improvements and valuable new features that will be appreciated by new and experienced users alike.

In this first look at Inspiration 7 from Inspiration Software, we will examine some of the most notable new features of the program and explain their significance to business users.

Improved user interface

Inspiration 7 features a slick, new user interface that feels fresh and more creative than previous versions. The program’s toolbar is rendered in a rounded bevel that is eye-catching and functional, and it contains a set of context-sensitive icons that are simple and easy to use. Inspiration Software has made several improvements to the user interface that should significantly increase your productivity. Most notably, the formatting toolbar at the bottom of the screen now contains text formatting tools that are similar to other Windows programs (for adjusting fonts and text styles). In previous versions, you had to access these features via the drop-down menu on the toolbar, or use a right-click command. Inspiration 7’s seamless integration of these features into the toolbar is a real click-saver.

Better integrated notes in diagram view

Inspiration has always allowed you to add notes to symbols in your Inspiration diagrams. Inspiration 7 now includes a notes toolbar icon, so you can add a note with a single click; this is a big productivity improvement over previous versions of the program. When you click on this icon, a colored window that looks something like a Post-it note pops up near the selected symbol. You can then type in your notes, format them with text styles, change the note color and even place a graphic image into your notes. Notes can be dragged to different positions on the screen and resized as needed. There’s also a minimize button on the notes window, which hides the note; a notes icon then appears above and to the right of the selected symbol. This enhanced notes icon is more intuitive than the tiny red square used in previous versions to indicate that a symbol has a note attached to it. The new icon is also easier to click, because it’s about twice as large as the red square was.

Improved outline view

I’ve always been a big fan of Inspiration’s powerful outlining tool, which I’ve used to brainstorm and write numerous articles, speeches and business plans. The biggest change to the outline view in Inspiration 7 is the addition of the “selection control column,” a gray vertical bar that runs along the left side of the outline view. It contains icons that allow you to quickly and easily expand or contract outline branches, as well as show or hide notes attached to points within your outline. These new outline management tools are more intuitive than in earlier versions of Inspiration, and really enhance the functionality of Inspiration 7.

A spell checker icon has been added to the outline toolbar as well.

Multiple levels of undo

With Inspiration 7, the program adds support for multiple levels of undo that are common in the other office productivity applications. It even supports the CONTROL-Z command, which is the standard keyboard shortcuts for this function in most Windows programs. This feature enables you to quickly and easily experiment with different diagram layouts, symbol fonts, colors and other options, and should be especially valuable to new Inspiration users.

Enhanced hyperlinking capabilities

Inspiration 6 supported hypertext linking from symbols to Web page URLs. This feature has been expanded into Inspiration 7 to include other types of files, including e-mail messages, files and other Inspiration to document files. This makes it easy to employ an Inspiration diagram as the a knowledge base – a collection of resources and information about a particular topic. Users can click on underlined text within a symbol to “drill down” to additional information – whether those resources are located on a Web page, within a document on your computer or your company’s network or within the text of an e-mail message you’ve received. Inspiration 7’s enhanced linking capabilities should be appreciated by students, writers and researchers, because this feature makes it easy to cite sources and refer to additional information outside of the diagram.

Conclusion

I’ve been a user of Inspiration for Windows ever since Inspiration Software ported it over from the Macintosh platform many years ago. In my opinion, Inspiration 7 represents the biggest upgrade to this program ever. Its developers have added valuable new functionality to the program and made some features easier to use. The new interface is easier and more intuitive than ever before. And the developers have paid attention to adopting ad hoc “standards” like CTRL-Z for undo and CTRL +/- for zooming in and out of your diagram (common to many graphics software programs).

Based on only a few hours of playing with Inspiration 7, I’m impressed, and look forward to learning more about its many enhancements and improvements!

A trial version of Inspiration 7 can be downloaded from the company’s Web site. The full version of the program (Mac and Windows versions) costs $69; an upgrade version (for owners of previous versions of Inspiration) is also available for $39.95.

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