It is a shame that Workflowy seems to be dead in the water and all the blog posts are about hacks or unsupported third party kludges. But if you use workflowy on iOS you will want this app:

HandyFlowy Brings WorkFlowy’s Feature-Rich Desktop Goodness (and more) to iOS
—WorkFlowy Blog

http://blog.workflowy.com/2016/04/21/handyflowy-workflowy

Luhmann wrote:

It is a shame that Workflowy seems to be dead in the water

Not to me. I use it every day all day long and it's very much working and alive.

True there haven't been new features released for a while. But I'm personally pretty satisfied with what WorkFlowy is capable of doing as it is, so I don't have a huge need for new features.

and all the
blog posts are about hacks or unsupported third party kludges.

Considering that this is a company run by two people AFAIK, I prefer if they spent their time on maintaining the service and developing new features, rather than with blogging.

As for the possibility for 3rd party app developers and script writers to come in and be able to extend the service by adding new functionalities, to me that's a very positive thing rather than a problem.

How is Workflowy "dead in the water"? It does what it's supposed to do, and it's enormously useful to lots of people (myself included) on a day-to-day basis.

There's an unfortunate belief among some that development must be a perpetual process. Why bloat a perfectly good product for the sake of "development"? In its current state, Workflowy approaches perfection, for the objective it was designed to achieve, and I'd encourage the developers to tweak all they like but NOT to bolt on new "features" that will only encumber, not enhance.

A disclaimer appeared in the meantime on the WorkFlowy blog:

"DISCLAIMER: This is not an official recommendation from the WorkFlowy team. We do not make this app, and we do not officially support it. It may break at any time, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Frank, our volunteer blogger, really likes this app and helped contribute to it, so we’re letting him write about it here."

One thing I'm wondering about is how safe (in terms of privacy) your WorkFlowy data is if you access it via a 3rd party app in iOS like HandFlowy. Would the provider of HandFlowy have access to user data at any point?

I downloaded HandFlowy. It's a mess. Tools menu is incomprehensible, and flies into view then disappear. One of the settings options is to hide settings -- go figure. Seems the point of the app is to show ads and induce users to pay the $4.99 US premium to get rid of them -- the usual annoying bait in a lot of iOS apps.

I love Workflowy exactly the way it is- on the desktop and on my Chromebook. Not that it couldn't be further improved or developed, but I use it every day and have no complaints.

I find the iOS interface to be lacking in usability, especially on an iPad (because it should really be as good as the desktop interface.) Too bad this app seems pretty kludgey.

Here are three features that make Handflowy useful to me:

First is "view only." In the standard Workflowy app, any touch on the screen brings up the keyboard and starts editing the outline. This means I can't use Workflowy effectively for lecture notes because I can't easily scroll through the notes as I teach. Handflowy solves this problem for me and is worth it for that alone.

The second is the ability to easily collapse and expand entire outlines without having to do it item-by-item. This (and several other keyboard shortcuts) make it much easier to navigate an outline on mobile.

And third is the ability to delete items, a feature not offered on Workfowy's own mobile app.

Unfortunately it doesn't bring the sharing interface to mobile.

I do love workflowy, but personally I'm getting tired of paying $50 a year just for the status quo back end sync & storage service, which is all it seems to buy. There is plenty of room for improvement without piling on features, but it just doesn't seem to be happening. Eg simple usability improvements like being able to delete an item in the android app without manually backspacing it away. Or greater user control eg to allow all user data to reside on Google Drive or other 3rd party trusted cloud storage (not just backups to Dropbox).

Luhmann wrote:

Here are three features that make Handflowy useful to me:
First is "view only."
The second is the ability to easily collapse and expand entire outlines
without having to do it item-by-item.
And third is the ability to delete items

I had a bit more time to play with it and it does seem like a huge improvement over WorkFlowy's own iOS app, with loads of new features.

As Frank said in the blog post, it does require some upfront investment of time and effort to figure out all the features and customise them to your liking.

It's partly the broad range of settings and customisability options that make it hard to assess initially the benefits HandyFlowy can bring to the table.

In addition to the ones you mention above (and besides the customisability itself), I also like the fact that there are toolbar icons now for moving items around up and down the list and the hierarchy, rather than the finger-based drag and drop technique in the proprietory WorkFlowy app.

