Hello WorkFlowians. This is your friend Jesse. We haven’t written anything on this blog in quiiite a while, so I’m gonna do that now. I’ll try to do it somewhat regularly, and perhaps share more of what we’re working on so you can see what is going on, know that there’s activity, give feedback along the way.
For starters, a short post about what I’m personally working on and our goals.
Today’s Immediate Goals
- I want to write a blog post, I feel I owe you all an update.
- I fixed an iOS9 bug yesterday and today I’m hoping to release that fix. In order to do so, I need to create a bunch of new launch images for the app because something got borked about those, and now the app won’t launch with the full height of the device.
- If I get that done (unlikely), I’m gonna move on to my current big picture project, which is improving our conversion rate from shared WorkFlowy documents, basically finishing up a first experiment on this stuff.
Short Term Goals
Our primary short term focus is increasing the effectiveness of our sharing flow. Sharing a WorkFlowy document constitutes the simplest way for people to spread the word about WorkFlowy, beyond saying “I love WorkFlowy” all the time to all their friends. (Which you should definitely, definitely do. We recommend screaming “I love WorkFlowy” at least three times a day. Especially if you work in an open office).
Regardless, we have never optimized this part of the product, which leaves a bunch of big opportunities.
We’re starting by focusing on the experience of someone new to WorkFlowy. When Stewart, who has never seen WorkFlowy, receives a link from his co-worker Leshika, We want Stewart to feel welcomed, ushered in and taken care of. We want to show him around the place, make him feel at home. Hopefully Stewart loves the experience, sticks around and shares WorkFlowy with others.
Big Picture Goals
We want WorkFlowy to reach its potential. The product could be so much more amazing, and we just want it to get there. We’ve realized recently that our current trajectory won’t get us there, because development is just too slow and there’s too much to do. So we’ve been thinking hard, talking to people, and examining numbers to figure out a route forward. We’re close to the growth and revenue we’ll need to build a small but great team, and that’s what we’re plugging away on.
Okay, I’m gonna get to work now.
Guys you need to follow the emacs ‘org mode’ path.
Thats a powerful app, but setting it up is difficult since emacs has a high learning curve. But there are a LOT of features and bringing maybe some command line magic to Workflowy would be great.
Love WF! Feature request:
1: smart people tagging and list. Make it easier to TAG and lookup outlines related to persons. I am unable to maintain a person context list.
2: dates tagging and list. I am unable to maintain manual dates list
I noticed that the Android app was updated on Sept 15, but there’s no explanation on Google Play of what was changed. Can anybody tell me if there are new features? Or was it just bug fixes?
Where is the best place to send/post feature requests?
My eyes don’t work so well any more, and being able to zoom/increase font size in Workflowy is getting to be a must-have feature…
Keep up the great work!
@Adam Pearson, use ctrl + to expand the font size in Workflowy and any webpage. I didn’t know that for years and it made a real difference in my life, that one trick…
@giffmex – thanks for the reminder – I hadn’t thought about that option with Workflowy. Thing is, I use the chrome app exclusively when I can – that’s what i was thinking of for this feature request. (oh, and a standalone desktop app 😉
Do you have one of those sites where people can vote on their favorite features to request? I think the biggest issue with Workflowy (which I love and pay for, don’t get me wrong) is that there’s so much hidden and secret stuff (search operators, key commands, etc.). It’s kind of fun, but better maybe to give everyone all the tools they need up front.
As for the feature that I’d love the most? A date tag and a “by date” view. I can’t figure out a hack that will pull dates from all over and PUT THEM IN ORDER. If anyone knows of one, I’d appreciate it. I have an eye on a competitor, and while I hate almost everything else about it, it’s the date tag that’s making me jealous.
Yeah, dates is the most common request.
@Jay Rawlings, you’re a tough one to track down apart from here. Mind shooting me an email (please!)?. It’s under my Gravatar. Cheers!
I’m generally very satisfied with Workflowy, but there is one thing that I think will greatly improve it … instead of only 1 “document” allow us to have “tabs” so we could have 1 tab for notes, another for tasks etc. It is a bit hard to have everything in one single outline.
Another thing that might work is to have everything in one “document”, but to allow different “tabs” that are looking at different nodes (or searches, or pages etc)
I got this idea from the blog at one point; you can open workflowy in as many tabs as you want and navigate to a different point in your document in each tab.
