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Mind map with Ajax

Hi everyone,

I am new to Ajax and have been fascinated by the possibilities available with JavaScript and XML. More specifically, I am interested in mind mapping and would like to know how to actually write the code in Ajax to implement a mind mapping application such as MindMeister.

I have read through lots of forums, books and articles on Ajax but did not find anything useful so far to help me out.

Ideally, I would like to use PHP on the server-side, JavaScript on the client-side and XML to make the server request and also store the mind maps. The path to the mindmaps stored in the XML document will be saved in a MySQL database.

So I would appreciate any kind of help/resources (tips, codes) to develop a mind mapping tool using Ajax.

Thanks,
John.
Jun 28 '08 #1
3 4155
gits
5,390 Expert Mod 4TB
wooow ... that will be quite a task ;) ... but it will be possible, even when ajax has nearly nothing to do with that except that you could use it for the load/save actions but every other thing is more something that is called DHTML :) ... so i think you would need some things that represents your application-layers.

1. a kind of 'Widget-Framework' that handles some shapes (basic outlines and attributes) - mainly these are divs with some css and/or images that are dragable, clickable, editable etc. that is not a very difficult task ...

2. the most complicated thing from my point of view would be the lines/arrows to graphically connect the shapes ... javascript has no drawing capabilities ... but you may consider SVG for all that or find something to 'emulate' line-drawing

3. the widgets have to be connected to a logic that represents all actions in a programmatic way ... so that an object handles its attributes, states, connections etc. and you may save it somehow through making XMLHttpRequests (=ajax)

4. certainly i forgot something to tell at the moment regarding this complex matter :)

i hope i could show you the complexity of such a webbased tool that needs such heavy graphics-support ... but, and i will repeat it, it is not impossible. just post back in case you need more support or contributions in case you start this as a project.

kind regards
Jun 29 '08 #2
Thanks for the reply mate.
I realise the difficulty ;)

Do u hav any code examples (I am more familiar with PHP, MySQL, Javascript, XML and DHTML) or links so I can understand better the following in steps :

1) How to draw the different shapes and lines and add text inside the shapes?
2) How to drag and drop the shapes and lines while ensuring that the text moves with the shape?
3) How to connect the nodes?
4) How to save a new mindmap and open an existing one?

Regards,
John.

wooow ... that will be quite a task ;) ... but it will be possible, even when ajax has nearly nothing to do with that except that you could use it for the load/save actions but every other thing is more something that is called DHTML :) ... so i think you would need some things that represents your application-layers.

1. a kind of 'Widget-Framework' that handles some shapes (basic outlines and attributes) - mainly these are divs with some css and/or images that are dragable, clickable, editable etc. that is not a very difficult task ...

2. the most complicated thing from my point of view would be the lines/arrows to graphically connect the shapes ... javascript has no drawing capabilities ... but you may consider SVG for all that or find something to 'emulate' line-drawing

3. the widgets have to be connected to a logic that represents all actions in a programmatic way ... so that an object handles its attributes, states, connections etc. and you may save it somehow through making XMLHttpRequests (=ajax)

4. certainly i forgot something to tell at the moment regarding this complex matter :)

i hope i could show you the complexity of such a webbased tool that needs such heavy graphics-support ... but, and i will repeat it, it is not impossible. just post back in case you need more support or contributions in case you start this as a project.

kind regards
Jul 2 '08 #3
gits
5,390 Expert Mod 4TB
Thanks for the reply mate.
I realise the difficulty ;)

Do u hav any code examples (I am more familiar with PHP, MySQL, Javascript, XML and DHTML) or links so I can understand better the following in steps :

1) How to draw the different shapes and lines and add text inside the shapes?
you could make divs that has a background-image that outlines your shape - that's the easiest way ... or have a look at SVG. onclick you may append a new div and add some text to it ... that's quite common DHTML

2) How to drag and drop the shapes and lines while ensuring that the text moves with the shape?
implement the drag/drop handlers (basically you need to use the mousedown, mousemove, mouseup-events) to the 'shape'-div ... all contained elements will be moved with the parent div

3) How to connect the nodes?
unless using SVG or CANVAS i cannot think of a good solution currently. horizontal and vertical lines could be simulated with a div that has a width or height of 1px.

4) How to save a new mindmap and open an existing one?
you don't save an image but the resulting javascript code to reproduce the map when loading. you may do that with an ajax-call that saves the js-objects to a database from where it could be retrived for loading ... when loading just eval the responseText and the application-framework creates the loaded map again.

Regards,
John.
Jul 2 '08 #4

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