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Love WorkFlowy, hate web apps.. What to do?
Paul Keith:
Workflowy for Coders for formatting (Didn't test): https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hogpngcijkfmbfijfkaapeejhijipddp?hl=en&hc=search&hcp=main
Tree List for Desktop shortcut based outliner with hotkeys (no search): https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=16008.0
No exact answer for filtering. Lots of similar concepts floating out there as separate apps but Workflowy's filtering method is definitely in it's own league currently.
There's Noteliner's much more robust originator BrainstormWFO and there's TiddlyWiki but nothing comes close to combining a hotkey outliner with that of a search based program to my knowledge. I personally use mouser's the Form Letter Machine for specific outline filtering but I don't quite have a need for tags and tagging in Workflowy often confuses me. (Never could quite get down whether I should tag the parent or the child to get the optimum view when searching.)
As far as rich text, I personally use YeahWrite but it's not really as powerful as OneNote and it searches via dialog boxes but if you combine the hotkeys of YeahWrite and Tree List, you get the closest to Workflowy's hotkeys but this is a lot of copy pasting and cherry picking of outline branches. (Also this doesn't quite include the more dangerous hotkeys such as the delete keyboard keys which in some versions of Linux would be the hotkey for a soft reboot if I'm not mistaken.)
Curt:
Jesse Patel of workflowy saysYeah, we’re planning on offer offline access and eventually a desktop app.
--- End quote ---
dated last November-rgdot (November 04, 2011, 09:56 PM)
--- End quote ---
-that was then. This November he is now saying:
Our focus for the next year will be on the following: mobile, collaboration, and simplicity.
Mobile
Everyone who uses WorkFlowy wants it to be awesome on their phones and tablets. They want it everywhere with them. It's clearly a huge opportunity for us, and we want to essentially replace the Notes application that comes with every phone.
Collaboration
WorkFlowy needs to be as fluid for a group of people as it is for one of them. We always concieved of WorkFlowy as a collaborative tool, but we needed to nail the single user functionality first, so we launched without any collaboration. The collaborative features we currently have are great, but they're rudimentary. It is just the tip of the iceburg. Expect a lot of improvements for collaboration in WorkFlowy over the coming year.
Simplicity
We feel proud of the WorkFlowy interface as it stands right now. It can, however, be so much better. Thus, one of our three main product priorities is simply to make the existing features work better, and to make small but important changes that make WorkFlowy more enjoyable to use.
-WorkFlowy, 4'th of November 2011
--- End quote ---
DerekHal:
Couldn't drop this :(; had to contribute before going to sleep (3 AM in Stockholm, Sweden):
Checkvist
(some screenshots at top of page at alternativeto.net)
Looks interesting, but I have not tried it yet.
rgdot:
Jesse Patel of workflowy saysYeah, we’re planning on offer offline access and eventually a desktop app.
--- End quote ---
dated last November-rgdot (November 04, 2011, 09:56 PM)
--- End quote ---
-that was then.
-Curt (November 05, 2011, 06:26 AM)
--- End quote ---
The desktop is not in fashion I guess :-\
Paul Keith:
Couldn't drop this :(; had to contribute before going to sleep (3 AM in Stockholm, Sweden):
Checkvist
(some screenshots at top of page at alternativeto.net)
Looks interesting, but I have not tried it yet.
-DerekHal (November 05, 2011, 09:08 PM)
--- End quote ---
Checkvist does look interesting (I have an account from way back) and on the surface you could see many parallels with Workflowy but where Workflowy is more seamless to drag and drop, Checkvist is more clunky and less real time.
Still it's a service way before it's time as far as online service goes and it's major downfall was that it didn't do one thing extremely great. As a to-do list service, you were distracted by the drop down outliner. As an outliner, pressing shift to edit should have been great but because it's less animated, it's often hard to distinguish between how safe (i.e. clear) moving around an entry is.
Another weakness of Checkvist is that it's very main branch-centric. Even if you click upon an entry of branches, it's not so easy to move back to the some semblance of an "in-between" entry and have those entry be treated as if they were the main entry.
For those who don't want to bother to sign-up, the things Checkvist has over Workflowy is:
-Mass export to Atlassian Confluence format (wiki), txt, HTML and OPML
-Permalink (though maybe this is also how Workflowy's share works, didn't check)
-Undo
-Drop down for main branches (List drop down arrow at top right)
-Archive
-Everything's more static like a straight webpage
Finally somewhat superior shortcuts except for weaving back and forth between branches.
ll gives you a shortcut to the top right drop down list
ee/F2 for editing (double click also works)
del for delete
There's both shift tab/tab and enter and shift enter for when entering text
No notes but Workflowy's notes feature is kind of bad in that you can't collapse it.
For mass editing, there's shift but again it's brought down by the lack of fluidity when editing branches.
Space equals completed item and shift+space equals invalidated item.
You can also cut/copy and duplicate.
All these while you also have the convenience of tags including an actions button for those who want a more mouse-centric less keyboard shortcut way of doing the advanced stuff.
It's also recently updated. It's really a great piece of web service except because it lacks the fluidity of Workflowy, it's simply not an alternative to Workflowy except for those simply wanting Workflowy because it's an online cloud-based outliner.
All in all, if there's one way to summarize Checkvist is that it's to Workflowy as Toodledo and Todoist are to RTM. Both service's free offer beat RTM's free offering but RTM is simply more smooth, it's a lot less clunky for more task items and all in all it's more minimalistic.
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