outliners that sync content from/to text files?

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Posted by jimspoon
Nov 14, 2015 at 08:20 PM

I would like to be able to add to my outliner database simply by saving small text files to a folder (e.g. via dropbox). The outliner would have to monitor that folder for new or changed files, and sync the text in those files to outliner database items.

What outliners out there have a capability like this? UltraRecall has some such capabilities. Outwiker I think is designed for this. “OutWiker’s main difference from the other similar programs is keeping the tree of notes in the form of directories on disk, and encouraging changing the base by external sources and programs.”

Any others?

Posted by Marbux
Nov 15, 2015 at 07:50 PM

Sounds like Outwiker might be just what you’re looking for.

You could achieve the same result with NoteCase Pro. The program already ships with a pair of scripts for keeping outline nodes and plain text files in sync and another for importing a directory structure of RTF files. Borrowing from that code, it would be fairly trivial to write a script assigned to a timer that will periodically scan a directory structure and keep the outline updated accordingly. But it gets more complicated if you want full 2-way synchronization.

NoteCase Pro embeds the Lua v. 5.3 script interpreter and the Lua File System library. https://keplerproject.github.io/luafilesystem/ Both are cross-platform.

Posted by Anthony
Nov 16, 2015 at 12:15 PM

Not quite an outliner, but a text editor. SublimeText (or Atom as a freeware), with its project feature, shows an outline pane taken directly from a folder hard disk: i.e. mirroring it.

Pros:
a) any file put in there is shown in ST without need of synchronization
b) files to be shown can be filtered by name and extension
c) with an additional plugin you can manage to create/move/modify/etc. any type of text/html/etc files directly within ST, including the creation of new folder nodes
d) extensibility by combining project+snippets features
e) Multiplatform /ftp /possibly clouding (never tried).

Cons:
a) the outliner listing is in alphabetic order: re-ordening allow only between nodes (folders)
b) plain text only can be modified by ST, no rich text files (however any file can be shown and filtered in the outline project pane)
c) absence of a single file database, containing all the text files (possible though zipping the project).

I am sure other advanced text editors can do just (or almost) the same. The advantage of ST is the huge number of plugins.

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