WorkFlowy: An Infinitely Expandable Nested Text Outliner - Nerdvana!

byallimmer

138 followers

12 years ago

In 1996 or thereabouts, I bought an application named ClarisWorks.

Claris was an offshoot of Apple focused on software development.

ClarisWorks (which I ran on Windows 95) had an excellent outliner. It consisted of simple yet highly formattable text, and it could be easily rearranged by dragging and dropping the outline nodes.

It was endlessly expandable.

I kept all my notes in it.

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple and OS X came out, Claris folded and I lost my little outliner.

In the intervening years, I've tried many, many applications, apps and Web apps, but nothing could fill that hole left by ClarisWorks's simple wordprocessor's outline feature.

Until I stumbled on WorkFlowy.

WorkFlowy is plain text (with limited formatting).

It's infinitely expandable - like having a paper the size of a football field to scribble on.

But better than paper, it's instantly rearrangeable - just drag and drop.

Click on a node, and that node's item fills up the screen - so any outline item can become its own document. (It's one of those things you just have to experience.)

You can share any node with anyone or the entire world (WorkFlowy is Web based), with viewing or editing rights, and that node can show up as part of their WorkFlowy. For example, check out this list of Ultimate Cheat Sheets by James Altucher: https://workflowy.com/shared/0673956c-93b8-2a61-1ef1-9c229f82a9ca/

After more than a decade in the wilderness, I've found something to replace good ol' ClarisWorks. Something even better.

Now I keep not just my notes in my text outline, but everything. Everything.

• Todos.
• My journal.
• My writings.
• My published text.
• My shared shopping list with my wife.
• Everything.

Why am I telling you this?

My name is Alpha and I'm a geekaholic.