FoldingText Posts

Oak Outliner

2013-05-06T00:00:00-07:00

Oak is a new FoldingText based web app for outlining your ideas in plain text. It’s free, doesn’t require an account, and I hope it will be a quick and easy place for you to think on the web. Please give it a try and let us know how it works for you.

Word Count Plugin

2013-02-27T00:00:00-08:00

Use this plugin to display live word and character counts as you edit your document.

This plugin is useful if you are trying to hit a specific word or character count when writing your document. After installing the plugin you can display your word count by:

Enter Command Mode (View > Command Mode)
Type the “word count” command to show the live counts.
Type the “word count” command again to remove the counts.

The word count plugin is availible (along with others) from FoldingText’s plugin collection.

Sort Lines Plugin

2013-02-27T00:00:00-08:00

Use this plugin to sort the selected lines in your document.

After installing this plugin you can sort the selected lines by:

Enter Command Mode (View > Command Mode)
Type the “sort lines” command to sort the selected lines.

The sort lines plugin is availible (along with others) from FoldingText’s plugin collection.

Reverse Text Plugin

2013-02-27T00:00:00-08:00

Use this plugin to reverse the selected text in your document.

After installing this plugin you can reverse the selected text by:

Enter Command Mode (View > Command Mode)
Type the “reverse text” command to reverse the selected text.

The reverse text plugin is availible (along with others) from FoldingText’s plugin collection.

FoldingText 1.2 Release

2013-02-27T00:00:00-08:00

Added Command Mode (Command-‘) interface.
Added Plugin support (Help > Plugin API Documentation)
Added Typewriter scrolling (View > Typewriter Scrolling)
Run scripts from command mode (File > Open Scripts Folder)
Changed to insert after fold when pressing return.
Changed default node path from /*///* to ///*.
Changed AppleScript read nodes command to always return list.
Select syntax when toggling bold, italic, and code.
Reveal file links in Finder instead of trying to open them.
Fixed some repetitive steps in the focus out process.
Fixed syntax highlighting of mode declared on empty line.
Fixed Reference links to now work with capital letters.
Fixed crash when focusing out on heading with ’/’ character.
Fixed error evaluating @index = 1 node path predicates.
Fixed performance bug when many lines are folded.
Fixed potential lost changes when editing after autosave.
Fixed losing focus when zooming in and out.
Fixed crash when ordered list is followed by unordered ’’ list.
Fixed crash when jumping to next spelling error when folded.
Fixed crash when dragging and dropping text.
Fixed crash when Moving Section Left when contained empty lines.
Fixed crash when trying to open document that you don’t have permission to read.

This release brings FoldingText one step closer to “Plain text productivity platform for geeks.” FoldingText is now extensible through a Javascript plugin API. This release also include a Command Mode which provides a quick and consistent way to use and expose plugin commands without having to remember tons of keyboard shortcuts.

Expand More Script

2013-01-16T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to “zoom in”, expanding folds to see a more detailed view of your document structure.

This script is most useful when used together with the Expand Less Script. Use this script to “zoom in” on your document structure and use the Expand Less Script to “zoom out”.

Expand Less Script

2013-01-16T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to “zoom out”, collapsing folds to see a high level overview of your document structure.

This script is most useful when used together with the Expand More Script. Use this script to “zoom out” on your document structure and use the Expand More Script to “zoom in”.

Import OPML Script

2013-01-09T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to import OPML into a FoldingText outline.

This script presents an open file dialogue where you can select an OPML file to export. The selected file is then processed with OPML2FT.py and imported as a new FoldingText document.

Export to OPML/Omni Script

2013-01-09T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to export to OPML or Omni app formats.

This script exports the selected line in FoldingText, with all of its descendants, to an OPML file, or to any Omni applications which are installed on the system.

The list of export choices offered by the script will depend on which, if any, Omni apps are installed, and may include OmniOutliner, OmniFocus, and OmniGraffle as well as the default OPML. If OPML is chosen, a File Save dialog will appear. If an Omni app is chosen, the application will be launched, if necessary, and the output will take the form of a new (unsaved) Omni app document.

View in Marked Script

2012-12-05T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to see a markdown preview of your document in Brett Terpstra’s Marked app.

By default, the script tries to place the Marked and FoldingText versions side by side, each occupying half of the screen. If this is not your preferred behaviour, or does not suit your display setup, you can adjust the behaviour of the script by editing the value of a property in its opening lines from true to false.

property pblnPositionWindows : false

Toggle Focus Script

2012-12-05T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to toggle focus with any selected parent node, header or non-header.

This script toggles the focus of the selected parent line. Equivalent to View > Focus In or View > Focus Out in the FoldingText menu system, but works with any parent line, and is not restricted to hash-formatted headers.

Set Folding Level Script

2012-12-05T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to set the level of folding in the open FoldingText document.

This script expands the top N levels of the FoldingText outline, and leaves the lower levels concealed by folding.

A dialog tells the user how many levels there are in the current outline, and invite the user to enter a number.

