Happy 2018 WorkFlowy users! We’ve decided that it’s time to start sharing our thoughts on where we’re heading, and what we’re working on next. Here’s a summary of what we’re currently thinking so far for roughly the first eight months or so of 2018.
Big Picture Plans
Our current plan is to work on the following parts of WorkFlowy, in the following order. We expect most of these projects to take between 1-3 months, but it’s hard to say, so we aren’t making specific time estimates. We recommend consuming the following with many grains of salt.
- Mobile App Redesign (In progress)
- Why? This is one of the areas where our product is weakest, and it is the top complaint from new users. Having a terrible mobile app (yes, our current mobile app is terrible) is also untenable for a software company in 2018. Or 2014 for that matter 🙂
- Note: The mobile app redesign is in progress and pretty far along. We are testing the first versions with small groups of users now, and will be testing with Alpha users in the weeks to come. If you want test the new mobile app before it is released to the public, just join WorkFlowy Alpha!
- Bringing Improvements from Mobile to Desktop/Web
- Why? We’re doing a bunch of things on mobile that will also be welcome on desktop, like a quick add button linked to a location of your choice (and inbox type feature for those in GTD land), better starred views navigation, and a visual overhaul to make the whole app look more modern and attractive.
- Teams and Collaboration Improvements
- Why? Right now you can share in WorkFlowy and content will sync between users and devices. But you won’t know what other people are doing, and they won’t know what you are doing. You won’t be able to get their attention if you want to, and you’ll both probably move onto another tool for your collaboration needs, even if you prefer the way WorkFlowy organizes information. Fixing this situation is one of our top strategic priorities, both for growth and revenue, so we’re going to plug away on it.
- Dates & Reminders
- Why? This is the top feature request (alongside mobile improvements) from existing WorkFlowy users. We simply need to do it.
We do have rough plans beyond this as well, but we’ll just share this for now, because we expect things to change as we work, get feedback, continue to figure things out.
Onward And Upward
We are excited for the new momentum we feel at WorkFlowy and we hope you will soon have new and improved experiences to enjoy.
Note: This post is part of an attempt to communicate better with our dedicated users. Please don’t punish us for our transparency. We welcome critical feedback on this and everything, but just remember to be kind when you give it. If you are frustrated, just remember that we are trying really hard and that harsh words genuinely sting.
I beg you to make the api for workflowy. I will be paying user when this happens.
Do you have a plan to support PWA?
I just now realized that I can see the TIME at the top of the app, whereas before I couldn’t. I really don’t wear a watch, so this is a major bonus! This app and updates just keep getting better!! Thank you again!
“a visual overhaul to make the whole app look more modern and attractive.”
Careful with this! Don’t just change for the sake of change. I like very much the clean and attractive look of the desktop app, and I appreciate that it is designed with the desktop in mind (e.g. no gigantic buttons taking up loads of whitespace, and optimized for touch controls). Very careful with what you change, and ideally provide users a way to continue using the old design if they wish.
When collapsing a topic, it’d be nice if there was a counter that displays the number of subtopics that is not completed.
I only just started using this app recently. Was looking to sort ideas for story building. I find that deleting notes is incredibly tedious and annoying. I’ve only used the app so far and did not even know this is a primarily web app. Anyways, I really do not want to see features like collaboration and reminders. I like the simplicity of the app as a minimal and light notes/lists app. But please, I’d like faster way to delete items. As far as I know I can only delete notes by deleting the text manually.
You can now delete faster! https://blog.workflowy.com/2018/04/12/workflowy-mobile-swipe-to-delete/
What is your technology stack and are you guys looking to hire?
[…] Happy 2018 WorkFlowy users! We’ve decided that it’s time to start sharing our thoughts on where we’re heading, and what we’re working on next. Here’s a summary of what we’re currently thinking so far for roughly the first eight months or so of 2018. Big Picture Plans Our current plan is to work on the… — Read on blog.workflowy.com/2018/01/25/2018-workflowy-roadmap/ […]
Preview pictures and Markdown is also very urgent
Thank you for making it shareable! I’m working on a priority list with Workflowy, but I need to share it.
It’s already mid March. Any updates on the roadmap? Very excited about mobile app update and collaboration improvement.
Feature request – Two factor authantication – Workflowy organizes my brain – thus it include a lot of personal data. Would be great if you could increase the security with two-factor-authentication
Essential requeast, for me too. As a writer, and a simple user writing a diary.
More than essential. Like someone else said, it’s for yesterday. But I can understand the difficulties of implementing this. Anyway, I really hope you guys can work on that pretty soon.
Feature req on the mobile app: make it easier to move a branch of items
It sounds like your bug tracker is internal and written in WorkFlowy so I’ll comment here. The search feature assumes you only want to search at the start of a word. Like you won’t find “tern” if it was used in “internal”. You WILL find “intern”. I assume this is unintended (it’s definitely obnoxious).
