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SiYuan as an Outliner?

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Is it (or will it be) possible to use SiYuan as an Outliner app, similar to RemNote?

At first glance, it seems this might be possible if I keep all my content within Lists. However, I'm not sure if this is the intended use for this feature.

I'm also not sure if this could lead to peformance issues. I noticed that there is always a short loading time (a spinning wheel shows for about half a second) whenever I unfold a header or list item in SiYuan. This happens even if there are only a couple of blocks nested within. I also noticed that most docs in the "SiYuan User Guide" Notebook are relatively quite short.

For comparison, I have documents in RemNote that are a few times longer than the entire "SiYuan User Guide", with deeply nested structures, and there are no noticeable lags. This is essential for my workflow, as it allows me to quickly navigate and restructure my notes, with almost zero friction.

Of course, I understand if you're not interested in focusing on outliner features for SiYuan. The app already looks and works great as a note-taking app!

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    forestknows updated this article at 2023-07-07 00:55:46
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    SiYuan as an Outliner?

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    • Nhan • • 1 Comment

      Hi @leolee9086 , I know you're both a long time and a power user of SiYuan and you migrated over from Obsidian, a very performant app (Yes, I understand it's not an outliner, just talking about performance here in general). Could you give some impression on the speed of SiYuan?

      Also when you @forestknows say you "keep all my content within Lists", you mean you have a giant list and everything is just a bullet in that list and you just zoom in and zoom out as needed? I can see that would create a giant document in SiYuan and can be an issue.

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      Nhan updated this reply at 2023-07-07 02:09:03
      Nhan updated this reply at 2023-07-07 02:08:56
      Nhan updated this reply at 2023-07-07 02:08:43
      Sorry, pinging @leolee9086 again because when I posted I messed it up.
      Nhan •
    • forestknows •
      Author

      Also when you @forestknows say you "keep all my content within Lists", you mean you have a giant list and everything is just a bullet in that list and you just zoom in and zoom out as needed?

      In RemNote, yes. Though I rarely zoom in/out. Usually I'm just folding/unfolding, so I can focus on the branches that I'm interested in. Keep in mind that in RemNote everything is essentially a bullet list (you can choose to hide the bullets themselves, but the blocks always behave the same way - they can be freely nested, folded/unfolded etc).

      Edit: to add an example.
      I just grabbed the full content of Elvis' wikipedia page (supposed to be one of the longest), pasted to RemNote, then did a bit of nesting (not too much). Runs slower than a normal-sized page, but still quick and smooth (quicker than unfolding Headers in SiYuan).

      Edit2: oops!
      After reading @Nhan 's comment (explaining that the lag only happend with headers, not with Lists) I just did the same with Siyuan (pasted entire Elvis wikipedia as a List, then did some random nesting) and... it's faster than RemNote. Much faster. Pasting was instantaneous (on RemNote this took a minute). After that, folding/unfolding was super quick. So I guess it's totally possible to do this in SiYuan in technical terms. I'll probably do a Feature Request soon for a few features that would allow an outliner workflow (not much would need to be added, to be honest).

      By the way, I deleted the images I had added here because they didn't add much to the discussion.. It was just screenshots of the content within RemNote.

      1 Reply
      3 Operate
      forestknows updated this reply at 2023-07-07 03:57:16
      forestknows updated this reply at 2023-07-07 03:56:23
      forestknows updated this reply at 2023-07-07 03:21:11
    • Nhan •

      Yeah I vaguely understand how RemNote structure its data. Everything is a "rem", an equivalent to "block" in other apps. And whether a block in RemNote can be a page, a folder, etc. is just a matter of how you designate the identity of that block.

      I think the answer to your question if SiYuan can be used as an Outliner app is that it absolutely can. Block is still the smallest unit here. Though I don't know if it can support your RemNote workflow.

      I do notice a slight lag when unfold a header in SiYuan not matter how large the content within is, so I think it's more like a quirk (definitely should be improved) than a performance issue. However, there is no lag when unfold a list.

      Btw, thanks for reporting about RemNote. I don't hear much about it and was curious about its performance. Glad it's doing well.

      1 Reply
    • forestknows •
      Author

      Yeah I vaguely understand how RemNote structure its data. Everything is a "rem", an equivalent to "block" in other apps. And whether a block in RemNote can be a page, a folder, etc. is just a matter of how you designate the identity of that block.

      That's it. They do have the concept of Documents, though that's just a Rem that shows in the sidebar (plus some other small differences). Even Slots (their equivalent to Attributes) and tags are Rems! It's very elegant and powerful.

      I think the answer to your question if SiYuan can be used as an Outliner app is that it absolutely can. Block is still the smallest unit here. Though I don't know if it can support your RemNote workflow.

      I do notice a slight lag when unfold a header in SiYuan not matter how large the content within is, so I think it's more like a quirk (definitely should be improved) than a performance issue. However, there is no lag when unfold a list.

      You are right! I missed that. Thanks for pointing it out. That completely changed my view. I updated one of my replies above to reflect that (I tagged you). With that, I think SiYuan might be fully able to support my RemNote workflow, and much more! Will investigate further.

    • arminta7 •

      I would be interested in using SiYuan in this way if possible. I'm currently using Tana + Obsidian. Tana has the same outliner idea as RemNote, maybe even moreso as there is no concept of standalone pages and everything is a "node". If SiYuan moved towards more of a local version of Tana I would be very happy.

