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The forgotten outliner: TKOutline
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Dec 14, 2012 at 04:57 PM
This morning I needed to build a simple, but extensive outline. I could have done it in Noteliner, but I decided to go back to an oldie, TKOutline. I’m pleased to report it still works just fine, even though it hasn’t had a major update in ages.
TKOutline actually remains one of the better single-pane outliners available. Here’s a list of the features (from the web site):
Cross-platform: runs anywhere Tcl/Tk runs
Behaves similar to a text editor
Nodes are alway “active” and cursor movement between nodes is smooth
Nodes can be split at the cursor into two adjacent nodes by hitting the enter key
Two adjacent nodes can be merged by hitting delete at the end of a line or backspace at the beginning of a line
Word wrap at the end of a line
Multiple outline support via a tabbed notebook interface
Inter-outline hyperlink support using wiki syntax (square braces)
External URL hyperlink support
Support for *bold* /italics/ _underline_ and -strikethrough- formatting
Drag and Drop movement of nodes
“Size” of each collapsed node is displayed
Export to ascii, html, xml, opml, and emailable text
Save subtree, load tree as subtree
Key bindings are externally configurable
In fact, it is close to the outliner that our ranting, new member ChristianRR was looking for (aside from support for images).
I had trouble downloading the latest stable version, so I chose the unreleased development version, and it seems to work fine.
Anyway, definitely worth a look. Find it here:
http://tkoutline.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/scm/wiki?name=Tkoutline
Steve Z.
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Dec 14, 2012 at 05:03 PM
BTW, the web site reports that Undo/Redo is a missing feature, but that must just be old news, because the Undo/Redo works fine (though I have not checked to see how far back it goes).
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Dec 14, 2012 at 05:06 PM
BTW#2 - One major missing feature is ability to print your outlines. You have to export them. Deal breaker? For some uses, definitely. Not for others.
Posted by Derek Cornish
Dec 14, 2012 at 05:55 PM
Steve,
I was just about to download tkoutline when I happened upon your post here. Thank you very much for the great reminder list of tkoutline’s features.
I particularly needed a simple flash-drive-portable outliner - and in a hurry. Although Noteliner is billed as portable, as I understand it this is only the case as between computers with the necessary .Net and visual studio runtime files. (Please correct me if wrong…) The great thing about tkoutline is that it is really simple to use, cross-platform, and - as far as Windows is concerned - apparently “intergenerational”: it runs on early (WIN95, WIN98) versions as well as later ones.
There is a useful discussion of various issues at: http://tkoutline.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/scm/wiki?name=Tkoutline+discussion.
Of course, having said I was in a hurry, I couldn’t resist a little CRIMPING (PocketThinker, NoteLiner, Whizfolders,Brainstorm, GV) on the way. Back to work…
Derek
Posted by ChristianRR
Dec 14, 2012 at 06:34 PM
Thank you Stephen, I just read this and will try TKOutline right away. I’ve come to think that only having links to external images, which would launch a picture viewer when clicked, is even better than having the images directly in the outline. I’ve been trying without success to do this with Notemap 2 hyperlinks (not linked files).