Just what is an outliner?

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
May 5, 2017 at 11:06 AM

Luhmann rightly didn’t want his topic on a list of dedicated outliners (DO) hijacked into another discussion, so I’ve started it here. If you search the archive, you may find that I’ve brought this topic up myself in the past (at least I think I have—it has been a while). Because the range of software we discuss on this forum allows for a very generous definition of what may be an outliner… pretty much anything that provides the ability to hierarchically categorize information. But I understand Luhmann’s point about “dedicated outliners.” I think those are legitimately a sub-category of the software we discuss. Here is how I would define them:

Single-pane, with nested topics where notes, if they are supported, are inline.

An app like Treepad isn’t a dedicated outliner, but a hierarchical note organizer (which in no way means it can’t be used to the same affect as a DO). Same with an app like TheBrain, which certainly allows you to hierarchically build a map of your information and even has an “outline” configuration for the plex.

Anyway, this is how I see this broad category of apps. What do you think?

Steve Z.