Visual Outliner (new from the developer of Goal Enforcer)

Posted by washere
Nov 17, 2018 at 12:35 AM

Stephen Diamond wrote:
>however the plethora as you might say shows which is more natural and
>ergonomic on the eye and brain.
> >Washere,
> >My understanding is that two-pane outliners predominate because Windows
>has built-in resources for the second pane, but not for inline text.

Well Stephen I guess might be, and other things. I remember doing interface stuff and SGML projects for Sony then for Apple Newton etc on my first job. Back then the big dual pane thing was windows help files. Then a couple of guys made the tab based organizer based on filofax and sold the company to Lotus. We had dual pane since DOS boxes wares and then online BBS before HTML I guess. Who knows how far back it goes.

You can check 4 approaches on the following 2 android apps. OK lets break this down formally:

1) inline data in a Single Pane:
The problem here is if you got chunky data, more than one or a few paragraphs, expanding a few or even just one node takes up all screen acreage and you are a Zero pane outliner and just a text editor.
Conclusion: Good for short inline data: tagline/abstract/short blurb, not big data for nodes, kills it.
In fact a single pane purist should despise this as it easily kills the outliner.

2) Dual Pane Vertical:
Well we know this,it has taken over the world selling like hot cakes or you might call a rash or invasive weed
Conclusion: Good for big node data, hence book/report writers, Scrivener or Rightnote etc etc as examples

3) Dual Pane Horizontal:
Same as above except the data panel in underneath, the left tree becomes half the vertical size
Same thing as 2 but less overview of tree as halves in height

4) Single-Dual Pane or 1.5 Pane Hybrid:
This is like a mule or bastardized version of the two. Basically it is a single pane. But when you single/double click the node or however it is launched, the data is shown by:
- Replacing the screen into a text editor showing the node data or
- A windows pops up showing node data
- Launches the dual pane to show data
- Hover popup box
- etc

It is not a single pane, nor a dual pane really.

The 1st can be seen on the app outliner linked below as well as other software.

2 & 3 & 4 can be seen in Halna. To switch between the looks, click on “Change Style” in menu or icon at bottom (rotate sets).

Free ver links below. I suggest getting both Pro versions for about 5 bucks. Halna I have changed to look dark (dark grey text/lines etc on black background), does OPML etc and is by a Japanese dev, best outliner app on android by far. The dual pane border can easily move.

Both apps have tutorial file as example, can import your tree opml or bonsai etc file types too (Action in menu gives import etc submenu):
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=at.ff.outliner

Change to 3 modes by “Change Style”. Also in settings toggle “Single Mode/Sequene Mode” which makes the 2nd pane not just show node data for 1 node but can shows data for all nodes and highlights the node on the left as you scroll down/up & vice versa if moving up/down nodes in 1st pane. I wish other tree apps did this, very useful:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.blogspot.halnablue.HalnaOutlinerLite

______________________________________________
Conclusion? What style from above 4 one chooses depends on:
- Personal taste +
- How one’s eye works and roams best scanning data +
- Type of use: short bullet point type data or big chunks of text as in book writing with refs/notes etc.

So depends on the individual perfs and her needs depending on the project, I guess, no definitive answer.