Is there a way to convert from mind mapping software to NW?

[xahodo]

I'm using Freeplane (yes, it's their website, and it's open source) to create a mind map of my story, after figuring out that just jumping in doesn't work out for me.

It is a nice tool for mind mapping. It outputs an XML file which is stored on the local drive (no fancy cloud support). What would be really cool if I could take what I created in Freeplane and convert it to a novel structure, including all the right note folders, subfolders, tags, and synopsis readily provided from my mind map.

Is anybody willing to create a bash/python script in order to do what I want? Or is there a hidden feature in NW, kept away from us by a dark and evil conspiracy :D , to import such mind maps and convert them to NW projects?

[vkbo]

There is no hidden feature for import/export. So far, there is only one developer that provides a tool for converting projects between novelWriter and yWriter formats.

I'm working on a new system for building manuscripts from novelWriter projects, and I could possibly add an interface/API for importing them too. Since novelWriter's source code is very modular, and even more so in 2.0, you can in principle write a Python script that builds a project in memory from any data source and spit out a complete project.

I basically do this on the fly in the test suite. It isn't particularly complicated, but it is undocumented:

novelWriter/tests/tools.py

Lines 157 to 212 in 4371d12

	def buildTestProject(theObject, projPath):
	"""Build a standard test project in projPath using theProject
	object as the parent.
	"""
	from novelwriter.enum import nwItemClass
	from novelwriter.core.project import NWProject
	if isinstance(theObject, NWProject):
	theGUI = None
	theProject = theObject
	else:
	theGUI = theObject
	theProject = theObject.theProject
	theProject.clearProject()
	theProject.storage.openProjectInPlace(projPath)
	theProject.setDefaultStatusImport()
	theProject.data.setUuid("d0f3fe10-c6e6-4310-8bfd-181eb4224eed")
	theProject.data.setName("New Project")
	theProject.data.setTitle("New Novel")
	theProject.data.setAuthor("Jane Doe")
	# Creating a minimal project with a few root folders and a
	# single chapter folder with a single file.
	xHandle = {}
	xHandle[1] = theProject.newRoot(nwItemClass.NOVEL, "Novel")
	xHandle[2] = theProject.newRoot(nwItemClass.PLOT, "Plot")
	xHandle[3] = theProject.newRoot(nwItemClass.CHARACTER, "Characters")
	xHandle[4] = theProject.newRoot(nwItemClass.WORLD, "World")
	xHandle[5] = theProject.newFile("Title Page", xHandle[1])
	xHandle[6] = theProject.newFolder("New Chapter", xHandle[1])
	xHandle[7] = theProject.newFile("New Chapter", xHandle[6])
	xHandle[8] = theProject.newFile("New Scene", xHandle[6])
	aDoc = theProject.storage.getDocument(xHandle[5])
	aDoc.writeDocument("#! New Novel\n\n>> By Jane Doe <<\n")
	theProject.index.reIndexHandle(xHandle[5])
	aDoc = theProject.storage.getDocument(xHandle[7])
	aDoc.writeDocument("## %s\n\n" % theProject.tr("New Chapter"))
	theProject.index.reIndexHandle(xHandle[7])
	aDoc = theProject.storage.getDocument(xHandle[8])
	aDoc.writeDocument("### %s\n\n" % theProject.tr("New Scene"))
	theProject.index.reIndexHandle(xHandle[8])
	theProject._projOpened = time.time()
	theProject.setProjectChanged(True)
	theProject.saveProject(autoSave=True)
	if theGUI is not None:
	theGUI.hasProject = True
	theGUI.rebuildTrees()
	return

[peter88213]

On this occasion I notice that NovelWriter does not seem to handle any import from foreign formats.

I can think of a way using existing Python scripts, but it is a bit cumbersome and has some limitations. One important requirement: there are three levels (part, chapter, scene). Then you can export a novel outline as ODT from Freemind. Note texts on all levels are taken over as synopses. From the ODT document you can create a yWriter project as an intermediate file with yW2OO, which can be transferred into a NovelWriter project with yw2nw.

Now the catch:

• With Freeplane version 1.9.7 it doesn't work because the exported ODT document is not structured with heading styles.
• With FreeMind version 1.0.1 it works fine, so you might want to use it at least for ODT export.

If you want to run yW2OO on Linux, please make sure the tk support for Python is installed.

UPDATE:
As of version 5.3.0, yW2OO can read ODT documents without meta.xml as created with FreeMind.

[peter88213]

That looks really nice actually!

Let me know how it goes, and I can perhaps add a page on the website about third party tools. Currently, there's a mention on the HowTo page, but I want to move some of it out of the docs.

Speaking of third party tools in general, with .yw7 as an intermediate file and yw2nw, you can use a vast ecosystem for importing a work in progress (full text) or an outline from various sources.

[vkbo]

Also, I can't promise that I will continue to maintain the yw2nw code if the file format of novelWriter changes ever again.

The major change of the file format was for release 2.0, and it has now been generalised in a way that should prevent needs for major restructuring in the future. In particular the settings section which now supports the three main data structures (value, dictionary and class serialisation) in a standard way. I will probably add fields whenever there are new features that require it, but pretty much everything has default values.

novelWriter is currently able to read all previous formats that have been released, and I have no intention of changing that. The test suite tests against all formats to date as well to make sure they keep working.

The only potential need to update format support is to pass on new values for new, compatible features.

[vkbo]

In one of the next releases, I will add a single file format for novelWriter projects though, but it will merely be a zip file of the project folder, so supporting it should be trivial. It will also be optional, and the project folder format will still be supported.

I haven't decided if I want to give it a new file extension, or just stick with .nwx and just detect the file type when opening. Probably the latter.

[peter88213]

Alright, now I did program a Python script that creates a novelWriter project without an intermediate .yw7 file.

[vkbo]

Very nice! 😃