Entering 1 (or less) will completely collapse the outline, folding all the Level 1 lines, leaving the rest concealed.
Entering a large number (the maximum number of levels, or more) will completely expand the outline, leaving no lines folded.
Entering a number between 1 and the maximum depth will leave the outline consistently folded at a particular level
Entering a number with a sign (e.g. +1 -1) will increase or decrease the current degree of folding.

Mark Done Time Script

2012-12-05T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to add a @done tag with a date-time stamp to the selected line.

Marks the selected line as done, including a date-time stamp (in FoldingText’s default date-time format) in the @done tag.

@done(yyyy-mm-dd HH:MM:SS)	
@done(2012-12-05 21:15:34)

(Works well with FoldingText’s .todo mode)

Header Levels Script

2012-12-04T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to change your outline between list items and heading items.

This script presents a popup choice of outline levels. You choose the level to which you want to use header items, and the rest of the structure will be formatted as list items.

This script works best when you are only working with list and heading items. Other item types (like example normal paragraphs) are ignored.

Lets see how this script works. Here we start with a simple outline of list items with three levels:

- one
	- Two
		- Three

Choose “Level 1” and your outline will be transformed to:

# one
- Two
	- Three

Choose “Level 2” and your outline will be transformed to:

# one
## Two
- Three

Choose “No Headers” and your outline will be transformed back to:

- one
	- Two
		- Three

FoldingText 1.1 Release

2012-11-19T00:00:00-08:00

Welcome text is only shown on the first launch.
Markdown escape sequences are now highlighted.
Repeat tags or tags that use reserved words are not highlighted.
New window location is set from last positioned window.
Menu item choice changes are used as defaults for new documents.
Collapsing a childless node will collapse it’s parent instead.
Fixed Items > Change Type > Codeblock now works.
Fixed Copy as RTF to work correctly with characters such as Æ Ø Å.
Fixed File path links for absolute and relative paths now work.
Fixed No longer show spelling errors in smart links.
Fixed Inline link highlighting that included title attributes.
Fixed Console.app warnings displayed on FoldingText launch.
Fixed Finding text in last section works even if it’s collapsed.
Fixed Finding text works correctly when the view is focused in.
Fixed Bold highlighting now works in tab-indented block-quotes.
Fixed Internal crashes caused by invalid AppleScript parameters.
Fixed Cases where link URLs could inadvertently be deleted.

This release also makes lots of changes to expand the AppleScript support. It adds support for more precise selection control, read/write access to the view node path, and the ability to expand and collapse nodes. It also adds an HTTP style interface that’s easy to use from other languages and might make more sense to web programmers. See User’s Guide > AppleScript Support for more information.

Make Header Script

2012-11-16T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to simplify marking lines as headers, and increasing header indentation level.

This script makes it easy to quickly mark a line as a heading. It automates moving to the start of the line, deleting any existing list or other formatting, and then typing a #. If you run it on a line that’s already a heading it will increase the heading level by inserting an additional # at the start of the line.

This script is most useful if you assign a keyboard shortcut to it, then you can make a header in a single keystroke.

Autofocus System Script

2012-11-14T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to implement a version of Mark Forster’s Autofocus time management system.

Watch this screencast to see how to use this script.

The autofocus system is paper based, but it can be implemented on the computer by using a new heading for each page, as shown in this FoldingText document.

# Autofocus.todo

- item 1
- item 3

# Autofocus.todo

- item 2

In this implementation an Autofocus.todo heading is created for each page. Use unordered list syntax for items so that you can get a nice clickable checkbox to cross the items off the list. The process is the same as described on Mark’s page, except:

Instead of using physical pages add your items to “Autofocus.todo” headings.
Instead of physically crossing items of your lists, click the checkbox that’s added by .todo mode. That will add the @done tag to the item so that it gets visually crossed off.
Instead of manually re-entering items that you are not finished with, place your text cursor on the items line, and run the linked to “Re-Enter” script. That will move a copy of the item to the end of your list. And it will automatically create “Autofocus.todo” headings as needed.

Archive Done Script

2012-11-12T00:00:00-08:00

Use this script to move completed todo items to the # Archive heading in your document.

This script is useful if you are using FoldingText to track todos and you need a record of what you’ve done. It’s also intended to be used together with FoldingText’s todo mode. You can see how it works in this example document:

# My.todo

- item 1
- item 3

Paste that text into a new FoldingText document and each unordered list item will get a checkbox because of .todo mode. Click the checkbox to mark an item as done.

When you are ready to archive a @done item place your text cursor on the items line and then run the “Arhchive Done” script. The item will be moved to the # Archive heading in your document, the script will create that heading if needed.

You can archive multiple items by selecting them all before running the script.

Syntax Examples Script

2012-11-01T00:00:00-07:00

Use these scripts to learn FoldingText’s different scripting syntaxes.

These scripts don’t provide any useful functionality, but they do show all the different ways that you can script FoldingText. They serve as a good reference when creating your own scripts.