*IS* there a benefit to using mind maps over shapes & stickies?

  • 20 September 2021
  • 1 reply
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I’m brand new here. And just spent 90 painstaking minutes watching various videos and reading endless FAQ help articles, and guessing way too many keyboard functions…. only to find out I’m not crazy… Miro’s mindmap feature is the most rigid thing in existence on Miro. 

 

The fact that you have to choose between vertical OR horizontal, and you can’t have both, just baffles me. Then I was further surprised to learn you cannot convert mindmaps to shapes/stickies and vice versa. But that you can convert shapes to stickies, and back again.

 

So with that out of the way… I have to ask: WHY would anyone use the mindmaps feature?

 

Literally I’m asking is there a benefit (maybe I just haven’t discovered yet??) to using Miro’s mindmaps? Is there a function or feature the mindmaps have that you cannot get/achieve with shapes and stickies?

 

Are there any other really insane limitations I should know about before I waste too much time again?


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@Stephanie Henry - If it helps, you find a list of shortcuts and hotkeys

guessing way too many keyboard functions

  1. the board settings:

    Or F1 (from Windows via a browser - can’t speak to macOS)

  2. The Shortcuts and Hotkeys Help Center article.

  3. Mind map specific shortcuts can be found in the Mind map Help Center article:
     

Then I was further surprised to learn you cannot convert mindmaps to shapes/stickies and vice versa. 

While this is not possible using native Miro functionality, Miro user @Yash created a web-plugin app called Cardsy that will allow you to convert mind maps nodes to cards - from there, you can convert those cards to other objects using the object transformation switch type feature. Here is an example of how I convert mind maps nodes to cards for use in a kanban board:

https://community.miro.com/board-design-60/cardsy-create-cards-in-bulk-from-selected-widgets-on-the-board-679?postid=10370#post10370

Literally I’m asking is there a benefit (maybe I just haven’t discovered yet??) to using Miro’s mindmaps? Is there a function or feature the mindmaps have that you cannot get/achieve with shapes and stickies?

Sticky notes or shapes do not allow for a one-to-many child object creation with connection lines already attached/joined. And if you do create a mind map out of sticky notes, you cannot simple drag a sticky note from one branch to another and have to detach from its connection line and join another.

I don’t remember exactly when Miro introduced mind maps, but due to the pandemic and their rapid growth, other features have been a higher priority.

 

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