Yes, also Chrome’s “pin tab” feature comes in handy
It would be even better if we could drag items from one tab to another
It can be solved – to some extent – by hierarchy. I have top-level nodes for tasks, notes, unsorted etc, right under the root node. I also have several Workflowy tabs open in a browser. But yes, it would be helpful to see several panels (displaying different nodes of the same document) side-by-side in one browser tab. Also a static list of links to favorite nodes would be great (it was mentioned in the comments above)
Everyone wanting tabs: Just use starred pages as your tabs. There is even a style at userstyles.org to overlay your workflowy so that starred pages appear in a left column – so they function exactly like tabs.
To Dave Gifford: is there a style which allows the starred pages to be displayed permanently? I’ve only found one which pops out after “star” button click and them disappears
@Tim, to be honest I haven’t played with them personally. I just assumed from the descriptions that they stay open. Here is the link to the one I saw https://userstyles.org/styles/browse?search_terms=workflowy+better+starred
I made Better Starred Page Viewer. It only changes the shape and position of the existing viewer. It cannot display it permanently.
Regarding dual panes in the same tab, there is a bookmarklet called “Chrome Dual View” that works pretty well. You can’t drag items between panes, but you can use WorkFlowy’s cut and paste to move nodes between the two. A page reload takes you back to single pane mode.
I also hope for multiple documents function. I want to keep my tasks completely separate from my hobbies or completed projects. Changing theme and font will work more effectively with this function.
I am glad to see action on Workflowy. The one killer feature for me is the ability to insert a link in text (ala Cmd-K or some other shortcut) to keep the workflowy page clean. The current approach of simply pasting the entire link really clutters up the view and hiding it in a bullet creates an extra step. I guess a link shortener works but that is yet another step.
In my case I like to work in Workflowy and then link to an Evernote reference.
If this is available somehow, I would like to learn how to do it.
Thanks.
One Workaround is to put the link in the note. That way the list items are “nice text” while the link in the note is still clickable.
Thanks for the suggestion. Is there a way to hide notes when viewing a line in Workflowy? I didn’t figure that one out. My issue was that the links were longer than the original line and it dominated the view. It felt like clutter. I guess my hope was that a note (link) would be hidden until needed.
If you leave a space/ line break in the first line of a note (i.e. your link or text starts on the second line) – when your note is collapsed, all you see are 3 suspensive points. Tap/ click on those to expand the note. Personally, most of the time, I prefer to tuck a link away in a child list.
If like to add some “styling” to any list titles, another thing I do with some lists is to create a line of suspensive points/ periods in a note under the list title. That way you’ve sort of underlined your list title and a link or extra information could start in the 2nd line of the note. I do this especially if I have a tag index in a list title’s note. Just a matter of preference, I guess.
Thanks for the tip. That does help keep the list clean. Thanks frank.dg.
Another option would be, if you have Stylish installed, to have a separate rule for easy de- / activation:
div.notes div.content {
display: none !important;
}
Just food for thought.
I second this motion, ha
Having said that, I think that there should be a way to keep links from looking so idk linky??
(Basically in keeping with the regular workflowy discretion)
Cause if you use a lot of links then your expanded text structures look, well, terrible with blue or underlined words everywhere.
I still find ways to hide links just fine so I’m not really hurting for it but it would be a cool feature I think if done right.
I do like how you can copy the url for any workflowy page (even zoom level+complicated search combinations)
Whatever place you need to be next, or whatever you need to see next it’s all right there with the click of your workflowy link. Nice (even works in the app)
Maybe another tip to go on that tips and tricks list….
> I do like how you can copy the url for any workflowy page (even zoom level+complicated search combinations)
One change I would like to see is the same URL for private and shared links. I’m forever copying the main URL and sending it to people then having them tell me it’s the wrong link.
Or if that’s not possible, some way to see the shared link more obviously on the page when the page is shared, not 4 or 5 steps to get it:
1 – move mouse to page header
2 – wait for pop up
3 – click shared
4 – move to URL
5 – right-click and copy
Even just a mailto: link next to the header would be great!
Great app, thanks for your work!
To increase viral growth, let me share lists from my mobile phone with all of your soon-to-be members.
I think I’d share twice as much as I do now.
Thank you for a fantastic, simple product.
To increase viral growth, please add ability to share a list via the mobile app. I would share twice as many lists if I could do it from my phone, which likely means many more users referred from me.
Yeah, that is high up there on the list of things to do.
Jesse: Not sure that you’re tackling the right priority. The biggest friction point in Workflowy is the iOS app. It’s only barely useable, and a source of pain where there shouldn’t be one.