The various toolbar controls for moving the cursor around and navigating the outline also seem useful, but it takes some time to learn which one does what. Perhaps removing superfluous functions from the customisable toolbar can help with recognising them more easily.

One thing I wonder about is that it says it requires an internet connection to be used. If I remember correctly, in the proprietory app you can add items offline, and then they get synced once you're online again. Does that work the same on HandyFlowy?

BTW, HandyFlowy integrates with another iOS and Android app of theirs, MemoFlowy, for entering longer text and for using templates. I haven't quite figured it out yet.

https://itunes.apple.com/no/app/memoflowy/id1052582668
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.nap.app.memoflowy

Anyway, I think in this instance competition is good. If nothing else, this might prompt the WorkFlowy team to think about how they want to continue supporting cross-platform users (whether through their own apps or 3rd party apps).

BTW, I think the HandFlowy developer is making a mistake by hiding the customisability option behind the paywall. This makes it very hard if not impossible for new users to evaluate what exactly they would be paying for, when customisability **is** itself one of the key benefits here.

It would make more sense to allow new users to have some limited time to play around with all the features, so they can decide whether they'd be prepared to pay for them.

From some of the reactions in this thread it seems that first-time users are turned off by the difficulty to get an overview of the product and be able to properly try it out.

If these users are finding the app "kludgy", it's unlikely the developer is going to get a whole lot of advertising revenue out of them.

Dr Andus wrote:

BTW, I think the HandFlowy developer is making a mistake by hiding the
customisability option behind the paywall.
It would make more sense to allow new users to have some limited time to
play around with all the features

In fact it might be better to remove the block on the customisability options altogether, if the developer is also going to keep the in-app advertising.

Subscribing WorkFlowy PRO customers would be very likely to pay to remove the ads if they can be convinced that HandyFlowy is much better than the standard app. But if they can't fully evaluate the product, then they won't bother with it.

The other category of users is the non-subscribing WorkFlowy Free users. They would probably use the ad-supported version, if it was fully functional. But if its key functions are crippled, there is not much reason for them to switch to HandyFlowy, and so in-app advertising is unlikely to produce much revenue.

Just my 2 cents...

All the work-arounds and third party software notwithstanding, it appears Workflowy development has stalled. Continuing to advance Workflowy does not necessarily equate to product bloat. Also, the Android app lacks functionality, and I would be more confident in Workflowy if the developer dealt with that issue rather than leaving it to third parties.

I am not sure it's to Workflowy's advantage to have its official blog written primarily by someone whose objective appears to be to point out shortcomings in the software ware, and then present work-arounds. I'd rather hear from people who actually use the product without having to go through workaround hoops. Some of us just want to use Workflowy for what it can do, and have neither the time nor the inclination to try out various hacks.

Daly

Dr Andus wrote:

A disclaimer appeared in the meantime on the WorkFlowy blog:

"DISCLAIMER: This is not an official recommendation from the WorkFlowy
team. We do not make this app, and we do not officially support it. It
may break at any time, and there's nothing we can do about it."

The WorkFlowy guys are missing a trick here, IMHO. Rather than scaring off potential users of HandyFlowy with their disclaimer, they might be better off embracing HandyFlowy, possibly even adopting it as the official iOS version of WorkFlowy (strategic partnership? acquisition?).

I'm finding HandyFlowy superior in every regard. I only occasionally used the official iOS or Android app before, mainly for reviewing the list or adding a single item, as every other operation was just too awkward. HandyFlowy got that sorted, making WorkFlowy usable on iOS.

If WorkFlowy don't have the time to improve their own iOS app, then supporting external apps would make good sense (and apparently an Android version of HandyFlowy is in the works as well).

Daly de Gagne wrote:

All the work-arounds and third party software notwithstanding, it
appears Workflowy development has stalled.

The WorkFlowy guys have just opened a public forum to discuss new feature suggestions with users:

https://medium.com/workflowy-design

The posts so far:

"WorkFlowy Is Designing Out In The Open: We want your thoughts about our thoughts"

"Dates & Reminders In WorkFlowy? They’re coming, and we need your help designing them"

Make sure to check the comments as well.

They seem alive to me ;)

While HandyFlowy has become my preferred way to access WorkFlowy on iPod Touch (it seemed to have worked less smoothly on a relative's iPad Mini, so I'm not sure if it works as well on iPads), I've come across one limitation.

