1. Download Tools For Mac
2. Best Mac Network Tools
3. Chrome Cleanup Tool For Mac

For Java versions 6 and below, Apple supplies their own version of Java. For Mac OS X 10.6 and below, use the Software Update feature (available on the Apple menu) to check that you have the most up-to-date version of Java 6 for your Mac. For issues related to Apple Java 6 on Mac, contact Apple Support. Espresso is a web development tool for Mac. It comes with a powerful code editor and built-in CSSEdit. It comes with beautiful interface and advanced features like drag and drop code snippets, code folding, navigator, live styling and X-ray preview. Espresso is available for $75.

This article compares computer software tools that compare files, and in many cases directories or folders, whether it is their main purpose or as part of more general file management.

General[edit]

Basic general information about file comparison software.

Compare features[edit]

API / editor features[edit]

Other features[edit]

Download Tools For Mac

Some other features which did not fit in previous table

Aspects[edit]

What aspects can be / are compared?

Timezone effects[edit]

When files are transferred across time zones and between Microsoft FAT and NTFSfile systems, the timestamp displayed by the same file may change, so that identical files with different storage histories are deemed different by a comparer that requires the timestamps to match. The difference is an exact number of quarters of an hour up to 95 (same minutes modulo 15 and seconds) if the file was transported across zones; there is also a one-hour difference within a single zone caused by the transition between standard time and daylight saving time (DST). Some, but not all, file comparison and synchronisation software can be configured to ignore the DST and time-zone differences.^[39] Software known to have daylight-saving compensation is marked in the Aspects table.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Scooter Software
2. ^Coode Software
3. ^Compare++ Operating system information
4. ^Michael Kifer
5. ^Ediff requires a diff utility to function. As of December 2017, diff is not bundled with Emacs or Windows, so use of Ediff in a Windows environment requires installation of both Emacs and a diff implementation like GNU diff.
6. ^PrestoSoft
7. ^Microsoft
8. ^NeXT Product Marketing (Fall 1993). 'What's New in Release 3.2?'. NEXTSTEP In Focus. NeXT Computer, Inc. 3 (4). Retrieved 18 July 2014.
9. ^Guiffy Software
10. ^JetBrains
11. ^jedit.org
12. ^'Otto Bruggeman'. Archived from the original on 2012-04-15. Retrieved 2006-01-12.Cite uses deprecated parameter |dead-url= (help)
13. ^Installing Kompare in Windows
14. ^Stephen Kennedy
15. ^Meld/Windows
16. ^Notepad++ compare plugin
17. ^Pretty Diff
18. ^tkdiff
19. ^Christian Ghisler
20. ^Bare Bones Software, Inc.
21. ^vim license
22. ^Microsoft
23. ^Dean Grimm
24. ^ ^abWinMerge in Wine
25. ^USC CSSE
26. ^ ^abCompare logical sections (class, methods)
27. ^Examdiff
28. ^Examdiff
29. ^ ^abVisual Rename
30. ^https://github.com/git/git/tree/master/contrib/diff-highlight
31. ^gnu.org Support-for-Version-Control
32. ^through a plug-in
33. ^through a plug-in
34. ^UTF8, UTF16, MBCS, SJIS, over 150 file encoding and character set formats
35. ^Notepad++ FTP plugin
36. ^'tortoisehg / stable / wiki / FAQ —'. Bitbucket.org. Archived from the original on 2010-07-15. Retrieved 2010-07-06.Cite uses deprecated parameter |dead-url= (help)
37. ^'Using WinMerge with other tools – WinMerge 2.12 Manual'. Winmerge.org. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
38. ^'About'. WinMerge. Retrieved 2010-07-06.
39. ^Example: 'Beyond Compare' help describes a user setting 'timezone differences – ignores timestamp differences that are multiples of an exact hour.'

Mind mapping is a great way to brainstorm, make a plan, or turn ideas into the steps needed to make it real. Thankfully, there are great tools out there to help you build mind maps, organize them, and save them for later. Here's a look at five of the best, based on your nominations.

Earlier this week, we asked you which mind mapping tools you thought were the best. We tallied up your nominations, and now we're back to highlight the top five.

Advertisement

The poll is closed and the votes are counted! To see which of these five great mind mapping tools took the top spot, head over to our Hive Five Followup post! There you can read about and discuss the winner!

