OPML import/export - Dynalist/Workflowy

[Mk1]

I’m playing here with import/export between Dynalist and WF.
I trying to export full list including notes. Formated and plain text can’t recognize notes in either so I’ve tried OPML. From WF to DL imports everything nice but from DL to WF can’t recognize the notes, the lists comes without any notes.

I’m not sure but I think is missing the “_” before the “_note” in the DL export code.

[Erica]

I’m not sure but I think is missing the “” before the “note” in the DL export code.

I think you meant an underscore? It was understood as Markdown by the forum, lol, sorry about that.

Yeah, that’s the reason, our convention is to not append anything before the attributes, whereas WorkFlowy does. It can be easily done with regex replace though, if you have a text editor like Sublime Text or Atom I can walk you through how.

[Mk1]

@Erica

Yeah, that’s the reason, our convention is to not append anything before the attributes, whereas WorkFlowy does. It can be easily done with regex replace though, if you have a text editor like Sublime Text or Atom I can walk you through how.

I’ve read “_note” is not a OPML standart but it’s a common usage between outliners.

OPML Interoperability: CarbonFin Outliner, Workflowy, Fargo.io

Why not to make full interoperability?

[Kerim]

I just filed a bug report about this. Dynalist can import from other outliners but can’t export to them because of this bug. Please fix for full interoperability. Thanks!

[Erica]

@Mk1 @Kerim

Sorry for the late reply.

I understand we can use “_note” for full interoperability, even though it makes it’s inconsistent with the rest of our attributes. It was a bit of an arbitrary choice back then after we read the OPML spec and thought we understood how to do XML. Looking back, we’d prefer making all attributes start with underscore for consistency’s sake, but it’s too late.

I’ve committed the change from “note” to “_note” in web export and server side automatic backup and it will be out with the next release.

[Erica]

Update: “note” attribute is now “_note” at web. Coming to other platforms soon.

[Alan]

This Kishener blog article is the key idea. The more this kind of interchange can be supported, the more valuable dynalist will be. Like for example I understand right now there’s work being done on a mindmapping view. Now if the OPML interop between say SimpleMind and Dynalist was 100%, then I could just make an outline in Dynalist, copy it over to SimpleMind, and instantly see a map view. Then rearrange, copy/paste back (or import/export), and see a Dynalist view where I can rapidly do some detailed text editing.

Obviously there are limits because each has bonus features not in the other, but if those attributes are just retained but ignored, a lot could be done this way.

In a different vein, I’d love to be able to transfer meal plans in a planning app to/from Dynalist. Sometimes this sort of thing is just copy/paste lines of text. Many of these specialized apps don’t implement such a thing, but when they do, I can gain the DL organizing power and the quick entry/processing power of another tool.