One Thing Well
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Posts tagged with outliners.
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Fargo
Fargo is a simple idea outliner, notepad, todo list, project organizer.
It’s an HTML 5 application, written in JavaScript, runs in any compatible browser, including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Microsoft IE 10.
Files are stored in Dropbox. They are accessible anywhere Dropbox is. You can share files with other users, or publicly.
The HTML5 local storage in the browser/real files in Dropbox combo is a great idea. And, since Fargo outlines are plain old OPML files, they’ll work with all sorts of existing mobile and desktop outliners.
Little Outliner
Little Outliner is a powerful and easy editor that automatically saves text locally…
An easy-to-use, keyboard-driven outliner on the web with some interesting features—e.g. you can run snippets of JavaScript in outliner items—and more in the pipeline, including ‘networks of outlines’.
mil edit
mil edit is a keyboard-friendly, web-based outliner and list-maker that exports to Markdown.
Tree
Tree is an outliner featuring a horizontally expandable tree view.
Outlines are stored as plain text or OPML.
OmniOutliner for iPad has arrived, and—as you’d expect from The Omni Group—it’s a pleasure to use.
iOS Outliners
I suspect most iOS device-owning outliner people are waiting for OmniOutliner to drop, but in the meantime there are two capable apps available for your ‘Pad, ‘Phone or ‘Pod:
Outliner & Outliner for iPad 
A polished interface, especially on the iPad. Synchronisation is available via a web-based outliner which lets you export to OPML and plain text, as well as allowing you to edit outlines collaboratively with others. My only reservation: no Dropbox support.
Simple Outliner
A great basic outliner, and fast to use, though its UI is not exactly easy on the eyes. The paid version lets you export to plain text and OPML, and edit outlines on your iPhone/Pad through a browser interface.
And with that, outliner week draws to a close. If I missed your favourite outliner, or you have an idea for a future batch of themed posts, do get in touch.
Outlining in Textmate
The Tasks bundle for TextMate lets you create simple outlines with, as the name suggests, a focus on managing todo lists. It’s not a full-blown outliner by any means, but for quick note-taking or planning it more than does the job.
Another TextMate bundle, Outlines is more of a ‘pre-outliner’, letting you create tab-delimited outlines then quickly convert them to other formats, including OPML and OmniOutliner.
I was surprised to find that there’s no full-featured outliner bundle available for TextMate—I’d have a go at writing one, but a) I use Vimoutliner and b) all that XML gubbins looks awfully fiddly.
Thanks, Henrik.
Another outliner for vim? Yep.
Like the others, Vimoutliner is lightning fast, with easy keybindings for adding items, moving them around the hierarchy, folding and unfolding, timestamping and adding checkboxes. Those checkboxes aren’t just cosmetic, either—Vimoutliner keeps track of completed items, displaying a percentage tally as you work throgh your todo list.
On the downside, the official Vimoutliner site has been broken for quite some time. To download the latest version see Steve Litt’s site; for tutorials, scripts and a handy cheatsheet see Jim Tittsler’s pages.
The Guide is a small, portable two-paned outliner for Windows. It’s better suited to planning projects or organising large amounts of text than quick note-taking.
TVO—The Vim Outliner—builds on vim’s inbuilt folding features to craft a fast, full-featured and keyboard-controlled outlining tool. Needless to say, outlines are stored as plain text, though you can convert easily to HTML and RTF.
hnb is an outliner that’s completely keyboard controlled, with a handy todo-list mode and nice handling of URLs and email addresses (which means you can use it, as the developer does, to store contacts).
My only gripe is that to get the most out of hnb, you have to use its own XML format, though it’s capable of exporting and editing plain text.
