133 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
133 lines
4.6 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
title: Mind map generation with Python
|
|
description: Step 1
|
|
date: 2019-07-15
|
|
aliases:
|
|
- /blog/2019/07/15/mindmap
|
|
- /blog/mindmap
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
While working on an assignment with [Coggle](https://coggle.it) today, I noticed an interesting option in the save menu. *Download as .mm file*. Having rarely worked with mind maps before, and only doing it online, it never occured to me that someone would have a file format for it. So I took a look.
|
|
|
|
## What is a .mm file?
|
|
It turns out, a `.mm` file is just some XML describing the mind map. Here is a simple mind map:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
And again as a `.mm` file:
|
|
|
|
```xml
|
|
<map version="0.9.0">
|
|
<node TEXT="Master Node" FOLDED="false" POSITION="right" ID="5d2d02b1a315dd0879f48c1c" X_COGGLE_POSX="0" X_COGGLE_POSY="0">
|
|
<edge COLOR="#b4b4b4"/>
|
|
<font NAME="Helvetica" SIZE="17"/>
|
|
<node TEXT="Child branch" FOLDED="false" POSITION="right" ID="f72704969525d2a0333dd635">
|
|
<edge COLOR="#7aa3e5"/>
|
|
<font NAME="Helvetica" SIZE="15"/>
|
|
<node TEXT="Children 1" FOLDED="false" POSITION="right" ID="c83826af506cae6e55761d5c">
|
|
<edge COLOR="#7ea7e5"/>
|
|
<font NAME="Helvetica" SIZE="13"/>
|
|
</node>
|
|
<node TEXT="Children 2" FOLDED="false" POSITION="right" ID="47723a4d0fb766863f70d204">
|
|
<edge COLOR="#82aae7"/>
|
|
<font NAME="Helvetica" SIZE="13"/>
|
|
</node>
|
|
</node>
|
|
</node>
|
|
</map>
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Neat, right?
|
|
|
|
## What can we do with it?
|
|
I have not done much research about this because I wanted to work all of this out on my own. But I know one thing as a fact: working with XML sucks (especially in Python). I decided that this would be much better if I could load `.mm` files as JSON. This would allow easy manipulation and some cool projects.
|
|
|
|
## My script
|
|
Like everything I do, I made a script to play with these files.
|
|
|
|
It's pretty simple. First, It loads a `.mm` file, then parses it into a `list` of `xml.etree.ElementTree.Element`.
|
|
|
|
```python
|
|
raw_mm = ""
|
|
|
|
with open(args.file, "r") as fp:
|
|
raw_mm = fp.read()
|
|
fp.close()
|
|
|
|
xml = ET.fromstring(raw_mm)
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
The parsed `list` is then passed into a recursive function that constructs a `dict`
|
|
|
|
```python
|
|
def xmlToDict(xml):
|
|
output = []
|
|
for elem in list(xml):
|
|
|
|
if "TEXT" not in elem.attrib:
|
|
continue
|
|
|
|
name = elem.attrib['TEXT']
|
|
json_element = {"name": name}
|
|
|
|
try:
|
|
json_element["children"] = xmlToDict(elem)
|
|
except:
|
|
continue
|
|
|
|
# Detect node type
|
|
if json_element["children"]:
|
|
json_element["type"] = "branch"
|
|
else:
|
|
json_element["type"] = "leaf"
|
|
del json_element["children"]
|
|
|
|
output.append(json_element)
|
|
|
|
return output
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
Finally, the `dict` is written to a file with `json.dump`
|
|
|
|
```python
|
|
json.dump(mind_map, open(args.file + ".json", "w"))
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
The whole script (with comments) can be found on my [GitHub account](https://gist.github.com/Ewpratten/0d8f7c7371380c9ca8adcfc6502ccf84#file-parser-py).
|
|
|
|
## The output
|
|
Running the `.mm` file from above through the script gives:
|
|
|
|
```json
|
|
[
|
|
{
|
|
"name":"Master Node",
|
|
"children":[
|
|
{
|
|
"name":"Child branch",
|
|
"children":[
|
|
{
|
|
"name":"Children 1",
|
|
"type":"leaf"
|
|
},
|
|
{
|
|
"name":"Children 2",
|
|
"type":"leaf"
|
|
}
|
|
],
|
|
"type":"branch"
|
|
}
|
|
],
|
|
"type":"branch"
|
|
}
|
|
]
|
|
```
|
|
|
|
## The next step
|
|
This script just translates a `.mm` file to JSON. Nothing else. Next, I want to convert this to a library, and add a JSON to `.mm` function as well. This leads into my ultimate goal for this project.
|
|
|
|
I want a script that I can drop in the root of any project to build a [Gource](https://gource.io/)-style visualization of the folder structure. This will give me a way to make cool visualizations for lessons on the robotics team. On top of the folder visualization, Coggle's new flowchart feature can be used to generate graphical representations of @frc5024's codebases. This could give me an interactive overview of the work being done by our team.
|
|
|
|
### Further learning
|
|
crm.org has done a great writeup of [Coggle, and some of it's features](https://crm.org/news/free-flowin-mind-maps-with-coggle). If you are looking to learn more about the tool, I recommend taking a few minute to read their post.
|