I have created a (Corel) Mindmanager map ad I am trying to import it into a Tinderbox outline. I have tried selecting the whole map and pasting it but what happens then is I get an item with the title of the Mindmap and the remaining items from the map go into the text. I then exported the map to an OPML file but I got a message in Tinderbox:
“Tinderbox was unable to parse this OPML file. Is it valid? If so, please contact Tinderbox Support.”
“XML error:no element found at line:1”
I have now tried the same things with Mindnode (which opened the mindmanager file without any problem). The OPML file was also rejected by Tinderbox but copying and pasting the whole map worked like a charm.
Could you post the OPML file (or a small example that fails on Tinderbox import). Bear in mind much OPML use by apps involves ‘custom’ extensions that other apps may ignore or—as is likely here—choke on. The fact one mindmap app ingests OPML data from another isn’t much of a bench mark as the two have a competition-based incentive to read each others possibly ill-formed OPML.
This isn’t format tech support but there are some here who know a bit about the OPML formal. If we can spot the aberrations in the sample (as Tinderbox does read well-formed OPML) we might be able to figure a workaround.
Is this import regular or an occasional thing. I ask as the answer may help steer the suggestions that arise.
Sure enough, an import error is reported at line #9. The crud is formally at line #8 but import line error report is usually flgging the line or previous line as the cause).
No idea why such an unusual non-printing [sic] control character should be here. If I delete the gash character it all works, and the OPML imports into Tinderbox just fine.
If you look at the source Mindmanager, can you see why that note has this extra cruft in it?
I suspect (@eastgate) that now seen, Tinderbox’s OPML parser might be able to be adjust to ignor/delete this unwanted info. It does beg the question of how many different such garbage characters are getting added to the OPML text and are they actually deliberate (i.e. needed in the source app) or just an artefact of poor to-OPML serialisation of text. The latter I’m not placed to say. I think this is best followed up directly with Tech Support (i.e. email info@eastgate.com) as now we’ve identified the problem, we users can’t do much more.
Short term, BBEdit’s ‘zap gremlins’ feature helps remove this extra content, pending a longer term fix.
Looking at the screengrab, the ‘bad’ caption seems to be left padded with space compared to the two captions beneath it. I’d expect all three to left align (unless there is centring/justification in play). So, is it a leading space? A tab? I wouldn’t be surprised if that is part of the issue. If you edit the source to make sure nothing is in front of the first letter of Restitution, does the OPML then import OK into Tinderbox. If doing this do keep the original Mindmanager file before editing the caption so you’re preserved the original state for later reference.
If so, it is a matter of working out what that character is. If it is is a space or tab then, for OPML/XML, Mindmanager is mis-encoding them. That’s not to point a finger but to work out what need’s fixing. Regardless of any potential changes in Tinderbox, Mindmanager would do better not to include (what appears to be garbage).
It is quite possible the eco-system of mind-mappers get around the problem by ignoring it. Still, if fixed at source, no kludge fix is needed downstream. It would be interesting to know what the Mindmanager dev’s take is here.
The cruel irony in this inter-app context is apps that best-guess so as to achieve a result appear more competent because we see an outcome rather than an error. Of course, especially in a large doc, we’ve no idea what is being disregarded or deleted in order to ‘just’ work. IOW, fist impressions can be deceiving. In saying that, I’m not disparaging anyone here, just trying to drill down and figure what needs fixing—which might not be what or where we first imagine!
You are correct. There was a character there. When I deleted it the OPML came across without error. I tried to copy the character and paste it into a word document so that I could see what it was but nothing pasted into the document.
<outline text="¿Restitution on the grounds of unjust enrichment">
begins with a character 0x01 (ASCII start of header), which is illegal in XML and therefore illegal in OPML. Any program that accepts this file is wrong to do so: XML readers must reject invalid XML.
Why? XML is designed for things like bank transfers. If a message is not well formed, it might not mean what is appears to mean! To avoid very bad outcomes (oh? You meant a million lira and not a million pounds sterling? Oops!), XML has strict rules that require rejection of ill-formed imports.
Tinderbox and OmniOutliner are doing what they ought to do.