I was off the grid for a few weeks, and so I had to be entering data into HandyFlowy offline.

It does warn you that the outline won't sync until you're online again, but otherwise it lets you enter data and browse it.

However, after a week or two of offline use, I seem to have hit a limit with the amount of data that could be entered offline.

At one point the screen of the app just went blank and stayed that way, so I was not able to access my data at all.

When I tried to sync it next time I was online, apparently the internet connection (wifi) wasn't strong enough to get it working again. I had to find a really strong wifi signal to be able to fix it.

So just keep that in mind if you're planning a holiday in the mountains somewhere...

Instead, I switched to the good old CarbonFin Outliner app during that time, which worked great offline. Although compared to either HandyFlowy or the official iOS WorkFlowy app, the user experience design is a lot more pedestrian, as there are many seemingly unnecessary steps to work with an outline. Nevertheless it did the trick, it's a reliable offline app.

Yes, I still summon CarbonFin Outliner for conference notes, article planning, travel journals, etc. How is Handyflowy on iOS? That is, is it just a more focused implementation of Workflowy, or does it have its own learning curve, such that you're working with two very discrete programs?

jaslar wrote:

How is Handyflowy on iOS? That is, is it
just a more focused implementation of Workflowy, or does it have its own
learning curve, such that you're working with two very discrete
programs?

I can only speak for the iPhone/iPod Touch version, as the one time I tried it on iPad Mini it didn't seem to work as well.

But the iPhone/iPod version is far superior to the official WorkFlowy app.

It's definitely a discrete program (though the underlying WorkFlowy features are the same).

I wouldn't call it a "learning curve." It's more like patience to go through all the features and then customise the toolbar so that it only contains those features that are essential for your own daily use.

However, this can only be done in the Pro version, so one needs to pay up before being able to properly learn about and customise the product.

It is really the customisability of the toolbar that for me is HandyFlowy's most useful feature (plus the ability to disable the editing mode for view-only operation, as pointed out by others earlier).

You could add one-click (or tap) functions to the toolbar e.g. for adding inline notes, indenting/outdenting and moving up/down outline items, duplicating nodes (with up to 1000 items max.), hiding the keyboard, completing a task, moving the cursor by one character or to the end of the line etc., etc.

So it all depends which operations you use the most frequently.

jaslar wrote:

Yes, I still summon CarbonFin Outliner for conference notes, article
planning, travel journals, etc.

Another nice thing about using CarbonFin in conjunction with WorkFlowy is that the CarbonFin website lets you download an OPML version of each outline, and from there it's a simple copy and paste into WorkFlowy (correctly pasting both nodes and inline notes).

I am not sure it's to Workflowy's advantage to have its official blog
written primarily by someone whose objective appears to be to point out
shortcomings in the software ware, and then present work-arounds. I'd
rather hear from people who actually use the product without having to
go through workaround hoops. Some of us just want to use Workflowy for
what it can do, and have neither the time nor the inclination to try out
various hacks.

Daly

Hey Daly, Frank here. Just came across this discussion now... and I hopped onto the WorkFlowy blog to take a quick look see. Of the last 10 posts that I've written there (as of today), only 2 of them deal exclusively with "hacks". One about a bookmarklet to automate the creation of a tag index... and the other to track changes in WorkFlowy (à la MS Word). I'm not sure there are any productivity tools out there at the moment which can do either of the two... so, in that sense, a lot of the hacks I do write about are not features that one would ordinarily see anywhere... or which one would even want to be baked into WorkFlowy itself.

I've posted weekly for exactly a year now. Some back-breaking hard work... and I must say that the bulk of it (8 out of the last 10 posts) is stuff that would be applicable to any WorkFlowy user, without having to rely on hacks. The last post I created... I put over 20 hours into it. The concept of QR codes can actually apply to any URL/ productivity app that uses URL's (i.e. Evernote shared notes, etc.). There are also 2 interviews in the last 10 posts with WorkFlowy users who are using WorkFlowy to run their businesses.

What I think is happening is that some of the memorable posts - such as the HandyFlowy post... and hacks to include inline images, etc... those posts get quite a bit of attention... but for some reason, a few people have made similar comments about myself primarily posting about hacks... while in reality it's emphatically quite the opposite.