I’d suggest that you would get a lot more viral love by making the mobile experience great than you would by fixing the “sharing flow”. The world is going mobile, fast, and you’re not really there yet.
It is true that fixing mobile would be a boon however, it is also a major project. On the other hand, in about a week’s work I have made a big dent on the sharing flow, and the numbers actually imply that improving our sharing flow might make a big difference. It is just a question of how to allocate extremely limited time.
I’m thinking of the maths. I’d guess that close to 100% of your current and future users want a great mobile experience. A growing number will *only* want Workflowy on mobile. You’re going to have to tackle that ogre sometime, so why not now? That one big project will remove a lot of the friction that stands in the way of a lot of future adoption.
It seems to me that everything else is tinkering around the edges. I’m happy to see the fit ‘n finish work, but I’d much rather not lose a chunk of my Workflowy outline because I’ve poked the wrong thing on my iPhone and there’s no Undo …
Please make a bookmarklet!! Please make it easy to copy (duplicate) or move items around and into other outline nodes!!! Please?
A bookmarklet would be great! Or even if we could email in notes to be added to a specific node.
I think the rate of development, while it may seem slow, only seems that way because of the rate at which bigger developers pump out updates. Honestly, if nothing else was done to Workflowy, it’d still be useful and relevant for years. Everything else is just a bonus. I think taking your time on new features and making sure they are rock solid, clean, and light so as to not bog down the code is what separates Workflowy from the rest. With that said, I’d love to see more updates on the progress of what is being worked on. Also, feature-wise, the biggest burning desire for me is having a calendar/date tag system. That is probably the only thing Moo.do has that I thoroughly enjoy and feel is missing now from Workflowy. That’s really still only a want that I have, though.
P.S. I don’t use Moo.do. Workflowy is too seemless.
1. Yes, the lack of date notifications is a frustration. I track all my projects in WF and it would be great if I could set notification reminders inside this app too, instead of having copy those items into Wunderlist or my google calendar.
I made an auto-hotkey text expansion for enter start dates and due dates in the form @s2015.11.10 and @d2015.11.10. If I type either ,,wfs or ,,wfd it pops up a calendar picker and then pastes the start or due date that I select, depending on which shortcut I type.
2. I also wish the WF natively could toggle between a hierarchical view and a flat list with a keyboard shortcut. I’ve managed to get a not entirely graceful version of that using stylish and a browser extension to managed the keyboard shortcut, but this would be much better as a native feature.
I use WF for GTD (I’m a refugee from Omnifocus who needed a cross platform solution). The speed of the search in WF is amazing. And I gotten used to the less structured approach. But at the end of the day, one of the points of GTD is to dump everything into one place, get it organized, and then pull out the two or three things you want/need to be focusing on right now.
Some WF users seem to accomplish that by dragging current items into a separate node and then zooming in on it. But given how good the search is in WF, I prefer to accomplish my short-list of tasks via a search. This way, I can keep the individual to do items inside their project outline and there’s no chance they’ll get misplaced.
But when I get down to my short-list of tasks that I need to do today, It would be great to be able to see them without their hierarchical context, because that context ends up being a distraction.
It may sound weird, but sometimes I just want to filter everything in the entire WF outline to just one or two items with no additional context (easy to do with tags).
That way, when I switch over to look at my do it now list, all I see is those one or two items, as if to say, “there is nothing more important for you to be doing right now but these two things.”
But if I get those two items finished, it’s really easy to zoom back out and see the whole or jump to a specific project outline and see the whole of the project again.
3. Native search and replace. This would also be helpful. I use a lot of templates for new projects, etc. Currently I use an MS Word add-in called simpleprompter to fill these in. Then, I copy the text and bring it into WF. You could probably do something similar with Textexpander on the mac. Not sure if Breevy has that on PC (I use autohotkey on pc for my limited textexpansion needs).
That said, there are times when I’m not in front of a computer equipped with simpleprompter and word. Or sometimes it would just be easier to copy an existing WF outline, do a search an replace and we’re good. Or sometimes I make a mistake filling in my template in Word and I’d love to be able to search and replace for the mistake, rather than having to export it out to accomplish that.
4. Mobile app is better than nothing. But it’s frustrating to use, especially when entering info. No autocomplete of tags, for example is a frustration. There are others. It feel like an afterthought. By comparison, OF is in a whole different ballpark.
All that being said, I’d have to concur with other commenters that in spite of these wish-list items, the existing program is imminently usable.
