Outliner mode (similar to Logseq, Roam, Dynalist)

I agree this would be great :slight_smile:

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In my opinion, the possibility to have it would attract some people to the community

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An outliner plugin for Obsidian would be great. Right now I am using Dynalist, but I prefer local storage for my outline.

I would like to know if there are more people interested in this, so that this could motivate developers to make an outliner plugin with functionality like Dynalist / Workflowy.

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moo.do is an outliner app that uses local storage in addition to cloud storage. It has many more features than Dynalist, but can be a bit buggy. IMO, the features compensate for the bugs

I’d like at least a way to import from Dynalist to Obsidian.

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I also would like a way of dealing with outlines inside the core app! However I found that the developer (Erica) did say that they do not want to do that. A quote from Erica:

Once we reach 1.0 and people can write plugins, there might be developers who make Obsidian into a functional outliner by adding metadata to your plain text, but that’s not something we want to do in the core app.
Dynalist & Obsidian - 📣Announcements - Dynalist Forum

I found a few similar topics about people wanting outliner functionality:

Let’s hope someone will develop an outliner plugin for Obsidian.

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I can see this happening in two non mutually exclusive ways:

  • Outliner notes, in which the plug-in stores one giant master list. The UI would feed on it, hiding all the metadata.
  • Outliner blocks. Similar to the above, but with the content and metadata embedded inside a regular note. This one would depend on the WYSIWYM editor for a manageable experience.
1 Like

I have a few questions:

  1. Which would be the simplest to develop and maintain? Outliner notes or outliner blocks?

  2. What outliner features does the first version need for most users?

  3. Do we have to wait for Obsidian’s WYSIWYG editor to start developing an WYSIWYG outline plugin?

In our age when cloud services can shut down, get bought, or change privacy policy any day, the last thing you want is proprietary formats and data lock-in.
From https://obsidian.md/ under ‘Forever’

  1. Would it be possible to export outlines to txt or opml without metadata?

Currently I use Dynalist every day. One outline document is 2,3 MB in opml and 1,5 MB in txt format. I do experience performance issues with this document, maybe because the size.

  1. If outliner notes would be the way to go, what would be the size limit?

  2. If outliner blocks would be the way to go, what would be the size limit?

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There are people around here that are infinitely more qualified than me to answer these questions, but here are my very humble opinions:

Outliner notes, I think. The plugin would have a whole file just for itself, with no risk of ever getting it ruined by an improper edit on the embedded content.

I know what I would like: infinite nesting, hoisting, compatibility with Obsidian’s wikilinks and block reference.

Probably not. Anyway, I think a plain text outliner would be a minimum viable product.

I’ve seen outliner exports relying on nothing but indentation or very simple syntax, so metadata shouldn’t be a dealbreaker. As for OPML, it is indeed a standard, but a pain for readability.

I don’t think 2 MB is an insane amount of text. But then again, the devs should be able to give you a clearer answer.

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The same is true for me the other way around. I think that there are people who are more qualified than me to ask these questions. Since I have limited experience with Obsidian.

I would use Obsidian more if an outliner plugin is available. Especially if the outline plugin would support wikilinks / [[connections]] and block references.

Even without connections and block references an outliner plugin would be valuable since you can choose yourself if the data leaves your computer or not. One of my issues with Dynalist is the “cloud nature” - I prefer local, under my control.

Importing from Dynalist
If outliner notes would be supported, would importing go like this?

  1. The user will download a back-up from Dynalist
  2. The user will open and copy each txt document while keeping the indentation
  3. The user will copy the outlines into Obsidian notes

We need these basic features:

Basics

  • Infinite nesting
  • Hoisting
  • Save current view for next time automatically. If you come back to the outline the next time, it would look exactly the same as if you left it. If you left it when it was hoisted, and you return to the outline it will still be hoisted/zoomed.

Also

  • Compatibility with [[connections]] / wikilinks
  • Compatibility with block references
  • Possibility to change keyboard shortcuts
  • Set list density

Keyboard shortcuts

  • indent = tab
  • unindent = ⇧Tab
  • Expand/collapse = ⌘.
  • Zoom in = ⌘]
  • Zoom out = ⌘[
  • Delete item ⌘⇧⌫
  • Move item = ⌘⇧M
  • Swap with previous = ⌘↑
  • Swap with next = ⌘↓
  • Select item = ⌘A
    (The shortcuts are the same as in Dynalist, I don’t know if these interfere with current Obsidian shortcuts.)

Would this be a good start?

I have basic html and css knowledge but I gues that’s not enough to build an outliner plugin for Obsidian. Who can help to build an outliner plugin for Obsidian?

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Logseq is a new plaintext md outliner that I’m using alongside obsidian… I wonder if the outliner plugin could be some sort of integration or lite version of logseq? That would be amazing…

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logseq looks amazing, @andyfreeland I’ll give it a try, how do you make it work together with Obsidian? Do you open logseq files in Obisidian, or do you use them separetly? Thanks!

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Just to add a bit more clarity, I think an outliner would be more inclusive, in that atleast for me, outlining, as is done in Logseq where I can quickly and easily break down thoughts block by block, allow me to free up working memory. Which is crucial, particularly for those who already have a lower working memory or working memory challenges.

Having things automatically bulleted place of doing this myself frees up even more RAM. :wink:

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Agreed. I’d even be happy with just a couple of features for now (tab in bullet text indents, and drag / drop bullets with children).

I put in a clean feature request here for these two features (but the moderator closed it):

Basic Outliner Features for Obsidian (tab & drag)

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+1 same

Not sure if anyone has seen this, but this plugin accomplishes some of the basic features that really go a long way: GitHub - vslinko/obsidian-outliner. It works well for me! However, block-level referencing is not quite up to par with more traditional block-level editors.

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Excellent plugin!!
One thing I noticed:
When creating a new item with Enter key, indent of the existing item seems to be changed according to the indent of the next line.

before:

  • item 1 ← Enter at the beginning of the line
    • item 2

after:

  • (new item)
    • item 1
    • item 2

You should report issues to the plugin’s GitHub page. The author does not necessarily track discussion here (I’m not even sure they’re on the forum).

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Thank you for your advice. I’ve tried to make a issue at GitHub.

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Hello! I’m here now :slight_smile:

I’ll check this thread and think about new features later.
If you want to track your ideas please create an issue on GitHub. I’ll appreciate it.

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