two pane outliner question

Posted by JBfromBrainStormWFO
Jul 31, 2011 at 06:16 AM

This is an interesting question to me, because it highlights what I perceive to be the insufficiency of the one-,two-, and three-pane outliner distinction.

Here’s how I understand the definitions:
one-pane - a basic outliner, like MS Word, MaxThink or OmniOutliner
two-pane - distinguishes between entry titles and entry bodies. entry titles are sorted in left pane, in a tree structure. entry bodies are edited on the right pane. E.g. Tree Notes.
three-pane - adds attributes to each entry in addition to title and body text. attributes editable in third pane(s). E.g. Ultra Recall.

OP, you can find a list of two- and three-pane outliners here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliner

Here’s where I’m confused - the Wikipedia entry talks about hybrid one- and two-page outliners. These allow you to see the bodies of multiple entries in the right pane while viewing the parent navigation tree in the other pane.

So how does one classify BrainStormWFO? It is not a true one-pane outliner, it seems to me, since you can’t expand to view the children of multiple entries in a single pane. And also, you can view multiple panes at once, allowing you to see the parent level next to the child level, much like a two-pane outliner. But it is not a two-pane outliner, in that it lacks distinction between titles and bodies.

So perhaps it’s an odd type of hybrid one- and two- pane outliner? It does both less than the traditional hybrid the wiki describes, since it auto-hoists, and more, since you can theoretically open an unlimited number of hierarchical panes.