    • leolee9086 •

      Actually, I don't use the list function very often. I usually only use it when creating outlines. As for performance testing, I have only done it for normal document formats, and most devices should not experience lag when reading Chinese novels with over one million characters (except for possibly taking a moment to import). I will try to find familiar users who can speak about the performance of lists.

    • leolee9086 •

      However, as far as I know, the performance of Siyuan's listBlock should at least not be much worse than specialized outline software (if not better); the main uncertainty lies in how the performance would be at its limit and whether the functionalities fully meet the needs of habitual users of outline note software.

    • MonkCanatella •

      I'm currently evaluating SiYuan vs Logseq. Anytype is in the mix as well. At first I really didn't want an outliner like Logseq which is why I avoided it though it met all my other needs. That said, after having used it for a month or so, it's hard to imagine not having at least some outlining feature set. What exists in SiYuan currently is just bullet points and the ability to nest them. This isn't sufficient to translate what logseq has.

      In SiYuan you can "focus" blocks which is pretty neat thought it doesn't seem to be first class functionality. I think there's room for some quick wins on this front that'll make migrating from an outliner style app easier. Considering the speed of development of SiYuan, I imagine this will be improved in the future, though who can say when.

      Here's a quick comparison between outline style content in SiYuan vs in Logseq
      in SiYuan this is about 360 pixels tall, or about 90 pixels per line! The same in Logseq is about 280 pixels or 70 pixels per line.

      image.png

      image.png

      image.png

      Ok, so how about changing the font size in SiYuan?

      SiYuanoNyLn9EWmW.png

      Nope. Just more blank space - it's no more compact.

      I'm only just beginning with SiYuan so somebody may know better than me, but I believe you can write custom css to make line height more compact for lists - that said without writing your own code, it's about 30% more space in SiYuan, which adds up really fast.

      2 Reply
    • Nhan •

      Preface with I don't know anything about coding. But yep I believe you can use CSS code to make things more compact. I would prefer that too. However, while waiting for some community effort to make the CSS code, currently using Ctrl + or Ctrl - to zoom in/out the interface works well enough for me.

      Btw, could you elaborate a bit more on why SiYuan "isn't sufficient to translate what Logseq has"? What are the exact features that SiYuan is missing?

    • 88250 •
      MOD

      @MonkCanatella We found this UI problem, the next version will slightly reduce the height gap between some blocks, thank you.

    • MonkCanatella •

      @88250 That's excellent! You guys are amazing. I love the pace of development and improvement with SiYuan!

      @Nhan I wouldn't say there are features that are missing so much as priorities - logseq has outlining as first class functionality and it's built around it. So while in SiYuan you can have an outline if you like, it's not like logseq where every block is part of an outline. I prefer SiYuan in this aspect, but if you're coming from an outliner based PKMS, it will feel strange. I think in SiYuan there's a default block type, which is the paragraph. If this default block type was customizable to a list item, I think migrating from an outliner would be made much easier! Then the additional functionality of additional block types would show its power as the user gets accustomed.

      I don't think it's possible to change your default block type but I would be willing to bet it wouldn't be a major change - could even be a plugin for new users

      1 Reply
    • forestknows •
      Author

      I agree. I adjusted that easily with CSS.

      Also possible on mobile.

    • forestknows •
      Author

      Yeah I also think it seems to be a potential "quick win" to invest in outliner features. The thing is maybe this isn't their priority...

      One think to note is that, although SiYuan has block-level granularity, the files themselves are actually at document level. In this sense it's more similar to an app like Obsidian, rather than Remnote. This might be an obstacle for full outliner capabilities...

      At least that's what I understood!

    • mka •
      PRO

      I've been using Remnote almost since the beginning. Lately the experience has improved a lot. There are still several bugs and small problems with how the app was designed. Performance is good. The community is small and the majority are students. App very focused on flashcards. I'm still testing Siyuan. I've already found some bugs but I don't intend to point out each one here. I prefer to wait for development.

    • mka •
      PRO

      Trying the lists feature as outliner for some days on. It's far from Workflowy or Remnote experience. The overall behavior is different, feels unfinished. But far most about the search and filter inside the outlines. Very difficult to see the context and zoom through the search out of the box. Maybe with a lot of sql queries you could do the work but the experience is still bad.

    • zxhd86 •

      It depends on how you use Siyuan.

      • Extreme support for Siyuan outline note mode

        • Simple node

          *Node example

          • * 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
          • A single node with 400 child nodes will not be stuck. (simple node)
          • Each node has 200 child nodes, a total of 20,000 nodes, and there will be no lag when using folding and focus (simple nodes)

        • Complex math nodes

          *Node example

          \begin{aligned}\lim_{x\to0}\frac{1-\cos(x)}{x}&=\lim_{x\to0}\frac{1-\cos(x)}{x}\times\frac{1+\cos(x)}{1+\cos(x)}.\\&=\lim_{x\to0}\frac{1-\cos^2(x)}{x}\times\frac{1}{1+\cos(x)}=\lim_{x\to0}\frac{\sin^2(x)}{x}\times\frac{1}{1+\cos(x)}.\end{aligned}
          • There will be no lag in 13 complex mathematical nodes in a single node. (logseq is 52)
          • 13 complex math nodes per node, 117 complex math nodes in total, no lag when using folding and focusing (logseq folding will not render, almost equivalent to plain text nodes)

        • Conclusion: Siyuan performs well when it contains only plain text nodes, that is, nodes that do not need to be rendered, and can completely replace outline notes. But if complex, rendering-requiring nodes are used, such as math blocks, then performance drops dramatically and it cannot compete with real outline notes.

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