A Cautionary Tale

Jul 302012

Back in May 2011 I posted an article about mind mapping and photography (Lost? Try Using a Map!). In that article I recommended a few mind mapping applications that you could use. One of the recommendations was XMind. I still recommend it for mind mapping but want to alert you to an issue a reader brought to my attention.

I received an email from a reader who had chosen XMind as her mind mapping application after reading my article. She downloaded and installed the application. The next time she went to work in Lightroom and Photoshop she discovered that all of her XMP files now appeared as XMind Marker Packages! Naturally she was concerned that all of that XMP data was now corrupted or lost. We worked through the issue and reassigned the default application for XMP files back to Photoshop and all was well. You can choose the default application for any file via Mac’s Finder (click here for Mac instructions) or Windows’ Explorer (click here for Windows instructions).

No harm had been done but the experience was upsetting. XMind should have asked permission before commandeering the XMP file format as its own. So while I still recommend XMind as a good mind mapping application be aware that it will take over your XMP files and you will have to reassign the default application back.

I have notified the XMind folks of their faux pas and asked them to address the issue.

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About the Author: Gene McCullagh
Contact Gene

Gene is an Adobe Community Professional, an Adobe Certified Expert in Photoshop Lightroom, Photoshop, and InDesign, and an avid Lightroom fan. He has written several feature articles for Photoshop User Magazine and is the author of Explore Lightroom 4: A Roadmap for Photographers.

He belongs to the Professional Photographers of America (PPA) and the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP). Gene is the Co-Founder, Manager and a frequent blogger for the Dallas Fort Worth Adobe User Group (DFWAUG).

In addition to running Lightroom Secrets, Gene also contributes to O'Reilly's media blog, moderates on the Adobe forums, and helps out on lightroomforums.net.

http://www.facebook.com/photographybymichaelpresley Michael Presley

As far as I can tell Lightroom isn’t registered as the default xmp handler in Windows – not in any of the installations I have, there’s actually nothing registered as the default xmp handler. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t/wouldn’t matter – the xmp file would still be written to by LR regardless of what the default handler is.
http://lightroomsecrets.com Gene McCullagh

Thanks for the Windows update, Michael! XMind apparently does register itself as the default handler and this can cause some confusion. LR will still interact correctly but users might prefer to not have XMPs show up with XMind’s icon and the description of XMind Marker Package.

I still thinks it’s bad practice to take over a file format with at least notifying the user.
http://www.facebook.com/photographybymichaelpresley Michael Presley

I agree completely about the software taking over the format without asking for permission, very bad form. I just wanted to clarify the results of that action.