If development stopped right here, I expect that many people would still find it quite useful. But what’s here is so great that it’s hard not to fixate on how much better it could be with a few of these additions.
Like I said, I came from Omnifocus. If Omnifocus was cross-platform, I’d probably use it instead. Although the longer I use WF, the more I question whether I would go back, because WF is so fast in the searching. But the lack of the notifications and an elegant flat list view definitely undermines WF’s utility as an OF replacement. If it had those two things, I wouldn’t hesitate to suggest it to anyone looking for a cross-platform alternative to OF.
“toggle between a hierarchical view and a flat list”
–> I have wished that too once or twice, then realized it would be a problem for me as I have many projects on-the-go; without the context many (most) tasks would be hard to work on (some tasks have the same name in multiple projects). Also, most of the work I do requires surrounding project info within Workflowy, such as project specifications, notes, log entries, etc. I have found it more useful to use a sort of Kanban approach retaining many of the GTD things, and use @Next and @InProg tags for zeroing on what is important.
But I agree that hiding a node till a certain date passes is a high priority enhancement, as well as search-and-replace. And of course, I’m looking forward to an improved mobile experience.
Hooray!
The mobile app for apple must be very different than the Android app. Since I am away from the PC most of the time, I primarily view and make entries on my Android phone. I am surprised at how functional the Android WorkFlowy app is.
Viewing and entering data is fine. The difficulty is if you want to copy an outline to paste into an email. This is more-or-less impossible.
LOVE. THIS. APP!
aside from iOS improvements, could you guys add the ability change the bullets to numbers or letters? i think that would be cool, helpful, and ‘fairly’ simple. yes?
keep up the good work!
I love Workflowy, but dislike the iOS app which sadly hasn’t had a major update since Feb 2013. I really hope you will make this a priority. Workflowy’s usefulness for me is that it **should** be mobile, but the mobile app is so poor for reasons mentioned by Stu Maschwitz above that it really is nothing more than a reader. The worst limitation by far is that on iOS there is no way to get an outline out of Workflowy (this is even true of using a mobile browser). It’s great having all my information in, but if someone asks me for information whilst I’m out and about Workflowy is useless. This is becoming such a problem that I’m now beginning to us Evernote. Mobile is everywhere and yet it is nowhere on your roadmap!
Time to get on https://getsatisfaction.com I think !
Less than ideal, but there is a workaround for this. Using mobile Safari, zoom/focus on the node. Press & hold the reload page icon (upper right), select “Request Desktop Site”. You now have access to every feature in the desktop hover menu, albeit with some extra tapping. You have to tap once to select, and again to activate. It requires some patience and lots of pinch zooming/unzooming. I recommend you first create a test node to get familiar with it. I’ve used it to get shared links, dupe, delete big nodes, and copy stuff via export. Don’t zoom if you want to duplicate. Haven’t borked anything yet.
So now I have a reason to upgrade to iOS 9
only slightly more difficult in iOS 8. Tap address to reveal faves and drag down.
Thanks for the tip, but you need to do that each time you open the browser, which becomes a real pain.
I’m gradually transitioning to systems that are mobile centric.
Wow! A lot of comments in here already. I hope you guys see this as a very big encouragement to kickstart the development once again. 🙂
I sort of drifted away from WorkFlowy because of the seemingly dead development the app has experienced over the last year or so. I actually switched my notes/tasklists to Trello, even though I don’t like the busy design and the way to heavy handling that this app offers me. They just give me some extra tools I kind of needed in WorkFlowy – mainly the option to attach images to my notes and notifications to stuff I need to remember.
I’ll be back in a heartbeat as soon as I see the improvements to your app. I absolutely love the simplicity of your design – I just long for the before mentioned extra options in your app.
Cheers!
I notice that there are far more appreciations and pros than cons, regarding WorkFlowy features and functions. I have tried many, many other productivity apps and have found them cumbersome and not as helpful or effecient to increase remembering and getting things done, as WorkFlowy. WorkFlowy is the first app that I have renewed the paid subscription. WorkFlowy is extremely functional for me just as it is. Even though there are functions that users wish WorkFlowy had, and the enhancements are not as frequent as some other apps, users don’t appear to be abandoning WorkFlowy for other apps in spite of perceived limitations. While enhancements might be nice, WorkFlowy does what I need just as it is for doing what I need. I haven’t noticed that need for bug fixes or major overhauls that other more complicated apps have required. I think that you guys are developing at the right pace.
