A Faster Way to Jump Around WorkFlowy

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April 24, 2019

Screen Shot 2019-04-23 at 4.32.18 PM.png

In yesterday’s release, alongside long-awaited mobile features, we’ve added a faster way to move around your WorkFlowy in our web and desktop apps.

Pressing ctrl+k (on Windows) or cmd+k (on Mac) will bring up a dialog with a search box. Type a few letters of any bullet to search for it. Once you’ve found it, pressing enter takes you straight to it.

The dialog also shows the list of all your starred items, with your most recent ones at the top. You can select the item you want with your arrow keys and press enter to jump to it.

This new feature lets you move to anywhere in your WorkFlowy instantly and without reaching for the mouse at all! We think you’ll find that this is much faster than before.

For those of you who prefer to use the mouse, you can get to the same dialog using the star button at the top-left. Just like before you can click on a starred item to jump to it. We hope you’ll give this new search a try.

We’ll be improving this dialog in the future to make it smarter and more powerful. We can’t wait to help boost your productivity even further!

Note: Depending on your OS, you might need a different key command. Try ctrl ; if the other one doesn’t work for you.

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J-Lon
J-Lon
4 years ago

So is it safe to say that this gives functionality similar to Rawbytz Workfindy Bookmarklet?

Cemetary
Cemetary
4 years ago

Ctrl+K not working on Linux. :-!

Lee Granas
Lee Granas
4 years ago

Yes, we’ll fix #1. And you can do #2 if you sue CTRL SEMI-COLON instead.

Adri
4 years ago

Wonderful feature!

I have two suggestions to make it work more like ALT+TAB does:

1. If I am already in a starred page, list it as the second item on the list: this way, I can COMMAND+K between two starred pages easily.
2. If I keep pressing COMMAND+K, allow me to select the next item on the list. Much faster and comfortable on a small set of starred items.

Thank you!

Charlie 木匠 (@mujiang)

ctrl+k (on Windows) also brings up Chrome search box.

Lee Granas
Lee Granas
4 years ago

Use CTRL SEMI-COLON instead!

Earl
Earl
4 years ago

I view this as ‘a Jump’ function, vs. Workflowy’s current Search function. They are different, and both have pros and cons. While it’s often good to see the context of any bullet you search for (as Workflowy’s current Search function gives you) sometimes you don’t want to see the context, because it merely clutters your screen (hence your mind). One example is when you’re looking for a GTD-kind of Next Action. And for a long time I’ve labeled my Next Action tasks in Workflowy as ‘nx’ for the Search Function to find. But this new function can take me directly to that Next Action bullet no matter where it is in my Workflowy, which allows me to instantly see just that task, without all the clutter surrounding it.

sawtoothux
4 years ago
Reply to  Earl

That’s a great insight! I’ve wanted for a while to see all my #today bullets in one simple list without the “context” cluttering up the page. But you’re right! Just entering “#today” into the Jump-to field will quickly bring them all up! It’s not a persistent view, but it still gets you most of the way there! Thanks so much for mentioning this!

Earl
Earl
4 years ago

This upgrade is great! And I agree with many f the comments above. Also, on my Desktop display, the appearance of the Pages in my Workflowy is different (and better – I can now see more Pages, and they are displayed more clearly.) So I think this will also change how I use my Pages. I haven’t given my Pages much attention in the past, but now I think I’ll use them more.

Matt
Matt
4 years ago

Very useful. Thank you!

Paulo Pina
4 years ago

Hello, very thoughtful of you; if possible please maintain the alphabetical order in the favourites list; and the search would be more useful if it was limited to the subsection you’re in; as it is, given the size of our (and probably most users) text database a global search is not useful as it usually brings a lot of useless results

EL
EL
4 years ago
Reply to  Paulo Pina

Regarding limiting search to the subsection, it would be awesome if there was a way to toggle that on and off during a search. Sometimes, I’d want to search for a particular item within the node I’m in, but more often I want to use the search feature to jump somewhere else in my Workflowy, often to a totally unrelated spot.

Simon Joliveau
Simon Joliveau
4 years ago
Reply to  EL

I think the two separate features (jump to and search) both serve distinct use case and already answer those needs :
– search all occurences in the current subsection –> use the existing search feature
– jump to a specific node anywhere –> use the new “Jump to” feature
– jump to a specific node in the existing subsection –> use the existing search feature then click on the result

If you want to show all occurences globally, just go to home then search.

is there a specific workflow that requires more than those 2 features ?

Lee Granas
Lee Granas
4 years ago
Reply to  Paulo Pina

Paulo,

After gathering lots of feedback, we have decided to try out a compromise.

If you click the Star button with a mouse, it will open the old pull-down menu in alphabetical order (as it used to).

If you use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl K or Ctrl Semi-Colon), it will bring up the new dynamic menu sorted by most-recent.

Try it out in beta.workflowy.com and let us know if this compromise solution works for you.

Jason Hughston
Jason Hughston
4 years ago

It would have been interesting using the ‘Esc’ key to search and then being able to then toggle with a drop down list below to then navigate to the desired page. The Ctrl+K button presents the issues reported by others. i.e Markus, Julie, Rawbytz etc

I like the efforts to improve the experience!

Lee Granas
Lee Granas
4 years ago
Reply to  Jason Hughston

Use CTRL SEMI-COLON to avoid the Ctrl+K issues.

