Macintosh

News Flash: As of version 1.0.40 beta, Freeplane now has full support for Mac OS X. This page will be revamped shortly to cover the new version. What follows only applies to older versions: 

Here are some tips for Macintosh users who'd like to test Freeplane. As the program advances from "beta" toward a full, official 1.x release, Freeplane is becoming friendler for "the rest of us" to use.

Freeplane on Mac OS X

The steps below have been tested under Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger," and should work on Leopard (OS X 10.5) and Snow Leopard (10.6). Your results and comments are welcome here on the Talk:Macintosh discussion page.

Download

Visit the Freeplane Project page at SourceForge, and click on the green "Download Now" button to get the latest version. As of this writing the current (beta) version is freeplane_bin-1.0.38.zip

Freeplane is currently available as a .zip file rather than a Mac-style .dmg file. Download the .zip file to your Desktop or Download folder, or wherever you normally store downloaded files.

If it takes more than 30 seconds for the download to begin, you may need to click on the link which says "Please use this direct link".

Install

When the download is complete, find the downloaded .zip file and double-click its icon to "unzip" it. This will create a new folder with a name such as "freeplane-1.0.38" (depending on the version number). Move this folder into your Applications folder. You may now delete the downloaded .zip file.

Run

Start the Freeplane application from a Terminal window. To open Terminal, start from Finder, pull down the Go menu, choose Utilities, find the Terminal icon and double-click it.

Enter the following three lines into the Terminal window, one line at a time, pressing the Return key at the end of each line (you may Copy these lines from this web page and Paste them into the Terminal window):

  cd /Applications/freeplane-1.0.38/
  ./freeplane.sh

After a short delay you should see Freeplane's logo appear on a "splash screen." Otherwise, if you've downloaded a Freeplane version other than 1.0.38, you'll need to substitute the appropriate version number on the first line entered into Terminal.

This start-up process will be simplified when a Mac-specific version of Freeplane is released. Until then, advanced users may employ methods such as AppleScript or Platypus. More details are available on the Talk:Macintosh discussion page.

If you're an advanced user and want to use symbolic links or an OS X alias, there's a related issue detailed in this Forum thread.

Usage

Freeplane menus appear at the top of its own window, rather than at the top of the Desktop like normal Mac programs. This makes Freeplane usage identical under Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Keyboard shortcuts also default to Windows and Linux conventions, generally using the "control" key instead of the Apple (Command or cloverleaf) key. It's easy to change most keyboard shortcuts, though, by holding down the "control" key while clicking the corresponding menu item. This brings up a dialog in which you can enter whatever key combination you like.

Most Mac users will need to change the shortcut for inserting a child node. Mac keyboards generally lack an "Insert" key, so you'll want to assign another key (such as "tab") for this, under the Insert menu.

Quit

To exit Freeplane, pull down its File menu and choose Exit. This should return you to the Terminal window, which you can Quit in the normal way.

Future Enhancements

As more Mac users discover Freeplane, features will be included to make the program more Mac-friendly. Read more and add your two cents on the Talk:Macintosh discussion page.