Plus Sign (+) Inconsistency

[Jordan_Quinley]

The plus sign (+) is used in two completely different ways in the Dynalist UI, which may cause confusion. Within a document, it is used to expand a bullet point. But in the file pane, it’s used to create a new file. This latter usage is normal. Within a tree structure, such as a Dynalist outline, however, expanding and collapsing buttons are usually indicated by a caret (pointing down to show an item is currently expanded, or pointing right to show the item is collapsed).

[Erica]

Thanks for the suggestion, nice catch. I totally agree, and you can see with numbered lists we show triangles instead of plus and minus signs.

It’s a legacy thing and it makes the transition from WorkFlowy easier (I think). A sudden change will also upset lots of users, as we have experienced before. So even I agree it’s not an optimal design right now, I don’t think we’ll change it, unfortunately.

[pottster]

But, Workflowy made exactly this change earlier this year. https://blog.workflowy.com/2019/03/05/pointing-the-way-forward-or-downward/
Interesting comments on the post. Generally in favour though.

perhaps we should have a vote?

[Erica]

Woah, didn’t know that. Maybe we should follow our competitors closer

Vote it is! Do you want to create the poll, @pottster?

[pottster]

Done.

Symbol for Expand / Collapse

In recent UI design, the symbols used to indicate the presence of a child node(s) and to expand and collapse the node have been changing from ＋ and － to a right facing and down facing triangle (► ▼) . Currently, Dynalist is still using ＋ and －. Earlier this year, Workflowy made this change, which also allowed them to use mouseover on a new line ＋ symbol to create a new node. This change was proposed and discussed in this thread. Would you be in favour of retaining the existing symbols or chang…

[Erica]

Thanks a lot!