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.