OutNoted

An outline note-taking editor.

Just what it says on the tin: OutNoted is an editor for outlines made of one-line notes, inspired by the old Linux/BSD tool hnb.

Screenshot of a desktop application showing a tree of text notes in the main work area, along with a toolbar and other widgets. There aren't any icons.

This is my second attempt to make one; my interest in outliners dates back almost five years. The first time I failed however, because outliners are complicated.

The trick, as with many other things, is paring them down to the essence.

Download

OutNoted v1.3.2 (28K) is offered under the MIT license; see source code. System requirements:

Python 2.7 or 3.x, and Tkinter
800x600 graphical desktop

As of 26 February 2023, the code has been used in production for almost eighteen months without incidents. See also:

(The latter is mostly a mirror of this page.)

Native Linux builds are hosted on itch.io

Features

Create and edit outlines made of one-line notes.
Open and save outline formats like Org Mode and OPML.
Treat any note as a task and / or link.

Uses

Bookmark management: don't leave it to the browser!
Task management: often you don't need much more.
Planning a book or game, writing dialogue and so on.

How to use

Press Ctrl-Insert to add a note, Enter to save.
- Or just click in the edit line and start typing.
Keep typing to add more notes in the same place.
Use Ctrl-Escape to clear the selection first.
Press Tab from the edit line to focus the tree.
Ctrl-E starts editing the selected note.
Escape on the edit line cancels editing the note.
Insert adds a child note to the one selected.
Delete removes the selected note and its children.
Use Control with the arrow keys to move notes around.
Right-click in the main view for a context menu.

Key bindings

(Many bindings have a Command- equivalent for Mac users.)

Ctrl-N: Start new outline
Ctrl-O: Open outline from disk
Ctrl-S: Save current outline
Ctrl-F: Find text from the beginning.
Ctrl-G: Find again from the last result.
Ctrl-1 / Ctrl-2 / Ctrl-3: Toggle note status.

Other bindings are shown in the menu.

Remarks

OutNoted guesses formats based on file extensions to keep it simple.
OutNoted is best used with mouse and keyboard together.
If you add notes while a search is active, Find Again will skip them.
When opening org files, only headings are recognized and loaded!
- Seriously, OutNoted isn't a proper org file editor, sorry.

Wishlist

Insert / extract subtrees.
Support more metadata / file properties.
Change note color depending on link or status.