In Little Outliner 0.39 we will start to explore the idea of web-based outliner plug-ins. Right now, it's just a demo, an illustration of how the idea may work when developers can add functionality to the outliner through web services.

How to demo

• 1. To enable the demo, choose Preferences from the Outliner menu, and click on the Demo tab.
• 1. You'll see a checkbox that enables the plug-in demo. Check it and click submit.
• 1. Choose Import OPML from the Outliner menu. Enter this URL into the dialog.

• https://dl.dropbox.com/u/36518280/outlines/hazelnut.opml

• 1. Now place the cursor on the top-level headline, My presentation, and click the new icon (screen shot).
• 1. In a few seconds a preview of a presentation should appear. Step through it by clicking on the arrows in the lower right corner of the window.

Editing

• You can edit my slides or create your own.

• The top level headline is the title of the show. Its subheads are the titles of slides. And the text under each slide are the bullet points.

Publishing

• You can create a finished presentation that you can send to others by clicking the Publish button in the lower left corner of the Preview dialog.

• Note that since this is just a demo, all published presentations will be automatically deleted one month after they are published. So if you want to keep a copy you should download it before the month is over.

The idea

• This part is for developers.

• When the user clicks the icon, a dialog opens, and calls a web service. It returns HTML code that is displayed in the dialog.

• There is a single parameter to the service, the OPML text of the outline pointed to by the bar cursor.

• The plug-in then processes the OPML in some way, and returns HTML which is then displayed in the preview dialog.

• The HTML text could simply be a message saying that the process worked. Or it could be, as in the case of our demo, a rendering of the outline.

Why this is useful

• Outliners are a good way to compose content for rendering.

Is this open?

• Yes. OPML is a simple format that anyone can process. Nothing hidden there.

• And the idea of an AJAX web service also is very open. We use jQuery to make the call. As long as you can receive a call from jQuery you should be fine.

• The presentations are displayed by reveal.js.

This is just a demo

• Right now we don't have a way for users to add items to the plug-in list, that's why it's just a demo. But it's not very far from being a for-real feature.

Update

• Here's a blog post about plug-ins.

Fixed issues in the cribsheet.

Keystrokes no longer flow through to the outline while the cribsheet is displayed.

Any keystroke causes the cribsheet to be closed.

New cribsheet shows keyboard commands, and important mouse gestures.

Not meant to replace the Outliner Howto, so please do read that. Use it when you quickly need to remember a keystroke.

To access the cribsheet, either press Cmd-? or click the Cribsheet link in the right margin.

Screen shot.

Fixed a problem that caused the title not to display when Little Outliner starts.

Download OPML

• New experimental command.

• It should work in all browsers, except IE9 and IE10.

• Thanks to Dan MacTough for this excellent hack.

Don't save if it's been one or more seconds since the last keystroke

• The user has to let up a little before we save.

• Saw a comment from Alec Perkins saying that he had problems if he saved on every keystroke. We're basically doing that now. Better to be a little more conservative.

Smaller font in the Outliner menu

• And a little less space between the commands.

• Trying to make a little more room for people with shorter screens.

Fix problem with URL params encoded like this. The JavaScript built-in function doesn't deal with them correctly.

Add a link on the home page to the local storage FAQ that I wrote this morning.

Fixed bugs in "reader" mode.

http://littleoutliner.com/?reader=http://smallpicture.com/states.opml

The title should be the title of the outline you're viewing.

Editing commands in the menu are not present. The preferences command is still there, but the prefs that would impact the outline being displayed don't do anything.

Yes, it was lame to ship a product with Mac cmd-key labels on Windows and other operating systems.

That should be fixed now. On Windows, cmd-keys are prefixed with Ctrl+.

I'm assuming it's the same on Linux?

New "Title" prefs panel. Allows you to set the title and say whether or not you want the title to display above the outline.

The Set Title menu command was removed.

When the bar cursor points to a headline with an xmlUrl attribute, allow the user to double-click to open the feed in another browser tab.