And now for something completely different: how to mind-map in color with a little help from ruby?

I like to mind-map and the tool I use is FreeMind. You can add icons to your nodes, import pictures etc.etc. You can also add some color to your mind-map; select a node and change the color. For some -strange- reason I wanted to have all my nodes in different colors and after one minute of selecting nodes, changing colors I already abandoned that idea => too tedious. Ruby to the rescue: Freemind stores your mind-maps in XML format and this little ruby script turns your boring mind-map into something colorful:

require 'rexml/document'
include REXML

def traverse_element(element)
    element.elements.each('node') do |e|
        e.attributes['COLOR']= ("#%06x" % rand(0xffffff))
        traverse_element(e)
    end
end

doc = Document.new(File.new("original_boring_mindmap.mm"))
traverse_element(doc.root)
out = File.new("new_colorful_mindmap.mm","w")
out.write(doc)

Nerdy? You bet ya…..

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