It would be very helpful to either be able to set the font size, or simply zoom in on the whole outline displayed (not the same as zooming by selecting a node). Sometimes, depending on how I’m sitting or who is looking at the screen with me, the font is simply too small, and I can’t change it to make it easier to read.
I think the mobile app and the web app should be synchronized in the sense that when I open the mobile app I want to have the exact same items zoomed and expanded, so I can remain focused on what I was doing. Now I think they are independent, so every time I switch I have to expand the nodes I already expanded /closed on the other platform, which is annoying, as that doesn’t add to my productivity, which the task which this app should be helping at.
I don’t expect to be switching back and forth frequently. But of the two possible choices here — sync web and mobile vs. keep them independent — I would also have a mild preference toward them being synced.
Thank you for the app. For me it was love at first use. Excited to see it become better & better. 🙂
what I’d find the greatest improvements:
* add an “archive/completed” folder – which moves the item automatically when ticking it off (swipe gesture for this), + preferably with a (smaller font size) date stamp (date of adding, + date of completion/of being archived).. now that you’re working on it anyway… 🙂
+ undo/redo button
+ view-only mode (so the keyboard won’t keep popping up)
+ edit: bold, italic, underline fonts in mobile app (maybe even basic colors)
( + ability to paste a bigger chunk of text all to one unified bullet instead of separating paragraphs into several bullet points )
+ Third party app integration w. API would be beyond awesome, too (sync w. Google…)
I love the update and the increased focus on transparency!
I have been waiting for this for ages: “Dates & Reminders”! Looking forward to it! Super happy atm! I also love the work on an inbox!
I also think that it is wise of you to focus on the collaboration part from a business perspective, but keep it simple and an addition to all the other collaboration tools. A simple “ping+comment”-function would be a huge improvement.
[…] Author: _acme Go to Link: https://blog.workflowy.com/2018/01/25/2018-workflowy-roadmap/ […]
Would love to make an Alexa app for workflowy — is there an API or some documentation on the URL schema?
Guys you are great)
Just thank you for the best tool I have!
Nice!
I just recently started attributing dates as tags to the tasks, this way I can always open the tag of today and find out what I`ll have to do today.
What’s a little problematic, cause there’s not a way to do a @today tag. Really looking forward for the date feature!
I have a doubt, by the way, does workflowy has an api? Or source code in github?
You could just type # and then manually type in today’s date.
Or, if you want, you could use a text expander app to type a quickphrase which then automatically types # and today’s date.
I use Fingertips to type today’s date as such; {date:yyyy-mm-dd} . I made it first for workflowy, but I find it is useful at other places too. Notes are better when dated 🙂
https://www.getfingertips.com/ for those interested in Fingertips. But there are many other text expander apps out there too.
Good Plan! Wish workflowy be better in 2018.
Thanks for the post it’s very interesting and I’m glad you guys are sharing this. Quick question: are there plans to make password protected nodes? I asked this some time ago and the answer was that it’s a commonly requested feature and would be implemented eventually, so any plans for it?
Again thanks for the info,
Cheers
Hey Jesse
Thanks for sharing the roadmap! I’ve been using workflowly to prepare demos and structure my thoughts in general – great stuff. Well done ✌️
Second to Workflowy browser ext. (i.e select text, press a button which sends it to Workflowy which you can review and sort later).
I really miss the feature of (batch) tag renaming. Sometimes you don’t follow your own rules because you rush to write down something. Later on, you end up with some multiple tags that are misspelled or ugly and the only solution is to edit them one by one. So it would be cool if we could edit all instances of tags by editing it in only one place. If the collision occurs WF could ask if we want to merge two tags into one.
(This problem was also caused by lack of tag autocompletion in mobile app)
me too!
Same thing for me…
super yes since forever. got way too many alias and alias date tags. and to add to that – maybe also a way to add multi word tags more easily eg quote or bracketing them. other praises – thank the workflowy gods for implemention of alt undo, insert paste etc.
someone mentioned though, that pageup/down has horrible caret behaviour. now that im using the app for writing too – the dependence literally evolved because workflowy is that simple and brilliant.. now i realise they mean non existent ie moves screen to top instead. and as a writer working first and primarily in notes, this is increasingly becoming a problem. along with inability to collapse notes after a search. though im still very thankful for the retained grey saturation in notes and ofc expansion when zoomed in. perfect for nighttime writing. looking forward to android!
Hello Jesse,
Many thanks for your application, and you vision of resolving this issue in easy way. Your app is very helpful.
The offline desktop application is much appreciated.
However, have you been using the Web version? It’s slow as molasses now, and it never used to be.
?
You mean slow to do it’s initial loading? Or slow even after it loaded?
It’s slow when an item has gigantic amounts of data.
Keep them collapsed to not have them be loaded and thus not take up processing time.
I have some extension configs text backed up, and it is slow when I open that one. So i keep it nested and closed in another “category” bullet item.
In fact, it’s probably a good idea to keep things in category bullets anyway, if you aren’t doing so.