Thank you, I very much appreciate this. You are right, our users have not been abandoning us, and overall I believe they like what we are doing. I would love to speed up the pace of product development, though :/
Workflowy has long been and remains one of my favorite tools. I’ve looked at alternatives that do more, and always come back to Workflowy but do wish it did more — from time to time. But overall, it *just works* which is the best part.
I think a lot of Web-centric folks use it and Workflowy could follow the path a lot of other tools have used where a great platform is established and for fear of adding bloat to the core product they set up an ecosystem of a community and hacks, so to speak. Bookmarklets, User Styles, User Scripts and more could all be the basis for potential new features and could be shown in a gallery or even highlighted in blog posts. No mistake, these all run on local users machines and unless you guys decided to add them to the core product, just because you show them off doesn’t mean you’re endorsing or have to support them. People love tools with extensions (TextMate, Sublime Text, Chrome, Firefox, etc.).
I’d love to see what others have done with “hacking” Workflowy. Personally I’ve got mine tricked out with extra colors and the focused row highlighted, etc. If I had time personally I’d start a community list of these things too. But I’m busy just getting things done with Workflowy 🙂
I suppose that’s what is happening over at userstyles.org but … it’s a bit distant.
Agreed. Although I’ve squeezed a whole lot out of some of the hacks mentioned, an open API would be the cherry on top. That would allow developers to work in WorkFlowy’s favor. Evernote, for one, would not be half the product it is if it didn’t integrate with so many 3rd-party apps.
Yes. This.
And Evernote could go so much further with that if they’d open up the “inside” of it … but that’s another discussion.
Has anyone found a bookmarklet for “clipping” to Workflowy? No API for that I guess …
Maybe a text expansion app like PhraseExpress (Windows)?… you get to clip miscellaneous bits and pieces form a web page and if you have the time, set up a series of hotkeys to paste the last x-amount of items on your clipboard to WorkFlowy in reverse order.
I’d love to see the core Workflowy mechanism “opened up”… but I guess that’s the secret sauce that makes Workflowy, Workflowy.
*Alt+Shit+Left Arrow OR just Shift+Tab
I made a bookmarklet for webpage clipping. It copies the webpage title, url & optional selected text. It generates a prompt, requires one copy operation and then one paste into WorkFlowy. Also available as Chrome extension, less interaction than the bookmarklet, but without selected text. Been meaning to introduce it to the world in a blog that never gets started. Here’s a dropbox page for the bookmarklet.. also links to the Chrome Extension at the bottom.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8681219/ClipToWorkFlowy.html
Well done! I did find your Chrome extension / Workflow action a few weeks ago, however, I was not aware of the bookmarklet — nice for Safari. Sweet.
Thinking about things some more…
The one thing I would like to see in Workflowy, before anything else, is a return to consistency.
It’s on my (Workflowy) to do list to make a small video outlining some of the inconsistencies that seem to have crept in in the last year – whether enter is pressed at the start, middle, or end of a line, whether that node has children, whether than node is a child, whether that node is open, closed, etc – they all seem to do different things regarding where the new node is placed.
The key thing I used to like about Workflowy is that it was completely faithful a word processor in how it worked with the enter and cursor keys – you just knew where you were by imagining what would happen in notepad, or Word – but somewhere along the line that has been lost.
As not everyone will have the same view on “what works for them” the ideal next feature (for me) would be preferences to allow users to choose what happens when they interact with Workflowy depending on the node state (start/end, children/not, open/closed) etc.
FWIW the last new feature, the new (+) button at the bottom of trees has only gotten in my way so far (perhaps I should try using it) – but it really didn’t feel like the next feature that should have been worked on.
Good luck in making the right decisions over the next while,
Cheers again,
Dave
What would you like “Enter” to do when you’re at the beginning, middle or end of a bullet/ node? All seems predictable enough to me.
After I type a tag, sometimes I want to press enter to go to the next line, and I have to press it twice because the first time it just ‘finishes’ the tag.
It’s totally not Frank, unfortunately. Check the following example:
https://workflowy.com/s/WESSs3fAGO
This doesn’t reflect how an IDE or word processor works. If you hit enter anywhere on a parent item in any text editor, it just cuts the item there; it doesn’t start inserting parts of strings as new children.
I’d just like pressing Enter in the middle of an item to be consistent, both within Workflowy itself, and any other text editor.
If I want to create a new child node after splitting a parent it’s literally ONE more keystroke – cursor down – the caret is then moved to the correct place, then I start typing, and hey-presto.
