Revisiting the Pros and Cons of Horizontal Outliners

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Posted by Foolness
Sep 18, 2012 at 06:31 PM

Disclaimer: I’m only judging the software from a screenshot as I don’t use a Mac.

Something that I think that has died is the concept of horizontal outliners so I’m hoping by making this thread, someone could develop an improved software that is hopefully more cross-platform than the last one.

I’m talking of Tree which has been mentioned here before but has rarely been discussed. In fact, if you do a search for Horizontal Outliners - there’s no thread even having that title in this forum “even” if there are threads about Tree: http://www.topoftree.jp/images/0_overview.png

Quick pro and cons:

Pro:
-Horizontal outliners are NOT mindmaps/free form outliners or spreadsheets. This factors alone are huge in terms of creating a new outlining mindset

Cons:
-People found out about horizontal outliners through the desire for columns which leads to spreadsheets
-People see Tree’s implementation and think it’s the pinnacle rather than the first of it’s kind

Software that have solved many of Tree’s barebones horizontal outlining issues.

Workflowy: The folding/zooming system allows horizontal outliners to be true outliners from a multi-monitor perspective. No longer does horizontal outliners need a linear path to view.

Freemind and other fishbone mindmaps: The style of these software have shown the potential for multi-directional horizontal outlines.

Toilet Paper Notetakers: In combination with dashboard services like Netvibes and services like Trello, the possibility of a horizontal toilet paper that isn’t a free form mindmap is possible today and would improve upon those services when it comes to flltering through notes.

Things missing in horizontal outlines that only it can solve:

-The concept of using the model to kill columns instead of just replacing the idea of how columns work in outliners.

-The concept of a waterfall presentation of data side by side. That is to say, an outliner that scrunches up information but is naturally drawn to the downwards movement of the eyes

-The concept of a much smaller tree that can hold bigger chunks of trees much closer to how image editor layers are organized instead of the traditional space taking sidebar of outliners

-The concept of a true dual flowchart where two contrasting directions like say the good and evil outline of a character can be viewed in one side by side screen similar to detailed outlines of the Yin and Yang concept

-The concept of an outliner presented like a mountain through diagonally changing the direction of the horizontal outline

-The ability to use the white space provided by such an outline for sticky notes/annotations/scratch pads or even as a form of self-containing mind map that functions much closer to the limitations of a paper mind map rather than similar looking nodes with options to attach an image

-The ability to start from the middle or the end and working towards the central core of an outline be it a title or the main branch section of information

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