Rich content nodes
A Mindmap Node Isn't Always a Label.
Sometimes it's a paragraph, an image, an idea that needs room to breathe. Expand any node into a full card with rich text, images, and Read-more. For ADHD brains: dump the whole thought, not just the title.
Why this matters
Why a richer node, not just a label?
Most mind-mapping tools force every node to be a label — a few words on a stem. That works when the thought already has a name. It fails when the thought is still half-formed, when it needs an image to make sense, when it's actually a paragraph wearing a node's clothing.
Dumbnote treats the node as a container, not a caption. Click any node, hit Expand, and the node becomes a card: a rich-text editor with headings, lists, links, inline images, and a Read-more spillover for long-form content. The hierarchy stays a hierarchy — siblings auto-reflow around the expanded card — but each node holds as much thought as the thought actually needs.
Same canvas, same shortcuts, same offline mind mapping behavior. No "switch to outliner mode," no shoving long content into a sidebar. The node grows when you need room, then collapses back to its label when you scroll past.
How it stacks up
How rich nodes compare to label-only mindmappers
| Capability | Dumbnote | MindMeister | XMind | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inline images inside a node | ✓ | partial | partial | × |
| Rich-text formatting (bold, lists, H1) | ✓ | partial | ✓ | ✓ |
| Read-more fullscreen editor | ✓ | × | × | × |
| Siblings auto-reflow on expand | ✓ | × | × | × |
| Works offline, no login | ✓ | × | × | partial |
| Free | ✓ | $$ | $$ | partial |
For your work
For ADHD Brains: Dump the Whole Thought, Not Just a Label.
A two-word node is a thought half-captured. Rich content nodes let you paste the whole tangent — the paragraph, the link, the image, the half-formed idea — into a single node, then come back when your focus does. Nothing is lost between the having and the writing-down.
For students mapping a chapter, that means the formula AND its use cases live in one node. For writers, the character description AND the reference photo. For researchers, the quote AND the page number AND the highlight. Everything that belongs together stays together — without ever leaving the map.
How it works
How rich content nodes work
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Click a node, press Expand
Or use the keyboard shortcut on the selected node. The label grows into a 420-wide card with a rich-text editing surface.
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Type, paste, or drop an image
The editor supports headings, lists, bold/italic, inline links, and dropped images. Paste from anywhere; markdown shortcuts work too.
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Siblings reflow around the expanded card
Adjacent nodes spring outward to make room — you don't have to redo your layout, the canvas does it for you.
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Read-more opens the full editor
For long-form content, click "Read more →" to open a full-screen rich-text editor with the same content. Useful when the thought outgrows the card.
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Collapse back to the label
Press Collapse and the node returns to its compact form. The rich content stays — it just isn't on screen.
See it in depth
A node, expanded. A full-screen editor when the thought won't stop.
Tap a node and it opens right on the canvas — paragraph, image, formatting, all there. Hit Read more and the whole thing goes full-screen, with a color picker, an image carousel, and every keyboard shortcut you'd expect from a real editor.
- Expand any node into a card right on the canvas — paste the paragraph, drop the image, keep mapping without losing your place.
- Tap Read more for a full-screen editor with a color picker for the node, plus a carousel to flip between every image you've attached.
- Type like you would in any document — bold, italic, headings, lists, links. The keyboard shortcuts you already know just work.
Common questions
Questions visitors ask before they try it.
Can I put images inside a mindmap node?
Yes. Drop an image into an expanded node and it embeds inline. You can resize within the card and paste multiple images per node. For very large files, the local IndexedDB browser storage is the limit — typically several gigabytes per origin.
Does rich content survive Markdown export?
Export converts node labels and rich text to Markdown headings + body. Images export as base64-inlined references; long Read-more content becomes a top-level section in the exported file. Round-trip from Markdown back into a mindmap is best-effort — Dumbnote isn't trying to be a Markdown editor.
Is there a length limit per node?
No hard cap. Read-more handles arbitrarily long content. Practically, nodes longer than a few hundred words become better outlines in their own right — at that point, consider promoting them to a child branch or a separate document.
Can I have keyboard-only rich text editing?
Yes. All formatting works with standard shortcuts (Cmd/Ctrl+B for bold, Cmd/Ctrl+I for italic, etc.). The editor never requires the mouse.