FlowPad0.1 Alpha

Thoughts in your head are most of the times like inside a washing machine, and it can get a bit difficult to keep track of the whole line of ideas if there are a lot on your mind. However, the computer can help you here as well, and applications like FlowPad are proof, letting you visually represent the course of your thoughts.

Perks of portability

One of the main advantages is you can take the application with you on a thumb drive, and use it on other computers. You don’t have to worry about affecting the target PC, because registries are not a dependency, thus left intact. On the other hand, .NET Framework is required for proper functionality, so you need to check whether or not it’s a part of the computer you use it on.A clean interface greets you as soon as the application is launched, with a simple design to make sure that anyone can take advantage of its features, regardless of experience. You place all your ideas on a canvas, in the form of different shapes, each representing a different step.

Leaves more to be desired

There’s a starting point from which you’re able to create more. The design is always a linear path, with links always moving forward to a goal. Hovering your mouse over an item lets you add more, but creating one disables this function for previous ones, until you place the goal point. Doing so means you’re done with planning, and can’t add any more items, except for explanation, or comment boxes.A few options give you the possibility to quickly align all objects by centering them horizontally, vertically, or letting the application decide the proper position. Unfortunately, saving leaves you scratching your head for a while, since the extension is not automatically added, nor specified, and saving as a picture doesn’t work either.

On an ending note

All in all, it’s a good idea to take advantage of applications like FlowPad, to relieve some mental pressure, and have a cool visual representation of your thoughts. Unfortunately, there’s little variety in the set of features to be found here, and stability is not the application’s strongest point.