September 29th, 2005

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Technology
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Why Should I Care About Outliners and OPML Editors?

Llately I’ve heard my geekier friends (geekier than me, that is) talk about outliners. Here, for example, Boris discusses a Windows outliner which aspires to rival the favourite Apple outliner. In case you’re wondering (as I did) what the heck an outliner is, here’s Wikipedia’s two cents:

An outliner is a special text editor that allows the grouping of text in sections that are organized in a tree (hierarchy) of concepts, an outline. Outline tools can be used for computer programming, collecting or organizing ideas, or project management.

The important sentence in there, as far as I can figure, is ‘computer programming’. Outliners are the tool of a logical mind, so it’s no surprise that the Aspergersy geek-types dig them. On the other hand, I think I’d prefer a mind-mapping tool, which illustrates ideas in a way that I can get behind.

For some reason (probably because they both deal with structured information?), outliners are associated with Dave Winer’s OPML Editor, which he demoed at Gnomedex. Now, Dave Winer’s a smart guy. But for the life of me, I can’t think of a single application that I’d have for an OPML Editor. In the words of Edwin Starr, what is it good for?

Comments: 13 Responses so far

gillian
September 29th, 2005
10:24 pm

I’m guessing “computer programming, collecting or organizing ideas, or project management.” Oh, you wanted a specific answer? You’re merely a user, you don’t need to know such things.

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Travis Smith
September 29th, 2005
10:51 pm

I like OPML, but if you’re not a heirarchical kinda guy, try using The Brain — you can store everything in it — files, appointments, address book, notes, Web sites, and so on. You can use it to plan events, write a book, use it to track sales leads, etc. etc.

It takes time to use it fully but it’s perfect for pack rats who don’t think linearly.

http://www.thebrain.com/

It’s Windows only. And no, I’m not a spokesman, I just have liked this program for years.

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Mack D. Male
September 29th, 2005
11:34 pm

It’s simple Darren! It’s just another “standard” kind of XML file! Maybe tomorrow I’ll make SLML - shopping list markup language. My new SLML language will be all the rage, and I’ll make the most simplistic, non-user-friendly application in the world and I’ll give it the generic name of SLML Editor. Shoppers around the world will rejoice!

Oh wait, I’m not Dave Winer, no one will download it. Nevermind.

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Karen
September 30th, 2005
12:24 am

You may be interested in Freemind, an open source java mindmapping tool. I think it’s occasionally spiffy, though half the fun of mindmaps for me is playing around on paper, so that aspect is missing. Interestingly, it also exports maps as linear HTML files.

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Nicole Simon
September 30th, 2005
12:30 am

“Geeks” seem also to be the only ones using your comment form without a mouse but try to use it with tab - your tab order is still kaput.

As for the OPML editor - in the case of Dave Winer’s OPML editor the strenght seems more to be the direct possibility of editing on the net from your computer without the need to upload and download files. It synchronizes.

And I agree, if you love Mindmaps, you are not likely to use an opml editor because you will find it too restricting - and the one benefit you use (which would be good export) - should be available for you in your mindmanager programm as well.

So if you would be doing todolists / shownotes / project notes etc, you can also go from mindmanager to export.

And Mack: You need to demand absolut worshipping you from the world also.

And send me a mail when you have that ready, I would like to test it. ;)

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Mack D. Male
September 30th, 2005
12:58 am

Will do Nicole! ;)

Truthfully, I have found OPML useful for show notes for podcasts, but that’s about it for applications for me thus far.

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Derek
September 30th, 2005
8:36 am

The thing that’s neat about Winer’s OPML Editor is that it lets people collaboratively edit outlines, and link them together, online. That makes it quite useful for building directories (like DMOZ or Yahoo!, but specialized if you want) or collaboratively constructing document outlines.

The problem is that, when I tried Winer’s OPML Editor, it was hard to make any sense of, so that neatness was buried underneath a nearly-impenetrable user interface. If something like OmniOutliner would start building in the collaborative synchronization stuff, that would be cool.

As it is, I find the OPML Editor essentially unusable (and difficult to work with if you want to use two different machines as the same user). So it’s a technology demo that maybe someone else can turn into something useful. I hope.

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Steve Matthews
September 30th, 2005
8:40 am

Imagine Academics producing dynamic & shareable bibliographies, then imagine searching, filtering & combining them. Adding context to content is way cool.

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Boris Mann
September 30th, 2005
9:53 am

Nice work on the storm of controversy, Darren :P

Yeah, my posts have been somewhat on the vague side for people not “in the know” lately. Gotta fix that.

Think about how you take notes. Probably you list them as bullets and sub-bullets. That’s an outline. It also happens to be how a lot of people actually first start working on documents (Word has an outline format) and presentations (Powerpoint can import Word outlines).

Dave Winer likes to use OPML to directly manage his blog, and some people are using it

The last big usage is shared directories. The iPodder one was the first example, where different people maintained different categories. Like D’Arcy Norman, who maintains the education part.

I’m quite excited by “instant outlining”, which follows directly from these shared directories. Different levels/nodes of an outline are connected to remote users, who all update in real-time. Dave Winer’s OPML Editor, which is open source, will hopefully open the protocol it uses for this.

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Chris Pirillo
September 30th, 2005
11:08 am

You’ve seen what I’ve been up to lately (my secret project), right? :)

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Will Pate
September 30th, 2005
4:46 pm

Darre, I had the exact same reaction when I saw Dave’s outliner at Gnomedex: and what possible reason would the other 99.999% of the population use it for?

Alexandra Samuel showed me VoodooPad, which I’m enjoying. Sorry Windows users, its Mac only.

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Robin Capper
September 30th, 2005
7:33 pm

Since I found MindManager I use it to originate most documents outside email. It may end up in a word etc but it starts out in a map. Sometimes map view isn’t the best esp for entering list type data. Prior to that I used Word in outline mode & I longed for a combination of both. Sometimes the list view is best for getting stuff in, map view best for organising it. Now MindManager 6 allows editing in the outline view I cant see any need for a separate outline editor.

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Troy Angrignon
October 2nd, 2005
1:14 pm

Hey Darren. To answer your question, what would you use it for?

- writing outlines of Powerpoint presentations (including the three act structure)
- writing summary notes of great books that I want to keep as reference books (so that I can skim a one page outline, not flip through 500 pages)
- storing lists of …. well, everything.
- planning anything

I LOVE outliners. i want an outliner/wiki thing-a-ma-jig that has formatting, OPML, and total cross-platform capabilities. So far, no luck. And I have looked at almost all of them.

Troy

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