Advertisement

Mindjet (Windows/Mac/iOS)

Mindjet is more than just mind mapping software—it's a total suite of applications and tools designed to help you and the people you work with brainstorm, stay on top of projects, collaborate on tasks, and stay organized together. It's more like a complete project management and collaboration suite. It has an extremely powerful mindmapping and brainstorming tool however, designed from the ground up to help you organize your projects, assign different arms of your projects to different people, flesh out all of the individual to-dos and jobs required to make the whole project a success, and it works just as well if you're working with a hundred people, a dozen people, or just organizing your own to-dos. Plus, it integrates with web services and tools you already use, like Microsoft Office, Box,net, and more. Anyone familiar with the old tool MindManager will be happy to learn it's been rolled into Mindjet's individual apps. Most of Mindjet's users are companies willing to pay for it though: It's $15/mo per user for the individual plan, and $30/mo per user for the enterprise plan.

Advertisement

Advertisement

XMind (Windows/Mac/Linux)

XMind has been around for a good long time, and it even made the roundup the last time we looked at mind mapping apps. It hasn't lost its power though; it's still extremely flexible, works great on any desktop OS, and makes it easy to organize your ideas and thoughts in a variety of different styles, diagrams, and designs. You can use simple mind maps if you choose, or 'fishbone' style flowcharts if you prefer. You can even add images and icons to differentiate parts of a project or specific ideas, add links and multimedia to each item, and more. If you're a project manager, you can even use XMind's built-in Gantt view to manage tasks in a way your colleagues may be familiar with. Best of all, XMind is completely free and open source. If you have some cash to spend, XMind Plus and XMind Pro offer some additional import/export and presentation features, along with some featured targeted at project managers and businesses who want to use XMind on the enterprise level. Plus will set you back $79 one-time, Pro is $99 one-time, and a subscription to Pro and all of its updates is $79/yr.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Coggle (Webapp)

Coggle is a completely free, simple to use mind mapping tool that's easy to get started with. Sign in with a Google account of your choice and you're off and away. Double-click on any item to edit it, and click the plus signs on either side to add branches to your mind map. Click and hold to drag them around the canvas to design your mind map any way you like. Coggle will automatically assign different colors to your branches, but clicking on a branch will bring up a color wheel so you can personalize it yourself. When you've finished a map, you can download it as a PDF or PNG, share it with others who can just view it or, if you allow it, edit your mind map. You even get auto-saving and revision history, so if you want to see what your mind map looked like before someone you invited started working with it, you can. Best of all? Coggle is completely and totally free.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Freemind (Windows/Mac/Linux)

Freemind is a free, GNU General Public Licensed mind mapping app built in Java, so it runs on just about anything you throw it at. It was the winner of our last poll, partially because of its flexibility, and because its features and performance are pretty consistent regardless of the operating system you use with it. It's a pretty powerful mind mapping tool too, offering complex diagrams and tons of branches, graphics and icons to differentiate notes and connect them, and the option to embed links and multimedia in your mind maps for quick reference. Freemind can export your map as HTML/XHTML, PDF, OpenDocument, SVG, or PNG. Compared to a lot of the newer tools it may look a little dated, but it's still powerful and useful, especially if it's function you're looking for, not form.

Advertisement

Advertisement

MindNode (Mac/iOS)

MindNode is an elegant mind mapping and brainstorming app for OS X and iOS. The iOS version is designed to work well on touch devices, specifically the iPad, and makes it easy to drag branches around, add new nodes, connect nodes, share documents with others, and more. The Mac app is similar, and supports sharing your mind map with others and exporting as PDF and as a Freemind project. MindNode can automatically hide branches that have nothing to do with the items you're working on, embed images and screenshots onto nodes, create links on nodes, and even automatically organize your branches for you if they get messy. It can also support linked mind maps. The UI is relatively clean and hides a lot of its features in order to keep things clean, but that doesn't mean it's not powerful. Many of you who nominated it pointed out it's one of the first mind mapping apps you've seen that really does things right on a tablet. MindNode is $20 for the Mac app, and $10 for the iPhone/iPad app.

Advertisement

Now that you've seen the top five, it's time to put them to an all out vote to determine the community favorite.

Best Mac Network Tools

Advertisement

Honorable mentions this week go out to Scapple and MindMeister, both of which just missed the top five by one or two votes each. Those of you who nominated them praised them for their ease of use. We recently praised Scapple for bringing dead simple mind mapping to the Mac, and we've loved for MindMeister for years. It made the top five the last time we asked you, so it's still a great tool. Also, props go out to Pen and Paper (or whiteboards, if you prefer), which many of you said were your brainstorming tool of choice.

Advertisement

Chrome Cleanup Tool For Mac

Still, the nominations were so close this time, we're willing to bet you have a favorite that may have been left out! If so, let's hear what it is and why you love it in the discussions below. Include a screenshot or a photo of the app in use if you can, just so we can see what's so great about it!

Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn't included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Don't just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is—and make your case for it—in the discussions below.

Advertisement

The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it—it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com!

Title photo by Marco Antonio Torres.

Advertisement