Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
I viewed the video, but, what's different about it than Word's Outlining feature? Everything I saw (in the video only) looks almost exactly like Word's outlining. Can you elucidate, please? I mean, in terms of actual features/mechanics?
|
Hi Hitch,
Adding items, expanding and collapsing, and moving items around works exactly the same way as in Word - so you'll find actually using Workflowy very familiar.
The beauty of it though emerges from the following:
Each parent node in Workflowy has a larger button (leading bullet). When you click on that, the node doesn't just expand, it takes over the page, hiding all other nodes. This doesn't sound like much until you really get to work on an idea with it. It cuts out the distraction of the other nodes. A breadcrumb trail appears along the top of the page, so you always know where you are and can navigate back easily.
The Workflowy page has a search box which very quickly finds all related items, allowing you to drill down into a deep outline swiftly. Note it doesn't just
find the search word, it
filters the outline down to just those items.
You can also insert tags, by typing # followed by any word. Those tags then appear highlighted and clicking on one quickly filters the outline to just those items.
Because of the way the bulk of the outline disappears when you focus on a node, you only need to have one document in Workflowy. You don't go hunting for the right file, you simply open Workflowy and jump quickly to the node you want. (It's browser-based, so if you want you can bookmark a particular node, but it's very quick just to search or navigate down your tree.)
The page is wonderfully simple, without the clutter of a full-featured word processor. This, and the fluid, gentle transitions, really help you to focus on your ideas.
Because it's in your browser it's available to you everywhere you have an internet connection. I've been switching happily between the Chromebook, my Windows desktop and Chrome on my Android tablet, adding ideas as they arrive to whichever device was in easy reach.
Hope this helps!
Graham