satis wrote:

Nice. I downloaded it and played with it a bit.

A couple of requests:

Indenting/outdenting into a new line: When I outline I constantly make
new indent nodes and then outdent again. With the outliners I use
there's always a keyboard command to make a new indent/outdent from the
line I'm on, but Zavala requires you go an extra step (which can get
tiresome) and requires the creation of a new sister node which can then
be indented/outdented.

I'll add those commands for you in version 1.1. It might be a couple months before this release is available.

Font/size options.

Font/size options are in the preferences settings.

Nice to see Zavala out in the big wide world!

I’ve been using the beta version for a while, and find it an excellent alternative to e.g. Dynalist or Workflowy.

Cheers!
Bill

Zavala 1.1 is now available in the App Store. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/zavala/id1546457750

This release contains a number of enhancements suggested by members of this forum. I'd like to thank everyone who provided input!

# Release Notes

* Added support for images
* On the Mac you can use the Menu or Toolbar item to bring up a photo picker
* On iOS you can use the edit menu to bring up a photo picker
* On both platforms you can drag an item into your Outline to insert an image
* Added support for templates
* Added the ability to duplicate an Outline
* Added the ability to duplicate Rows
* Added the option to always open the main window when activating Zavala when there are no windows active
* Added keyboard shortcuts for moving rows
* On the iPhone and iPad there are now supplementary buttons to move rows with so that you don’t have to swipe and drag to move rows around
* On the iPhone and iPad there are now supplementary buttons to Link and Insert Images so that these are more discoverable
* Added the Add Row Inside and Add Row Outside commands
* Added the Collapse Parent Row command
* Added an item count to the Sidebar
* The link dialog will now place the cursor in the link field if the text field is populated
* We no longer restore the last cursor position when opening an outline if the keyboard was hidden when the outline was closed
* Made it easier to drag rows onto each other.
* You can now add a new Outline directly from the Link Dialog. The title of the new Outline will be the link text.
* Updates received from iCloud now update the search index automatically
* Reduced the amount of disk space used by up to 30% by removing redundant data

Looks like some on Reddit just took note of it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/macapps/comments/psoozc/zavala_an_outliner_for_mac_and_ios_free_and_open/

Cool. Thanks for the heads up. I should have probably posted it myself a long time ago. :-)

FYI Maurice, tonight I started playing with Zavala 1.2 on the latest version of Big Sur, and notice that the keyboard commands for Add Row Inside and Add Row Outside don't work, although they do when chosen from the Outline menu.

Those commands are two of the most common I use when outlining...

cmd-{ and cmd-} work for me as keyboard shortcuts. Were these the ones you were looking for or is there another common set of keyboard shortcuts for those commands that I haven't implemented?

Is it possible that you have those keys mapped to something else, maybe using something like Keyboard Maestro?

If you were using cmd-{ and cmd-} and nothing is intercepting the keystrokes, then it might be a bug in Big Sur. I'm on Monterey and don't currently have a instance of Big Sur installed somewhere that I can test. I'll spin up a Big Sur instance if I can somewhere to fix it if you confirm that it is likely a Big Sur bug.

Nothing's remapped via either Keyboard Maestro or System Preferences > Keyboard > Shortcuts. And I didn't see the commands used in any of my many menubar utilities when I just checked.

It still could be some app, as some apps I use do permit global shortcut configuration in-app (like HoudahSpot, which has a menubar helper all) which makes it pretty difficult to trace conflicts. And annoying.

I intend to get a new Mac later this year and install all my apps from scratch this time - my system has tons of leftover app and system cruft since I've used Migration Assistant for all new machines since something like 2004! Hopefully any conflicts like this will disappear on the new M-series machine.

FYI one of the things I love about OmniOutliner is the ease with which one can rewrite existing shortcuts. I spent close to two decades using the outliner Acta (later sold and renamed DynoNotepad, then sold back to the original dev and renamed Opal, and now free at http://a-sharp.com/opal/opal.html ) and I have ingrained muscle-memory for commands like 'Add Inside' being Command-D (what Acta called a 'Daughter' back in the 80s). Much more convenient and easier to type than Omni's silly choice Shift-Command-}

I remembered that my wife's laptop had Big Sur on it and I was able to test there. It worked fine. At this point, I suspect a keyboard conflict. That would be strange though. As you mentioned, it is a strange keyboard combination, and I would expect you to have the same problem in OmniOutliner.

I hear you about a clean install. I've got so much junk accumulated over the years in ~/Library that I'm going to start from scratch as well when the MBP I ordered gets here.

I'll give some thought to adding keyboard remapping. On the one hand, I don't want to complicate the app anymore than I have to. On the other, I want users to be able to migrate to using Zavala from other outliners. (This is why I come as close as I can to OmniOutliner keyboard shortcuts).

FYI I just relaunched the app and the keyboard commands suddenly are working now. Odd.

Just launched Terminal and saw my uptime is 29 days; often weird things happen when I don't restart after a couple of weeks so maybe it had something to do with that.

Yeah, unfortunately the quality of Apple's software isn't what it used to be. Quirks like this can be really frustrating.

Darren McDonald wrote:

I would like to see in an outliner what Brett Terpstra states in his
blog when he wrote about the Tree app;
a horizontal view of the outline.

For a horizontal view of the outline, you can find that today in SimpleMind Pro.
The outliner feature is simple, basic, but it works smoothly, is totally reliable, and is updated frequently.
I've been using SimpleMing Pro for many years.

I just wrote about it elsewhere on this forum, so here I'll put just a link, not a double post:
https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/9131/20

I don't have a mind-map or tree view on the roadmap yet. It probably won't happen before version 3 as version 2 is well in development with a new set of features.

