The forgotten outliner: TKOutline

Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Dec 14, 2012 at 04:57 PM

This morning I needed to build a simple, but extensive outline. I could have done it in Noteliner, but I decided to go back to an oldie, TKOutline. I’m pleased to report it still works just fine, even though it hasn’t had a major update in ages.

TKOutline actually remains one of the better single-pane outliners available. Here’s a list of the features (from the web site):

Cross-platform: runs anywhere Tcl/Tk runs
Behaves similar to a text editor
Nodes are alway “active” and cursor movement between nodes is smooth
Nodes can be split at the cursor into two adjacent nodes by hitting the enter key
Two adjacent nodes can be merged by hitting delete at the end of a line or backspace at the beginning of a line
Word wrap at the end of a line
Multiple outline support via a tabbed notebook interface
Inter-outline hyperlink support using wiki syntax (square braces)
External URL hyperlink support
Support for *bold* /italics/ _underline_ and -strikethrough- formatting
Drag and Drop movement of nodes
“Size” of each collapsed node is displayed
Export to ascii, html, xml, opml, and emailable text
Save subtree, load tree as subtree
Key bindings are externally configurable

In fact, it is close to the outliner that our ranting, new member ChristianRR was looking for (aside from support for images).

I had trouble downloading the latest stable version, so I chose the unreleased development version, and it seems to work fine.

Anyway, definitely worth a look. Find it here:

http://tkoutline.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/scm/wiki?name=Tkoutline

Steve Z.