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There are no stupid questions, except maybe this one: Q. Why is a wide horizontal tree superior way to work with a mind map that’s a pure outline (not a DAG) t

There are no stupid questions, except maybe this one: Q. Why is a wide horizontal tree superior way to work with a mind map that’s a pure outline (not a DAG) than a simple outline? See the Data Format here, it’s an outline. Keystrokes are about moving nodes and descendants, that can work on an outline. And then why not have a portable outline format. I do understand this is terminal/text. Yet there are plenty terminal/text outline editors, and being able to see a narrow outline instead of a wide tree feels more usuable. That said, I use and really enjoy iThoughtsX which can import/export OPML and Markdown etc., and provides ability to control visual layout per ‘information geography’ or ‘cartography’. So not averse to visual graph depiction of a DAG, just asking why folks like this for pure outline format instead of outline editing?

IggleSniggle 4y ago
I haven’t tried this yet, but from the look of it, it expands both horizontally and vertically, and one of the more important features is collapsibility/expansion of subnodes. Note that in the image there, they’ve got some subnodes expanded deep horizontally, while their sibling nodes might be even deeper but are collapsed. The difference with a simple vertical outline is that this format is focused on pruning/unpruning parts of the tree, pair with an expectation of arbitrarily “deep” nesting. I find that in outline format, I’m unlikely to go deeper than a couple levels, and will at that point either switch to narrative or use some sort of referencing scheme.
- Terretta 4y ago
  OK, makes sense. I think most "outliner" tools I know of do exactly those adds, with the benefit of also being relatively flush left. As I help our firm select knowledge management tools, I'm just trying to understand the use cases that differentiate this approach from a fully fledged outliner. Note that I ask the same thing of people who do outlines in MS Word manually as plain bullet lists instead of using, you know, the outliner. :-)

IggleSniggle 4y ago

I haven’t tried this yet, but from the look of it, it expands both horizontally and vertically, and one of the more important features is collapsibility/expansion of subnodes. Note that in the image there, they’ve got some subnodes expanded deep horizontally, while their sibling nodes might be even deeper but are collapsed. The difference with a simple vertical outline is that this format is focused on pruning/unpruning parts of the tree, pair with an expectation of arbitrarily “deep” nesting. I find that in outline format, I’m unlikely to go deeper than a couple levels, and will at that point either switch to narrative or use some sort of referencing scheme.

Terretta 4y ago
OK, makes sense. I think most "outliner" tools I know of do exactly those adds, with the benefit of also being relatively flush left. As I help our firm select knowledge management tools, I'm just trying to understand the use cases that differentiate this approach from a fully fledged outliner. Note that I ask the same thing of people who do outlines in MS Word manually as plain bullet lists instead of using, you know, the outliner. :-)