Plain Text (as in .TXT) Outliner?

Posted by steveylang
Mar 18, 2013 at 06:24 PM

I would love to see an outliner that uses plain text files as storage format, so that outlines could be readable via text editors, on other platforms, mobile devices, etc. I use Dropbox in conjunction with Mac, Windows, and my iPhone, which is why TXT files would be a good vehicle for easy synchronization (real seamless synhronization, not just ability to import and export files.)

Tabs for hierarchy, some simple layout tags, that’s it. The main difference between this and a plain text editor is that you can collapse and expand items (along with perhaps some additional navigation features). The main difference between this and a regular outliner app is that documents are about as portable and cross-platform as they get (the negative would be that it would not be as fully featured as other outliners.) Another nice feature would be to have file/folder viewer, which basically gives you ‘outlines within outlines’ functionality.

Does such a program exist, anywhere (Mac or Windows)? The closest I’ve seen is TaskPaper and FoldingText for Mac, but the built-in formatting is not really outliner focused- TaskPaper recognizes headings and subheadings, but it’s not the same as using a simple outliner. I don’t want a ‘powerful’ outliner, I want something that’s simple, versatile, and gets out of the way when I am creating and organizing ideas.

Another app that is reaonably close is Tree (for Mac). It has a very elegant UI and is pretty light weight, and if you don’t like the ‘tree’ view you can use it as a regular single-pane outliner. It is very good at opening and importing plain text files (recognizing tabs to preserve outline structure), but doesn’t allow you to save in TXT format, forcing you to go through a export/import rigamarole. It can open and save in OPML format which is probably the next best thing to TXT files, if I can find something in iOS and Windows that works well with OPML and synchronizes with Dropbox.

Thanks,
Steve