So, at the very beginning, could you introduce yourself? Where do you live and how did your adventure with Amiga begin?

I'm probably a fairly typical UK Amiga user: getting close to the 40 mark, with a proper family and job and stuff. I taught modern languages for 10 years, but now work as an ICT teacher in Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare's home town).

I was brought up in the middle of the 8-bit era and was blown away by the A500 back in the 80s. The leap from 8bit to 16bit was probably the biggest jump we've seen so far and that first rush of enthusiasm is probably what keeps me clinging on to a deadish platform (I still love my Orics too, so perhaps I'm just a lost case). I've been through a stream of Amigas since then and have been using my AmigaOne SE for 5 years now.

Why and in what circumstances did you become a developer? Was it just a way of doing something different, something for others? Maybe you just get/got fancy on learning programming languages or you just needed to create something previously not available and useful for you?

I had done a little programming (mostly BASIC and simple C stuff) since I was 12, but never really produced a big program. Then, a few years ago I began a Masters degree course at my local university and took up C programming "properly". I had originally planned MindSpace as a Linux program, but began an Amiga version as part of Elwood's OS4 programming competition a couple of years' ago. There didn't seem to be a purpose built, small and quick MindMap tool on either platform, so it seemed a good idea to write one. I use a lot of diagrams, mind maps etc at work, and didn't really like the available Linux tools and had nothing suitable on OS4 at all (Draw Studio didn't run well at the time I started). Two years later and MindSpace is reasonably useable.

As you already mentioned, Amiga version of MindSpace was born mostly due to developer's contest organised almost three years ago by IntuitionBase. You did not win but the second place is also a huge achievement. Was it difficult to race against time or you did not bother about it and was doing your job? Was there any special thing that motivated you?

Hehe. A good story this one. As it happens, there were only 2 projects submitted to the competition: James Carroll's RockBeat and MindSpace. I actually submitted MindSpace a day late, due to a slight confusion as to whether the 12.00 deadline meant midnight at the start of the day or midnight at the end of the day.

Elwood was kind enough to put MindSpace in second place so I asked him to donate the prize to a worthy cause. The version of MindSpace (0.2) at that time was wonderfully primitive and would have been beaten by RockBeat anyway.

Development was quite speedy in those days: I was only working part time and some of the MindSpace development was used for my Masters Course so it was quite easy to convince the wife I was doing "proper work". It's a lot harder to find time now, as I'm back at work full time and the wife knows that I've finished my degree!

You mentioned that in your work you have to deal a lot with diagrams and mind maps. Tools which you use are probably far more advanced. Are you trying to make MindSpace similiar to something or everything is totally your own concept but you only take the general idea of the features from others? Or maybe MindSpace has something that others don't which you are really proud of?

One of the MindMap tools I like on Windows is called Inspiration. It's used quite a lot in UK schools and is simple and quick to use. I also like the Java based FreeMind, although its output is not particularly pleasing on the eye. I know there are a lot of "big" mindmap tools out there in Windows Land, but I haven't used them too much and doubt if many of the more complicated features are ever used. The original aim of MindSpace was to mimic some of the features in these 2 programs (FreeMind and Inspiration), but with a little added spice of my own. The idea behind the userMSOs, where you can create your own grouped objects, but then save them to file for user in future diagrams is perhaps the key feature that I'm most pleased with. It's a bit like creating a custom brush in a paint-package, but the idea of creating "banks" of related objects means people could share objects easily. For example, version 1 of MindSpace comes with a bank of music notation objects and a bank of computer hardware objects that were submitted by MindSpace users. Hopefully, more users will pass on banks of objects that can be included in future versions.

What can be expected in the future versions of MindSpace apart from what is mentioned on the MindSpace's website (Anti-aliased drawings routines, Object rotation and flipping, Datatypes support for image export)? Is there anything you are particulary looking forward to add into the program?

The website is massively out of date and most of the items mentioned as "future development" have already been implemented: rotation and flipping have been present for a while and there is full datatype support for inserting images. MindSpace can export as .iff natively, but still uses the svgtools package for exporting to .png, .pdf and .ps. I really ought to add native export routines for these, as well as for .jpg and .eps (which would allow MindSpace drawings to be inserted into Final Writer and WordWorth).

The anti-aliasing drawing routines are a bit of a hack and rely on the svg datatype, which doesn't quite work with OS4 Final. Writing my own AA routines is well beyond my abilities, so there won't be much progress on this area until the svg datatype is updated or until Cairo support on OS4 is brought up to date with a easy to use back end.

As for the future, not much more is to be done with MindSpace 1: it's pretty much as complete as I need for my own work and has many features that were never planned for originally. This means I can begin the whole thing again from scratch: MindSpace 2 will be more of an InkScape type program than just a mind-map tool. Hopefully, if I do some proper planning and design, OS4 should eventually get a vaguely competent vector drawing application.

Do you plan MindSpace for other systems (AmigaOS 3.x, MorphOS, AROS)? In the past you mentioned about 68k version but I think this idea was abandoned.

There was a 68k version in progress a looong time ago, which a colleague was working on. However, there were problems with coding the GUI under 3.x, so it was abandoned.

With regards porting MindSpace 1 to other platforms, lack of time is the big problem here. And the number of OS4 specific calls used in the current code base. MindSpace 1 will remain OS4 only.

However, for version 2, a near complete rewrite is planned. This will include abstracting the OS specific bits from the general functionality. This is mostly so I can eventually port MindSpace to the XO laptop. However, it will also mean I should be able to put together a 68k version, which would hopefully run reasonably well under UAE. I'm not sure there's a need for the program on MorphOS as Kronos has his own SteAmDraw program which is more suitable.

Could you share some information about the number of people who registered MindSpace? On the contrary to unregistered users, can they count on any particular "benefits" in the future? Do you plan some competitions or similiar things for registered users?

Considering the tiny size of the current OS4 userbase, I'm very pleased with the number of users who have registered. A large number of people have registered simply to encourage further development, even if they don't use the program very often. This is very much appreciated, as are general comments about the program, bug-reports, examples of drawings created etc. All of the money raised from MindSpace registrations is put back into supporting other OS4 software or community websites.

There won't be any more Demo versions of MindSpace released as work will start soon on V2. Anyone wanting a more bug-free version will need to register for V1, which will continue to be updated with further fixes etc as any remaining bugs get noticed. The registered version is a little more stable than the latest Demo and has a few additional features such as better import/export features and the rather dodgy Anti-aliased drawing. I'm also planning to add support for multiple-lines in text boxes (see picture).

Getting to the end, could you explain what is the origin of the name of the tool? What does MindSpace exactly mean or how do you understand its name or should it be understood?

Well it's a sort of short form for "A Space to draw Mind maps", which was the original purpose of the software. I think it's a reasonably short and snappy name and as a bonus, isn't too far away from "InkScape".

Thank you very much for this insightful interview. I wish you all the best in your life and work with MindSpace.

During this interview, Richard has started work on MindSpace 2. He wrote a few additional information about which are submitted below.

BTW, work has now started on MindSpace 2, which will allow the user to work on multiple documents at the same time. Documents can be longer than 1 page each and the GUI will allow multiple views of the same doc to be shown (eg a close-up view in one window and a full-page view in another).

Starting from scratch in MindSpace 2 has pointed out a couple of bugs in the MindSpace 1 code, which have now been fixed and a 1.1 release will be made available to registered users in February. This release will also allow the user to import text files into frames (see picture for an example).