Trout (Mind Mapping‪)‬ 4+

I just bought this app. Save your money, it doesn't work. I am running the OS X 10.8.2 and I can't even open the program, it immediately crashes every time i open the program and the few times it hasn't crashed before it opens the front prompt page, i click new doccument button and that makes the program shut down too. The support site says this problem would be fixed in an update before christmas but its mid january and its still a far from functional program.

This app has SOOO much potential! Incredibly flexible and capable of handling gobs of data. Finished charts can be beautiful, although the default settings aren’t that attractive or readable (black on red?!)

Not the easiest thing to learn; some well-organized tutorials with examples would go a really long way. Preferably they would be created by someone who didn’t write the app (i.e., hasn’t been “soakling in it” so long that everything seems obvious) but came in late and had to learn from scratch like a real noob.

Sadly I just had the first occasion in months to use it and it had actually LOST some of its former capabilities. All of a sudden the link labels don’t work so I can’t identify the internode relationships, which is important for what I’m doing. Heaven knows why they aren’t being displayed, and the extremely sparse information available didn’t help me solve it. I’d installed Sierra recently; maybe that’s why, or maybe not.

I use and collect mind maps and mind-map-like programs for a hobby. If you are visual and comfortable working in non-linear way, the apps can be extremely helpful for brainstorming, organizing, and seeing relationships between things.

Trout, as the screenshots show, has tremendous potential. In fact, it does things that, and does them in an attractive way, apps costing 10 times more don't. It's also fun to use.

The problem is it's buggy and quirky. However, having interracted with the developer, I have confidence that these issues will be eliminated in time. He's also kindly and thorough when it comes to individual support.

Trout is a diamond in the rough. For $2.99, you can't go wrong, especially when you can anticipate its issues being cleaned up as time goes on. I'm in it for the long haul.

Respectfully, those who gave this app one star have missed the point. It's much more valuable than a 2.5 star average would suggest. Such an average usually means "Stay Away!" In this case, it ought mean "But it, learn to use it, and stick with it for long haul."