Jason Hughston
Jason Hughston
4 years ago
Reply to  Lee Granas

Thank you Lee. That works. I do not recall what the post had initially had written. Perhaps edit it to show ‘Try CTRL+SEMI-COLON’, rather than ‘Try ctrl ;’ as is currently written in the post and in several of the comments. The brain tends to filter punctuation. Mine at least!

nacatton
4 years ago

phenomenal work! love it.

Xavi
Xavi
4 years ago

This is very good guys ! Thanks a lot !

brad
brad
4 years ago

Firefox 66.03 (on macOS) has issues with Cmd+K. I”ve double-checked all the potential keyboard shortcuts that could conflict, but for now here’s what happens:
– hit shortcut
– Workflowy opens the new global search bar (awesome!)
– Firefox also opens its own search bar, enters a “?”, and focuses keyboard input there rather than in WFlowy’s (less awesome)

Using Ctrl instead doesn’t work, and the shortcut *does* work as expected on Brave/Chrome and Safari.

Just an update–not sure where the issue lies, but there ya go…thanks all the same!

brad
brad
4 years ago
Reply to  brad

Oh. It’s Firefox’s search shortcut which doesn’t show up anywhere in its menu bar items. Guess that explains it…bummer!

Lee Granas
Lee Granas
4 years ago
Reply to  brad

Try using CTRL SEMI-COLON and that should help on Firefox.

godswonder
4 years ago

By the way, I like to centerstage display of the function.

godswonder
4 years ago

Wonderful feature, a little bit like Slack’s CTRL-K. But for a lot of search phrases, I need a bit more context in the results, e.g. the parent node of an item. For example, I have a lot of keywords that I regularly search for, that are the same in a lot of lists, while the parent node defines the meaning.

Simon Joliveau
Simon Joliveau
4 years ago
Reply to  godswonder

Yes, good idea.
A bit more context to separate identical results would be nice (using the parent node, or the note if available).

I wonder also about the prioritization of search results : for all the matches, should we put first the most recently created / edited, the more frequently accessed, the highest level of the hierarchy ?

If I search for a short word, for instance the name of one of my customers that might pop up in many places in my lists, I think the node I would like to see suggested first would be the top level node that bears the name of the customer, not some lowest level nodes (if I need one of those, I might type more to bring more context).

davestewart
4 years ago
Reply to  Simon Joliveau

Agreed. Just a little breadcrumb beneath each word would help.

urigordon
4 years ago

Requested feature – Split windows for easier way to move around items, especially if their are far apart.

urigordon
4 years ago
Reply to  urigordon

I meant moving items around, currently only copy paste is available, or dragging with annoying scrolling.

Lee Granas
Lee Granas
4 years ago
Reply to  urigordon

Yes, split windows is on our lists, absolutely!

Troy
Troy
4 years ago

As an avid keyboard shortcut user, I LOVE this development. *Thank you!*

mike
mike
4 years ago

I love this, this is like fuzzy searching in a text editor. Allows me to jump anywhere in my entire account. I was so annoyed when I wanted the normal search to behave like this, only to find that the search would only search within my current sub-list. So I’d have to first click back to Home, and then search.

Might want to choose a different shortcut other than CTRL+K though. Chrome already uses that for google search

Lee Granas
Lee Granas
4 years ago
Reply to  mike

Glad you like it! Yeah, use CTRL ; to get around that issue, thanks!

mike
mike
4 years ago

I was just going to say this:

CTRL+K in chrome on windows brings up the google search bar

Lee Granas
Lee Granas
4 years ago
Reply to  mike

Yeah, give CTRL ; a try instead. Thanks!

Laurent Maumet (@lmau)
Reply to  Lee Granas

CTRL; does not work for me on chromebook.

Markus Fischer
4 years ago

Great idea – with a little flaw… When I type a word that does not show up anywhere in my list the search function shows every bullet which contains a letter (or more) of the search word.

rawbytz
4 years ago

Thankfully Ctrl+; still works for this awesome feature… because if you use Ctrl+K while in Chrome/Windows you will only be annoyed by Chrome’s built in “search from anywhere” feature popping up over all that Jump menu awesomeness.

Dr Andus
4 years ago
Reply to  rawbytz

I was about to ask what shortcut to use on a Chromebook, but thankfully your suggestion CTRL; does work. Thanks for this. It would be great if OP could update the post for Chromebook users. We do exist! 🙂

Lee Granas
Lee Granas
4 years ago
Reply to  Dr Andus

Post updated!

Trevor Jordan
4 years ago
Reply to  rawbytz

That’s odd. Ctrl-k in my Chrome/Windows setup only pops up this new – and very useful already! – feature.

Julie
Julie
4 years ago

Workflowy is the most vital application that I use, and I love the ability to access this menu via keyboard shortcut!

But, on the occasions when I’m working more with the mouse and just need to click into one of my Starred pages, having the pop-up appear in the center of the screen is a disorienting annoyance. Any way to have the new dialog box appear in the center for search (when the keyboard shortcut is used), but also let us have the starred pages drop-down right under the star?

Thank all of you either way for this tool—I use it constantly!

mike
mike
4 years ago
Reply to  Julie

Yes I’d rather clicking on the Star bring up the previous starred list, and have this new fuzzy search be a separate feature altogether

Lee Granas
Lee Granas
4 years ago
Reply to  mike

Thanks for the feedback, Julie and Mike. We shall consider.

davestewart
4 years ago
Reply to  Julie

Completely agree. I came to the blog to leave this comment, and here it is already.

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