Shortcut to return to previous view

I often want to look something up on a different part of my Dynalist, then return to where I was. The problem is that I don’t have an easy way to go back unless I happened to be at a bookmarked place to begin with.

In workflowy, I can use the ctrl+; shortcut to jump between bookmarks, and it automatically adds my previous location to that list, making it easy to jump back and forth. Something like that would be useful for Dynalist as well.

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You’re in a browser; just hit whatever keyboard shortcut goes back one page in history! (Cmd-[ cor Chrome on macOS).

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I see, yes, good solution, thank you!

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Yes, @Yatharth_Agarwal is absolutely right on this. Each document or sublist is just like a web page that has it’s own URL.

If you’re on desktop, there are also back and forward buttons with shortcut on the top left corner of the app.

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I empathize with people who ask for closer UX to Workflowy’s “Starred Pages” and its “Ctrl + ;” shortcut. I would put this problem the following way.

We can think of two close usage patterns resulting in jump to another bookmark:

  1. Search for a bookmark among all bookmarks
  2. Switch between recently used bookmarks

The first usage pattern is covered by the “Ctrl+O” shortcut perfectly well.

The second one is not directly addressed. Currently, to perform switching, one is required to do the search, which is a more complex task than necessary for simple switching.
In Windows we have a shortcut “Alt + Tab” (switching between active apps), in Workflowy - “Ctrl + ;”. These shortcuts are very well designed and suitable specifically for switching. You press the shortcut repeatedly to iterate through recently used items. Additionally, you can use arrows for navigation through longer lists of recently used items. This is mentally and mechanically easier and faster than pressing “Ctrl+O”, then recalling part of a name of the desired bookmark, then typing it in, and then choosing the bookmark from the list of all matches.
In my opinion, browser history can be an effective solution when a user works with two bookmarks only. Also, it is not synchronized between devices.

As a way to address the switching usage pattern, I would suggest showing the list of recently used bookmarks sorted by last usage time right after pressing Ctrl+O. Repeated presses of Ctrl+O and arrows can be used for navigating through such a list. In this scenario, the user is not expected to type anything into the search bar.

I’m assuming the bookmarks you’re referring to have search term of some sort?

Right now, the Ctrl+O dialog already shows the recently visited documents. The zoom level is also remembered. The only thing that seems to be missing compared to a bookmark is the search term.

the Ctrl+O dialog already shows the recently visited documents

I believe, mixing in recently visited bookmarks would be even better.
Have a look at a rough pretotype, please.
DynalistBookmarksInCtrlO
Of course, you can always access any bookmark by typing in some search term. Just the same is valid for documents.
However, this “recently visited” menu is about not typing anything. It is about switching between recently accessed items by using arrows without a need for typing.
If we already have this “recently visited” menu for documents, it probably makes sense to have it also for bookmarks for all the same reasons.

I see, interesting idea. I can see it being useful to a lot of people.

Do you mind putting it in a fresh feature request post? I don’t think people who need it are able to find it in a thread like this.

Thanks!

Sure! Here you go: Add recently visited bookmarks to the Ctrl+O menu