UV Outliner Now Supports Columns

Posted by Lucas
Jan 27, 2010 at 05:08 AM

Pierre Paul Landry wrote:
>What separates one-pane outliners from 2 (or more)-pane outliners, can be
>summarized in 2 lines:
> >- Allow writing text in an outline form
>- Allow expand and
>collapse of sections of this outline (expand/collapse items show/hide their
>sub-items)
> >
>(this excludes folder panes, document trees, and HTML/RTF editors)
>

Right, that’s the conventional definition. I’m just wondering whether “one-pane outliner” is the most useful term to describe the functionality of writing hierarchical/collapsible text. The way I see it, there are three basic possibilities in terms of the functionality of most conventional outliners:

1. Hierarchical folder/title structure *and* hierarchical/collapsible main text
2. Hierarchical folder/title structure but *no* hierarchical/collapsible main text
3. *No* hierarchical folder/title structure but *does have* hierarchical/collapsible main text

According to the conventional definition, both number 1 and number 3 are “one-pane outliners”, while number 2 describes “two-pane outliners.” And yet, both numbers 1 and 2 both have two panes, while only number 3 in fact has one pane.

So the key distinction isn’t between one and two panes; rather, it’s between outliners that offer outlining in the main text area versus outliners that offer it only in the folder/title area.

Am I making any sense?