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29 comments

  • Avatar
    william griffiths

    I like to use editors like vim and atom to view and edit multiple parts of a project at once.

    It would be great to be able to do the same thing with workflowy on the desktop or web app.  

    Proposed workflow would be to have a keyboard shortcut that would split the current pane either vertically or horizontally into two panes.

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    I’m mmmmm

    You can split a screen on a Mac or iPad to see 2 columns using the native OS - no extra help needed from Workflowy

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    Robert

    You can open two browser windows e.g. in Firefox I know you can drag a tab onto another screen or you can open #firefox twice.  Then you can work on both screens/windows.  It might not be ideal but that's a further solution.

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    James Corre

    To my mind, the real potential of a dual-pane view would be for organising notes (i.e. being able to drag bullets between panes). Not sure whether that's what you mean by this though.

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    Adam Pearson

    2 column view with alias feature please!

    option-drag (for example) item from left column/view to right column/view creates alias

    reorder/hide alias as desired

    edit alias edits original

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    Matt Hulse

    Moo.do style panes allowing multiple views into the list zoomed into different locations.  Items can be dragged and dropped between panes.

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    Aaron

    You can just use Firefox Side View or two windows side-by-side. It's not hard to copy and paste between the two, I'd rather their bandwidth be saved for more expansive features.

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    Matt Hulse

    Cut and Paste between panes creates new bullets which means it breaks links to those bullets.  Drag and drop within the list in a single pane doesn't have that problem.  Also, drag and drop is not supported between browser tabs.  It would actually be awesome to be able to use multiple browser tabs in whatever configuration I wanted if drag and drop between tabs worked the same as drag and drop within a single tab.

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    william griffiths

    @Aaron I use the Workflowy desktop app for OSX, and am requesting a side-by-side view within that app.  

    @James:  yes organizing notes is the primary use case for me

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    Max Yakin Bozek

    Could also be multi-panes, as in the Moo.do app. This feature is amazing!

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    Dave

    I too would like to see this feature. 

    Long lists are notoriously hard to reorder.

    Additionally, it would be great to do this between windows, so you could have two completely different lists.

    I've thought it would be a good idea for years now, only just now looking to log it as a feature request.

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    Piyush Kansal

    Even I had also requested (two windows) for workflowy!!
    Copying and pasting becomes so much problematic, when you have long list to maintain!

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  • Avatar
    Dave

    Everyone; I've created a Bookmarklet that provides a poor-man's "dual view" with two iframes.

    I use it to keep focus with a "Do now" list alongside all my other tasks:



    Unfortunately, you can't drag between them, but you can copy paste.

    Additionally, each panel remembers its location for when you load the page next time!

    The script and instructions to install it are here:

     

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    william griffiths

    Honestly the browser option isn't bad except for one thing: I use browsers for so many workflows already, I want to be able to use CMD-tab to switch to Workflowy, not to one of the three browsers I have open already. 

    I don't want yet another browser window to have to CMD-~ through. I want to be able to use Alfred with "w" to get to my workflowy list. If workflowy product owners are of the opinion that browser is as good as desktop, why'd they release a desktop client at all?

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    Dave

    Luke, I'm working on something at the moment which sounds like would be really useful to you. Drop me a line here if you like and I'll fill you in:

    http://davestewart.co.uk/contact/

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    Coffeeling

    Multiple columns in the app would be amazing.

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    Mark A Ruzicka

    I've been using the vivaldi browser specifically for this reason.

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    Max Yakin Bozek

    At least, now we have the left panel

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    Bartosz Grabowski

    Panes might come in future https://workflowy.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360070029392-Two-instances-of-desktop-app :)

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    Dave

    I asked Jesse the other day when this was coming and he says they're working on it! Check my comment below the video:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l19R1J_wVSU

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    Joseph Serio

    Two years ago, "working on it."  Sad.

     

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    Dave

    Options for panels in WorkFlowy today:

    Here's MultiFlow in action:

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    JUAN C P GONZALEZ

    Dave, this is a really cool extension, thanks a lot for creating and sharing that.

    Viewing/editing multiple nodes/instances side-by-side is the one itch I've had for years of using Workflowy. It's such a natural and recurring necessity that I think it should be supported by the app itself—as they'd probably be able to do it in a compute efficient way (I work on a Mac Mini 2014, two Workflowys running together makes things a bit hot) and also support helpful UI capabilities like moving nodes between the multiple instances.

    The thing I miss the most from this extension is being able to jump between the Workflowy instances/tabs with keyboard shortcuts—I never leave the keyboard when using Workflowy, which is one of the things that make it so powerful for me. Is there a workaround for that, or is that on the works by any chance?

    Thanks if you've read this.

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    JUAN C P GONZALEZ

    Ps: and as we jumped between the instances with keyboard shortcuts, the mouse cursor/caret (as well as the scroll bar) would be where they were the last time we were there (like split layout in VS Code).

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  • Avatar
    Dave

    Hey Juan,

    I'd love to be able to build the "ultimate" multi-panel view but the truth is, complexity is kinda exponential. For every feature I add, it's more to go wrong, more to integrate with the rest of the extension, as well as more to fix and track down when things go wrong, or it causes bugs with WF itself, or other extensions (this is already happening)

    Adding a shortcut sounds cool, but I would have to decide what shortcut, does it work on all platforms, what if it overrides something, maybe I should make it customisable, what's caret support like on all platforms, and before you know it, it's a chunky amount of work I have to do to create and then support it.

    And because it's already a (horrible!) hack on top of WorkFlowy, it's really in my interest to keep it as simple as possible, or else I spend my days going down rabbit holes, or feeling guilty for not responding to pleas to fix bugs I don't have time to fix!

    I am sure that multi-panes will come eventually though.

    PS. Thanks for the kind words!

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    JUAN C P GONZALEZ

    I completely get it, as I also work on the technical side of things. We have to be very careful and selective to what we engage in, as everything is a deep rabbit hole, an endless nest like Workflowy haha (and that's why it's so useful).

    Thanks a lot for a kind and thorough explanation! 🙏 

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    Ron Brinkmann

    If you've ever used Moo.do (now Legend) it's REALLY REALLY HARD to work on complex documents without this feature. And yes, it's pretty much all about drag&drop, so multiple browser window solutions just aren't the same... not even close. There's a lot of stuff in Legend that I don't like as much as with Workflowy but boy, split-pane is a HUGE advantage for it.

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  • Avatar
    Ron Brinkmann

    Nice bit of homework Max! I've generally moved over to Dynalist these days for a variety of little reasons but I miss a lot about Workflowy. Dual-pane would almost certainly be enough to get me to switch back.

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