Doing things in reverse is waaay more keystrokes, cutting, pasting, selecting, tabbing, scrolling (if it’s a long list).
I know this seems like a tiny thing, but I’ve found it hugely disruptive to my Workflowy flow 🙁
Dave, I see exactly what you’re saying. Your pet peeve is that when splitting an expanded parent list, the latter part becomes a child list. As you’ve outlined in point #3 in your shared list, it behaves as you would want if the list is collapsed.
It seems there are a couple of solutions when you want to split the parent list and make the latter part a sibling list (not a child):
1. Collapse your parent list (Ctrl+Space) before hitting Enter, OR…
2. Hit Enter with your list expanded and then hit Alt+Shift+Left Arrow to outdent it and make it a sibling list, OR…
3. Create a Hotkey with a text expansion app similar to PhraseExpress. IOW, you could create a keyboard shortcut (say, Ctrl+Shift+Enter), which will combine the key strokes in #2 above (i.e. Enter, Alt+Shift+Left Arrow)
Otherwise… I see the result of hitting Enter in the middle of an expanded parent as a feature, not a bug… I mean, that’s what happens in real life anyways – often one of the spouses is just a big kid, and so would be fairly represented in WorkFlowy if (he) were relegated to the doghouse for the evening after a spat.
Hey Frank,
I left my comment fairly open-ended (I was going to say “we probably won’t agree”) but your workarounds are to handle an inconsistency – though you call it a feature 😛
In my view it would be best to be consistent, and have the special child-adding functionality as the workaround!
But as I mentioned in the same post:
“As not everyone will have the same view on “what works for them” the ideal next feature (for me) would be preferences to allow users to choose what happens when they interact with Workflowy depending on the node state (start/end, children/not, open/closed) etc.”
Then everyone gets what they want.
Any good IDE will have the same with regards to code style, brackets, etc, why not Workflowy?
And that goes for things like the “Add sibling item” button … which I see as pointless, as I can just place the cursor at the point I want a sibling, and press Enter anyway.
Dave, I totally get you. Your case is water tight.
… Except that you might need to hit Enter however many times depending on how deep your lists are. So if you’re 5 children lists deep and want a sibling list, you’re going to have to hit Enter 5 times… or you could hit the “Add sibling item” button on hover over, which is really just an invitation to place your cursor.
The enter change is in the process of being reverted. We made the change so you could hit backspace at the beginning of a child and it would merge with the parent, but it definitely seems like a usability regression so we are reverting it. Mike’s was working on that yesterday or the day before.
You have no idea how happy that makes me!
THANK YOU 😀 X
While we’re on the subject of consistency, can you get “move node up/down” on a mac working please?
Thanks for the update Jesse. I have a lot more appreciation of – and respect for – the work involved with growing a company since I started my own venture. I wish you courageous breakthroughs and success in moving to the next level for Workflowy – it’s so worth it!
Wow, can’t believe i thought “I’ll just check the workflowy blog” and here’s a brand new shiny post with loads of comments 🙂
Goodness knows I’ve emailed you guys enough times with suggestions, and I have a list as long as your arm for features that are very in-keeping with the Workflowy philosophy, but good to know you’re looking at getting back to product development.
I didn’t realise you were such a small outfit. I work on a bunch of my own projects and I know how hard it is to keep all the balls in the air and the momentum up, all whilst doing contracts to pay the bills and running my so-called life.
Would love to get involved somehow if possible!
Keep up the great work.
😀
It would be a big help to me if you would let us know if images are in the works still. At one point a couple months ago, you commented that they were practically ready. But your post doesn’t mention them at all. That is a feature I would really love, even if it is just being able to do “a hrefs” to photos stored elsewhere.
Just don’t make it worse by trying to make it better (which happens far too often with other software). 😉
Yeah, we hear you.
Hi Jesse, thanks for the post!
Regarding your big picture goal, here is just a thought: offer 3 or 4 tiers of service: 1) the current free version with very limited bullets. 2) A note-taker tier, $15-20, with far more bullets per month, for those for whom $50 is a psychological barrier. 3) A power user tier, basically what WF Pro is now, for $35-50, and 4) a web publisher tier, for $50-70 a month, with both the ability to embed or attach images (something that not long ago you said was on the way), and with the ability to add custom CSS within WF so that shared (published) WFs can be viewed with custom CSS without having to resort to workarounds like having every viewer install Stylish userstyles.