Here is the GitHub issue to track it if you want to add any requests about how it should work.

https://github.com/vincode-io/Zavala/issues/129

I could use some community feedback on how Zavala should incorporate Columns or what I call Row Metadata.

https://zavala.vincode.io/2021/10/29/Row-Metadata-Proposal.html

You can comment here or in the linked GitHub Discussion. Thanks!

Your blog post was very thoughtful, Maurice. Your idea to show metadata inline would probably benefit most on smaller iPhone screens, but might confuse some who would think of them as tags. But I think it might benefit users to simply *call* them tags, with which people are already conceptually familiar, compared to introducing a relatively obscure idea of columns in a category that itself isn't too commonly used.

I don't commonly use columns in OmniOutliner but when I do it's typically to simulate checkboxes because I detest the all-or-nothing approach in which I'm forced to see superfluous checkboxes throughout a long outline when I just need it in a few child-nodes. (Over the years people have requested that changed in OO but it's apparently not on the horizon.) I use columns primarily on the Mac, and while it's not ideal to view on iOS for me it's read-only, so that's not a significant issue.

When metadata/tags are embedded inline the eye has to scan all over the screen (based on the length of the content) to find and read the metadata results. With columns it's just easier to see and compare metadata, which is why I personally prefer it for my own uses.

In retrospect, I see what a poor choice of name "Row Metadata" is. It will do nothing but confuse most users and probably frighten some of them.

I like "tag(s)" for a name, but I've kind of backed myself into a corner there. I use "tag" to identify a way of categorizing and organizing outlines. Using it differently when applied towards rows is going to be confusing.

I'm kind of leaning toward the word "token". As in, you can apply different tokens to a row to give it structured meaning. In a search field on iOS and macOS, we sometimes use what are called tokens to do structured searches. For example, in Mail.app if you do a search, Mail.app offers to limit your search to the subject field. You then end up with a token that has "subject" on the left and the search term on the right. That's kind of what I am going after, so "token" mostly works.

As you point out, the one of the biggest weaknesses to this proposal is scanning for data visually. I will need to work on this some. One thing I do plan on doing is being able to search by metadata key and value. That way only the rows meeting a given criteria will be shown and the found metadata can be accentuated (probably by color) to make it stand out more. I concede that columns will probably always be superior for visual scanning.

Thank you for your input and your time, Satis. It is very difficult (impossible) to make well designed software in a vacuum. I really appreciate it when someone helps me get a different perspective.

I think most people are familiar with the term columns, and that in infomanagers/outlining programs they provide metadata. If you can offer an innovative twist on columns that's great!

Daly

That's a good point. The column data from OmniOutliner will translate into Zavala metadata and back the same way. Anything I can do to tie those together would be helpful. I just can't think of anything way (so far) to do that without actually using columns.

In Logeq there is the the concept of "block properties" which appear somewhat like notes, on a line below the block, but not as a separate block.

- block #tag
property:: value
property 2:: value
- child block

(included a tag, which is different from a property in logseq, in that it appears inline within the block)

In Logseq you can query such properties (and generate tables) somewhat differently than tags.

Thanks for pointing to Logseq, Luhmann. I was aware of the project, but hadn't spent anytime with it until you pointed it out.

It does look like their "block properties" are basically the same concept as columns (or row metadata). It would be nice if they imported and exported block properties in OPML, but it doesn't look like they do. That might change at some point. It looks like a project that is still being fleshed out.

I'll have to keep an eye on Logseq. It isn't my style, but they do have some interesting concepts in there. As far as that goes, there is probably a lot I could learn from the Roam Research derivatives that are out there.

Hi, Maurice,

For what they are worth, here are a few thoughts about your question:

First, if you're trying to distinguish your outline manager from a spreadsheet, I would suggest avoiding the term row, as that is very spreadsheet oriented. Since a "row" can be a note, headline, or subhead, I can see the allure of finding a generic term for it. Perhaps "node" would work.

Second, since meta data means data about data, saying "row meta data" is saying row data about data, when what you really want to say is data about row data... or meta row data... would be more accurate.

So my suggestion is to call it meta node data... Probably I'm just over-thinking this, so feel free to ignore.

BTW, Zavala is a nice app. Thank you for making it available!

Steve

Maurice Parker wrote:

I could use some community feedback on how Zavala should incorporate
Columns or what I call Row Metadata.

https://zavala.vincode.io/2021/10/29/Row-Metadata-Proposal.html

You can comment here or in the linked GitHub Discussion. Thanks!

Thanks for the suggestion. I think "meta node data" has basically the same problem as "row metadata", even though it is technically more accurate. It isn't accessible to the average user and will probably scare them off. This new feature is mostly for advanced users, but I still don't want new users seeing it and getting freaked out.

I use “tag” to identify a way of categorizing and organizing outlines.
Using it differently when applied towards rows is going to be confusing.

Perhaps use tags for the metadata and rename current 'tags'?

satis wrote:

Perhaps use tags for the metadata and rename current 'tags'?

The confusion I see with this approach is that macOS already has the concept of tags in it for some apps, like the Finder and Reminders. These are always just a single field, most often just a single word. The metadata will be key/value pairs, so it isn't the best fit.

I've heard of hierarchal tags before, which may be what you are referencing? Maybe some kind of adjective+"tag" might work. The Row Metadata could be, Row Tags, Hierarchal Tags, or something else.

"Badges" might work. "Markers" is another candidate. (I had to hit up a Thesaurus.) "Tokens" hasn't been completely ruled out yet.

Badges is not a bad term.

Bear, Obsidian and NotePlan have the ability to do 'nested tags'.

https://help.noteplan.co/article/116-nested-tags