I Built a WordPress Plugin to Jot Down Article Ideas Using Mind Maps in the Admin Screen

2026-08-30

When writing articles in WordPress, I wanted a simple way to quickly jot down sudden ideas somewhere—born from that very wish is the “Mind Elixir Admin Mind Maps" plugin. I felt inconvenienced by saving them as drafts in posts or pages, and was looking for a system where I could quickly take notes more intuitively somewhere in the admin dashboard.

Source code here: https://github.com/bomura/wp-mind-elixir-admin

Motivation for Development

• Nowhere to put ideas
  While there are regular “draft" or “memo" plugins, they fall short when it comes to getting a bird’s-eye view of an article structure or expanding branches and sub-topics.

• The flexibility unique to mind maps
  With a mind map, where headings and sections can be dynamically added or moved as nodes, leaps in thought and associations flow smoothly.

• The simplicity of Mind Elixir
  “Mind Elixir", an open-source lightweight JavaScript library, can be loaded with just a single line of CDN and comes with drag-and-drop and export features. I thought this could be seamlessly integrated into the existing admin screen, which is where it all started.

Plugin Architecture and Key Files

 wp-mind-elixir-admin/
├── wp-mind-elixir-admin.php      ← Main plugin file (admin menu registration, data saving process)
├── readme.txt                    ← Plugin information for WordPress.org
├── assets/                       ← Screenshots and icons
├── css/
|   └── wp-mind-elixir-admin.css  ← Mind Elixir CSS
└── js/
    └── wp-mind-elixir-admin.js   ← Mind Elixir loading & initialization script 

• wp-mind-elixir-admin.php

  • Adds the “Mind Map Editor" menu using add_menu_page()

  • Loads CSS/JS for Mind Elixir via admin hooks

  • Saves and retrieves JSON data to/from the option mind_elixir_map_data via AJAX or form submission

• wp-mind-elixir-admin.js

  • Loads the core Mind Elixir library via CDN

  • Binds actions for the save and reset buttons

  • Restores the map based on JSON loaded from WordPress upon initial load

Screen Capture

The “Mind Map Editor" page added to the admin screen. You can add and edit nodes with an intuitive UI.

User Guide

1. Activate the Plugin
   Upload the plugin folder to /wp-content/plugins/wp-mind-elixir-admin and activate it, and a new menu will appear in the sidebar.

2. Access the Editor
   Go to the left sidebar → open Mind Map Editor to display the editor screen.

3. Add/Edit Nodes
   Click the center of the screen to add a new node. You can adjust positions via drag and drop.

4. Save/Reset
   Click the “Save" button in the top right to save to WordPress options. Click the “Reset" button to return to the initial state.

Future Outlook

• Support for embedding in the post screen

• Feature to switch between multiple maps

• Enhancement of export functions (PNG/SVG)

• Auto-save feature at regular intervals