I love WorkFlowy. I only discovered it in May, but I can honestly say without exaggeration that it has revolutionized the speed and enjoyment of my note-taking and productivity. But the leap from free to $50 is a psychological hurdle for the people I have shared WF with. Thus the recommendation about more tiers. Blessings!
Sorry, didn’t mean $50-70 per month, but per year. Don’t see a way to edit my comment.
We’ve tried a lower tier and it didn’t help. We are planning on trying a higher tear and see about raising the price (for non existing members)
Liking what I’m hearing.. sounds like things are about to start heating up!
But give me back the feature for going “up and down” through pages in a list without having to zoom out first. (formerly ctrl+9, ctrl+0)
I’ll go pro for this if I have to! Works well for so many things!
It exists still, you have to hold shift in addition now
Sweet! I guess I DIDN’T try everything then.. Top on my priority list to check today now. Nice
Holy wow, how did I not know about this?! Any other “Hidden features” (not listed on the blog here).
Thanks for the update and making workflowy! Glad the long-game is in mind, I don’t plan on stop using workflowy any time….ever.
Ctrl+Shift+9 works for me… but not its counterpart, Ctrl+Shift+0. So we can only backtrack in a list for now…
Neither work for me in Chrome 45 Win
echo frank. Ctrl+Shft+9 works, but not Ctrl+Shft+0. Chrome 46 Win.
Same here, ctrl+shift+0 not working (windows 10)
Hidden features list would be pretty sweet..
This one in particular I found (accidently) and love!
I keep the help tab in my browser open as default. I hope it is kept up to date.
Neither ctrl+shift+9 nor ctrl+shift+0 works for me on Chrome (47), Firefox or Microsoft Edge.
Thanks for the update! I still love (and pay for) Workflowy. The desktop/web interface is really great. The iOS experience, however, needs improvement.
It’s unacceptable that the menu bar sometimes tears off and scrolls down the screen. It’s difficult to move things around. There’s no autocomplete for tags. With no swipe gestures or other affordances, completing an item on iOS is a fussy, multi-tap process.
There are a lot of iOS devices out there, and your category is a popular one. A first-class iOS Workflowy app would be a huge boon to adoption.
Keep up the great work!
Yep, we know this.
If you want to discuss launch image woes and solutions for iOS, etc., I’m around via email. Mike has my phone, too. Glad to read this post, good luck moving it forward
need bigger font for ios/mobile browsers…my eyes are not that acute anymore….
other than that luv the app!
need bigger font for ios…my eyes are not that acute anymore….
other than that luv the app!
Thanks for the update! Not sure about others, but I really like status update posts like these. I find myself checking in with the blog pretty frequently (at least once a month) and wondering what’s happening next/whether WorkFlowy is still going strong, so these posts are really reassuring.
If you want to increase a revenue then finish the product! Lot of promised features are hanging in the air for a very long time, people are giving up on you, because product whose development is frozen and fails to realize it’s promises is a not good product to put trust in and stay around.
Your primary competition is completely for free, has lot more features then you and they got there in just a half a year. That being said, I still kinda prefer your look, but it doesn’t make me a very happy customer to see all the cool features being implemented in competiton product in matter of weeks as they are requested. They are also only team of two students! If they can do it so easily why it’s such a trouble for Workflowy?
No wonder you don’t grow organically very well when your product is half-dead. Just because the core features work well doesn’t mean it can be left of and start focusing on sales or something. Start taking care of us, give us updates, blog more often and things will take off.
Not sure what your goal is here other than venting, but I can understand the frustration. What features in particular are you most wanting?
What do you perceive to be the “primary competition”?
Great to hear from you folks. As it is always important to keep your users happy I would change my view on „work“ and also see this kind of posts as necessary part of my work. Otherwise you might loose focus on posting again which would be not good. 🙂
Ha, good point.
I love workflowy – for project and product management we have almost completely switched from using google docs (and other tools) to workflowy – it is so much faster and easier to work off a workflowy list. Especially if you work remotely. Only downside are missing numbered lists or any way to quickly reference some point on a long list while on a call.
Just out of curiosity: What are you working on when you are not building workflowy? How many is “we”? How much time do approximately put in for workflowy?
When not building WorkFlowy, I’m taking care of my kids, doing jiu jitsu, hanging out with friends or sleeping. It is all I’m working on these days.
On product development we have two people, myself and Mike.
sounds about perfect. Good luck with growing workflowy and keeping everything else as it is!
i know a fantastic developer who could bust those features out for you in no time.
