What software to use for everything not on the map?

[ravells]

For mind mapping stuff I use Free Mind. Must check out DEVONthink. Cool thread this!

[jfrazierjr]

I use a napkin and a pencil since I do most of my thinking at work drawing and making stained glass windows. When I have too many napkins I organize things in Word. Anything else works just as good.

OT: I shutter to ask just how many napkins you must have used to make your "everything on a map" document....lol

[Ascension]

Tell me about it. Those are all gone now but I have a couple dozen more of new stuff when I get around to typing it in.

[Midgardsormr]

Johnn Four of Roleplayingtips.com recommended a product called MyInfo from Mylenix a while back. I never got around to trying it, though, since I already have OneNote.

[Sagenlicht]

As a mind mapping tool I use Xmind. Xmind is Open Source. It tries to tell you to share your work online but you do not have to and I do not use that feature.

But I do all of my brainstorming work in Xmind, be it an adventure idea, designing a new class or whatever. It got some useful layout options for every brainstorming task you need.

As RobA allready recommended tiddlywiki is a very useful and small wiki. I used Tiddlywiki before I moved my campaign to Obsidian Portal. Obsidian Portal offers a free version of its service that is more than enough for me. Though Obisidian Portal is only useful if you actually design your own campaign, for a single adventure I think a mind mapping software is enough.

[Seeria]

I use The Journal. yes, it was created as a personal journal but I find the ease of indexing (expandable) and features for extensions to be great for mind bending notekeeping. Prefer it over Microsofts, so far.

[jaerdaph]

For mind mapping stuff I use Free Mind.

I've been playing with FreeMind all week and I'm really impressed. It's really easy to learn and use, and I'm already seeing its benefits over pen and paper. I can definitely see myself using this now for a variety of things. While playing with it though, I started to realize that what I really want (or perhaps I should say also want) is an open source flowchart software. I did a little research and discovered Dia.

Does anyone know about or have experience using Dia? How is it? It looks like something I might want to try, but if there are any other, better free options out there I'd love to hear about them too.

[ravells]

I've just downloaded it and playing with it now. It's really simple to use and pretty effective! I like it. Thanks for the pointer!

[jaerdaph]

I've just downloaded it and playing with it now. It's really simple to use and pretty effective! I like it. Thanks for the pointer!

Glad to hear it's easy to use - I think I'm just going to download and install it and dive in too!

[ChicagoMay]

Lots of new goodies for me to check out! I have a few programs for when I'm trying to organize thoughts related to a plot, character, setting, etc I wanna write but so far haven't found anything I like. Gonna go try all of these!