This article backgrounds the effort taking Mindjet’s MindManager 6 Pro mapping application from Windows to Mac. It’s an interesting read for anyone that’s ever asked:
“Where’s the Mac version of <users favourite Windows application>?”
Differences in platform architecture, tools and user expectations for design & behaviour between the two platforms mean a successful translation not a simple task…
"Mindjet Enhances MindManager 6 Mac: More Than Just Porting an Application"
"A Mac application is structured differently from a Windows app."
“…the call for a Mac version of MindManager first came from Mindjet customers who were also Mac users.”“A robust Windows version of MindManager already existed, and the C++ source code was available. This naturally led to a flurry of architectural questions that had to be answered:
- How much of this code can be used?
- Given that the goal is a true Mac application, how much of this code should be used?
- Windows does feature X in a certain way—does this translate faithfully to the Mac, and if not, what alternate mechanism will work?
- Which features absolutely must be included, and which can be left until a later version?
- Since both versions must handle the same file format, how will the Mac version handle Windows-originated data corresponding to features not included in this first implementation?
These questions (and many more) were answered by the team…”