Thank you for the update. I still love (and happily pay for) Workflowy. But it’s time for the iOS app to get more than a bug fix. It’s unacceptable that the menu bar tears off and scrolls with the page sometimes. It’s too hard to move items around. There’s no auto-complete for tags.
There are a lot of iOS devices out there, and your category is a popular one. A truly great iOS app would be a huge boon to your adoption.
Yeah, I am an example of that. I love Workflowy so much, but I do most of my work on my iPad. The iOS app is clunky, not fun to use, and misses features. I was on the verge of becoming a paying customer, but with the poor iPad experience, I more or less had to abandon Workflowy.
No matter how many different kinds of productivity software I try I can’t let go of my workflowy pro membership. It’s a non-negotiable staple – just like a calendar and an email client. It does the job of a to-do list, project manager, and simple text editor all perfectly in one tool (which is truly amazing now that I think about it).
With that being said, there’s so many ways it could be even more awesome. I have no doubt that if you had a team you’d absolutely blow up. I hope you could afford to hire a team organically, but if you need to get an investor, sell your kidneys, do whatever – I’m sure the return will be worth it!
Yeah, we could get investment. We think we can do it organically, but that’s always an option.
Long time pro user here. Make the starred pages a list down the left side and you’ll have a dream app. Please, please, please.
Yep, a left bar with starred pages and a bunch of other cools stuff is way high on the priority list.
Great!!
Another thing I would find very useful is a dedicated “inbox”, for things I thought of and want to write down, without losing my train of thought. I currently have the top node labeled “inbox”, but it’s a pain to empty it out, entailing tons of scrolling.
Thanks for a wonderful app so far!
Can’t agree more! I use Workflowy everyday, and it would be a tremendously helpful feature for me.
Yay! You rock, man. I know how hard this is. Don’t quit. Work hard, take breaks, and get right back at it each time. It’ll be amazing and incredibly rewarding for you and others.
Like this?
https://userstyles.org/styles/112334/workflowy-better-starred-page-viewer
You should install a Firefox/ Chrome browser extension called “Stylish”, go along to userstyles.org and look for “WorkFlowy Better Starred Page Viewer”… That gives you a vertical list down the left margin. Voilà.
That works great, thanks!
I have added this tip to my Workflowy How-to node:
https://workflowy.com/s/nYxJeeQa4G
That is a great tip. Even though the Better Starred Page Viewer didn’t work I now use Custom Tag Colours which is even more important for me.
cflat7, like your How To. Two more undocumented (very hidden!) search operators: “completed:7d” and “has:note”.
rawbytz, thanks very much! I have added those to the How-to list.
a little workaround is working with stylish (https://userstyles.org – available for chrome, ff and safari. Something similar like starred pages in a list is already available. Check it out
Workflowy is the best lister and outliner out there. Period. Love it, even though I don’t even begin to stretch it!
Thanks for the update. There had been talk a year ago about lots of new features, but very little seemed to emerge. I understand you need to strengthen your revenue flow, but don’t forget existing customers.
Yeah, we thought stuff was coming and it didn’t. Our goal is to make the product better for existing users. That’s what we’ve spent most of the past five years on. Now we need to focus on getting to where we need to be organizationally in order to build the product you want.
Great to hear some updates on WorkFlowy. My favorite tool and one I promote ad-nauseum.
I have no idea what you’re planning in terms of improving sharing conversions, but here’s one idea: Allow a way for people to “bookmark” shared lists from within their WorkFlowy. This would be different from the PRO feature that allows user-specific sharing. Instead, there’s be a new “Shared Lists” item in the menu that had links to every publicly-shared list you’ve ever viewed. This would do two things:
1. Be really useful and make it easier to return to a list.
2. Encourage new users to create accounts so they can save lists.
Have you ever embedded a shared list in your account? It become like a bullet. But that is what we’re doing. Encouraging people to “join” the document, which will them ask them to create an account and will embed it in there. “Join” might not be the right work, but whatevs, could be “follow” “bookmark” etc.
Have you done the embedding in your account thing?
Yeah, right. That is the great thing about shared lists. But – as you can see from MRWweb it is not as clear as one would expect. So this should definitely be part of your new „Welcome“ to shared lists receivers.
Yep, this is the main point of it.
I haven’t. I’ll have to try that next time. More times than not, I’m the one sharing, but it does seem I’ve missed that. Thanks for the tip!
You can search for “is:shared” and all of the shared lists in your account will pop up. I know that that doesn’t show any list you’ve ever viewed, but if you want to come back to a shared list later, why not save it in your account?