Roger J. 26Aug04

My biggest problem right now is if tkoutliner cannot import the html files it has created by export. Can this problem be fixed? It would be a big advantage, I think, if outlined notes could be saved as html files as well as txt files beside tkoutliners own format. The import filters should be compatible with the export filters.

Because then these notes can be used by other applications, like searching and sorting, as well as being re-imported and re-edited by tkoutliner.

Brian Theado - 27Aug04

I may look into html import. It isn't nearly as easy as the other imports (text and opml). Do you have a specific example in mind you could give where you would manipulate the exported html and then re-import it? I find it hard to imagine there being some application that would read and manipulate and save the resulting html in a format that is still parsable into an outline--unless it was specifically coded to operate with tkoutline, in which case someone should make use of the opml format. Opml (which is xml) is so much easier to deal with than the relatively messy html.

If all you want is searching by external applications and don't have a need to re-import the html, then it would be very easy to set something up that when you save an outline it also automatically exported to html.

Roger - 28Aug04 The html import could be very useful if the user wants to use another way to display outlines, for example as html files, and still be able to use tkoutliner as the editor.

Brian Theado - 31Aug04

I repeat my question. If you only want to display outlines, then why do you need import functionality? Wouldn't some functionality that automatically exported to html every time you saved be enough?

If you think you will use an external program and modify the outline and want to re-import it, then please let me know specifically what program you think might be able to produce html files that might then be imported to tkoutline.

Thanks for your input.

If I use another program to display the outlined html files, I want to be able to click on these html files to open them with tkoutliner to change them.

I think it is possible to put small windows with html files on the desktop, for example, and move them to preferred positions. Then if I want to change them I need to open them with tkoutliner.

Tkoutliner as a display program for tkoutlines is a bit limited, it can only show a bunch of outlines as tabs in the same program window.

If I want to see multiple outlines as separate small windows, or for other purposes, it could be very useful if the outlines are in html format, but I still want to use tkoutliner as the editor for these windows.

I would maybe be possible to use several instances of the tkoutliner program to display several outlines as separate windows also, that is another possibility, I just think html files are more versatile in many ways.

If tkoutliner can export to html it seems it would be possible to import the html files it has created itself. Kind of reverse the export filter functions?

01Sep04 - Brian Theado

Pretend you have an outline file named My phonebook. Also pretend you have some code that adds some functionality to tkoutline such that whenever you make changes to My phonebook and you save the file, it also automatically exports that file to html, say to the file named My phonebook.html. You now have two representations of the same information that are always in sync. One (My phonebook) is editable and displayable in tkoutline. The other (My phonebook.html) is displayable by any html application. At what point would you need the html import? From what you describe above, I don't see where the html import is needed, so I'm guessing I misunderstand?

It is entirely possible to have some form of html import functionality for tkoutline. It's just more difficult than other import format. Given that I don't see much value in it, I'm not likely to put a high priority on it.

Having some code that automatically exports html whenever you save is fairly simple, somewhat similar to Autoimport-export of files based on extension.