How to create a MindManager add-in with Microsoft Visual Studio in 7 easy steps

There was a discussion over the past few days on the MindManagerDev yahoo group on the relatively limited documentation of the MindManager Object Model and the challenges for new developers to get past the learning curve for creating add-ins for MindManager.

Nigel Goult of Olympic Limited has now generously shared a 7 step tutorial on how to make a simple “Hello World” add-in for MindManager using Visual Studio. You can download the registry settings file here.

In testing this out I found (with a fresh install of visual studio 2010), I had to change the .net target from 4 to 3.5 to get the add-in to work. On first use MM complained it was going to disable the add-in, but it worked, and did not give errors on subsequent uses. After adding the MM9 type library to the references, it still didn’t show up in sidebar after refreshing dependencies. Next step for me is to figure out how to put a button on the toolbar. As it turns out Nigel has also provided a full working example for download that includes the ribbon portion.

There is additional information on add-in development here. Here is some very old information on adding commands to the user interface.

New developers and hobbyists may also find the source code for MindReader in the MindManager Macro Library and the the VBA Code for Outlinker useful for seeing examples of how to interact with the MindManager object model.

Rather than continue to edit in information to this blog entry as I figure things out, I’ve created a wiki page to capture How to create a MindManager add-in using Visual Studio.

Nigel’s contribution here along with the regular assistance provided by him and Nick Duffill to the community is much appreciated. I will try to give this 7-step process a try and report on the results.

7 Comments »

  1. Any Interest an ActivityOwner Tools Add-in for the Ribbon Toolbar? » ActivityOwner.Com – Getting Things Done with MindManager, ResultsManager, and GyroQ said,

    March 11, 2011 @ 9:28 pm

    […] some tips and a template provided on the MindManagerDev Yahoo Group by Nigel of Olympic Limited on how to build a mindmanager add-in, I've been able to figure out how to create a prototype ActivityOwner Tools Add-in. Here is a […]

  2. MMDevX Launches and MindMappers.ning.com Re-Launches » ActivityOwner.Com – Getting Things Done with MindManager said,

    April 13, 2011 @ 8:18 pm

    […] Goult, the generous developer who provided the 7 steps to create a MindManager Add-In guide continues to do great things to support the MindManager […]

  3. Tom Hodgers said,

    December 22, 2012 @ 1:20 pm

    Hello AO and Seasons Greetings to you and yours.

    I was just perusing through some of the older materials that I have about add-ins and macros for MindManager and noticed that I don´t have a copy of the .pdf file about the 7 step tutorial mentioned above. Links to Olympic-Limited are now dead.

    Could you please let me have a copy?

    Many thanks,

    Tom

  4. admin said,

    December 22, 2012 @ 1:49 pm

    I found a copy of the pdf on my drive and uploaded it to the wiki and replaced the links to point there.

  5. Tom said,

    December 22, 2012 @ 2:36 pm

    Thanks AO

  6. Tom said,

    December 22, 2012 @ 2:43 pm

    Sorry to bother you again. Do you have a copy of the Registry file that contains the registry settings to allow VS 2005, 2008 and 2010 to list MindManager 7, 8 and 9 in the Shared Add-in Programs list. Link is dead.

  7. admin said,

    December 22, 2012 @ 4:32 pm

    I just added links to that as well.

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