I would invite you to take a look at a couple of the most recent posts (within the last 10) which are core WorkFlowy through and through:

1. The WorkFlowy keyboard shortcut challenge: https://blog.workflowy.com/2016/10/06/keyboard-shortcut-challenge/

I'm really quite proud of this one. It gives people the chance to practice WorkFlowy's keyboard shortcuts with some fun dynamics. That post set me back about 15 hours to complete.

2. Kanban scheduling in WorkFlowy
https://blog.workflowy.com/2016/09/15/daily-schedule/

This is productivity 101.

3. "Ghost Bullets” and Completed Items Bring Focus to Writers and Translators
https://blog.workflowy.com/2016/09/01/writers-and-translators/

This post is WorkFlowy to its core with no hacks. Just a streamlining of one's writing WorkFlowy.

4. 4 Pretty Useful Things You Can do With Shared WorkFlowy Lists
https://blog.workflowy.com/2016/08/24/shared-list-use-cases/

Three quarters of this post is dedicated to things one can to with shared WorkFlowy lists without any "hacks". The last quarter expands on an (optional) Stylish hack.

Anywho... you're talking to someone who finds incredible worth in the stripped-down WorkFlowy that we get right out of the box... and most of the posts I write come out with some pretty darn useful tips and tricks for just that. I've written a book full of WorkFlowy-centric stuff... and the posts have been quite prolific. In the first couple of month I was doing 2 posts a week... and due to time constraints (I do this voluntarily), I knocked it down to one post a week.

You'll also glean a lot of useful information in the comments section of each post from the WorkFlowy community itself... and, in fact, many of the hacks have been the creation of the WorkFlowy community itself... tools that spring from ordinary users like myself who have a need and find a way to make it a reality... many of whom would be the first to say that they wouldn't want these hacks to become actual native WorkFlowy features.

In many posts I have invited people to write me about their ideas and suggest content for future posts. You're more than welcome to hit me up at:

frankman777@gmail.com

Cheers!

Frank

Frank's posts are useful and informative. I don't think anything bad can be said about them. However, I find it disappointing that the WorkFlowy Design blog on Medium hasn't been updated since its initial two posts in May, and that other than Frank's posts there is hardly any news from the Workflowy team.

For me, the main problem with workflowy is that they have a stupid freemium model. Premium users are basically paying for the free users bandwith. That's the case with a lot of apps. But workflowy takes their customers money every month and doesn't develop the app further. To this day you cannot access the website from a mobile browser for example. There are not enough export options etc.

If their tool is as popular as they claim with all the success stories and companies using workflowy, they should make a lot of money and maybe invest some of it in development. User side JavaScript or CSS tweaks don't count. I don't think that it is currently worth the 60€ for a year.

For those unhappy with Workflowy - or at least its state of development - there's at least one clone:

http://www.dynalist.io

We've written about Dynalist before, but I happen to have brought my iPad into work today, so thought I'd see how Dynalist is in iOS lately. The answer is: pretty good. Using Chrome, I went to the website, and see they've added some nice touch screen enhancements that make it easier to navigate and play around with the structure.

I'm still very happy with Workflowy on desktop and on my Chromebook. My only dissatisfaction is with the iOS app (which is why I have a Chromebook instead of an iPad.) Missing the following features really kills the iOS app for me:

1. Being able to use the cursor keys to freely move around the document (instead of only within an item)
2. External keyboard command to expand/collapse an item (CTRL-SPACE)
3. Starred items
4. Night mode (not as important as the other 3 items, but still...)

dynalist is excellent. I've found it can't handle thousands of items easily, like workflowy does. Nonetheless dynalist has some great features.

Frank and his blog posts and his book are awesome but I agree that workflowy's lack of development is frustrating.

For me, workflowy, dynalist, moo.do, HandyFlowy, all of them, are just terrible on ios. The native apps are usually better than the web app but they're all awfully slow and visually glitchy and have unbearable quirks such as the one mentioned above (can't navigate with up/down keys). I use them only if I have to.

In all of their defense, at least as far as ios: apple requires all ios browsers to use the WebKit rendering engine and (I believe) WebKit javascript. I think this really limits what developers are able to do with web apps on ios.

I agree that dynalist is slower when handling large outlines than Workflowy. One of the things I love about Workflowy is how fast it is, regardless of size.

I also agree that so far there is nothing remotely usable on iOS. I'm beta testing Bear and have hopes for it, but so far their outlining features are missing (there is no easy way to indent on iOS in their current beta, although they say that will change...)