Writing in tree structure - The solution to long form writing (Gingko)

[peeragetalkers]

Use case or problem

Outlining and writing complex documents often requires juggling big-picture (folder) structure and detailed content nested deep within that structure (notes). Conventional tools force switching between views or rely on flat note structures, which can lead to friction when navigating or restructuring projects. Maintaining context while diving into detailed sections can be difficult.

This is especially relevant when managing large, multi-layered projects such as screenwriting or long-form academic writing, where maintaining a clear overview while focusing on granular details is crucial.

Enter Gingko:

Authors write by creating “cards,” initially in the leftmost column. That column is meant to hold “top-level” summary writing. Each card can have expanded cards expanding on that topic in the middle column, and so on, into the third column (or deeper). In this fashion, writers can work at high and low levels of detail at the same time, maintaining Peripheral vision. One of the deep columns will end up being the final manuscript.

Gingko removes “friction from ‘drilling down’ into detail” and enables creating a multi-level journal with “line-of-sight from years, months, weeks, to days.”

Quotes are by Andy Matuschak.

For more use cases, see Gingko’s landing page (not affiliated).

There’s a great level of interest in such a mode, as evidenced by the popularity of this post:

Writing in tree structure - The solution to long form writing (Gingko)

Hey guys, Here’s an awesome idea that I’d love to hear your thoughts on: Writing in a tree structure There’s an amazing app called ginkgo gingko the concept is to be able to write in a tree structure with extreme ease and excellent shortcuts (using vim style shortcuts) Here a demo this is gingko, we can see how text is organized [ginkgo demo] Reinventing the way we write The tree structure of writing makes long form writing a great experice. Users of gingko have even wrote ful…

Proposed solution

Implement a hierarchical card-based writing model inspired by Gingko. The interface could feature multiple side-by-side panes that represent hierarchical levels:

• The leftmost pane would contain high-level summaries or headings.
• The middle pane would allow expanded content for selected headings.
• The rightmost pane would provide further detail, effectively creating a nested, zoomable workspace.

The design would enable working granularly while retaining a bird’s-eye view of the overall structure. This approach minimizes cognitive load by reducing context-switching and supports both structured writing and brainstorming/outlining processes that involve exploring ideas in a non-linear, flexible manner.

Perhaps this mode could be introduced as a new core plugin.

Current workaround (optional)

1. Lineage is a great Gingko-inspired plugin. One thing I don’t like about it is that it contains a whole project to a single source note, which is hard to navigate when viewed as a regular note (unless you add a heading to each ‘card’ manually, which is cumbersome).

   Also, it’s more suited for starting a writing project from scratch and less so for structuring an existing collection of notes. It cannot map onto an existing nested folder structure—that is, each ‘level’ in Gingko would be a regular Obsidian folder, with each of its separate notes being its own ‘card’. Each subsequent level in ‘Gingko view’ would be that folder’s subfolder, and so on.

2. One can open multiple panes side-by-side and utilize nested MOCs to represent a hierarchy. However, this lacks the frictionless and intuitive navigation offered by Gingko.

Related feature requests (optional)

The requests below are in the same vein of adding new and better ways to browse folders:

• Continuous View - Scrivener Like
• Grid Layout/Card View/Masonry Gallery
• Note list view with fragments of note body
• Canvas Gallery View