I’ve been using XMind and getting familiar with how to use and modify its visually pleasing presentation. The biggest frustration I’ve had so far is trying to manually move and place sub-nodes on the map. Others have experienced this problem too, and like me, considered abandoning XMind for another program when all efforts failed.
According to #10 in the XMind FAQ, mouse combined with:
- Shift: The selected topic will not be linked with its current parent topic, and become a floating topic.
- Ctrl: Copy and move the selected topic.
- Alt: Move the main topic to a specific location on the map. (This function is only available in the “Mind Map”structure option.)
It took a while, but I finally found a forum post explaining the issue issue I was having. It turns out to be an unfortunate selection of key and mouse combinations, particularly if you use the Gnome Desktop environment on Linux.
If you run Fedora the situation is worse because the menu to change the key binding isn’t installed by default. Admittedly this is the first time I’ve needed or wanted to make this adjustment. It seems unreasonable, however, to require installation of a separate package to make a simple adjustment like this. Other Gnome based distributions include it by default and figuring out the package to install was not easy until I found this post.
To change the behavior of the Alt+mouse combination on Fedora:
1) Install the control-center-extra package:
$ su -c 'yum install control-center-extra'
2) From the desktop, select: System → Preferences → Window
Note, manual node placement only works on the “map” structure and not the other styles like fishbone, org, or tree. To change the structure (style) of a mind map, click on top node and then change the “structure” found in the “properties” panel on the right. There are some really cool options and this makes XMind a great choice for a sophisticated mind mapping program that is free.
December 17, 2016 at 12:07 pm
I am having the same issue.
But I am a mac user… it copies well, but place the subnode wherever I want simply won’t work…
June 3, 2015 at 8:24 am
I still cannot find a solution, I press Alt in windows mode and nothing changes unless i move it and it is no longer unlinked, I then also press ctrl and that will create a copy, I try shift but this delinks the subtopic, it is not straight forward for me at the moment.
June 6, 2015 at 8:37 pm
What operating system are you running?
April 12, 2012 at 3:04 pm
This is also an issue in KDE! I had a problem with the Alt+left click combination. To correct this, go to System Settings > Window Behavior > Window Behavior (section) > Window Actions (tab) > Inner Window, Title Bar & Frame…
Change options as needed. Thanks for this post 😉
June 11, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Thank you for this information! I exactly had the same problems with XMind in Gnome and I never found any solution to it….until now.