[Problem] -- We have proprietary apps, like Workflowy (.com), or Dynalist (.io), that sell lists/trees management with great features (like subtexts, highlighting, etc.) with good amounts of freemium, but no true guarantees of privacy, and having data on a 3rd party's cloud. There are also open source apps for tree editing, like Calculist (.io), which unfortunately, are not that easy to use.

[Idea] -- list management is not so different from source code management, and there exists open source editors, such as VSCode (Visual Studio Code), that support plugins and in-between-the-lines notes. So, with minor investment to open source, we could have an open source plugin replicating those features, and enabling the use for private lists/trees exchange.

Notes: could export/import with YAML-like format, OPML format, etc.
-- Mindey, Oct 06 2019

GitHub -- created a generic issue, that would help later implement this more easily. https://github.com/...vscode/issues/82084
[Mindey, Oct 08 2019]

I've not come across "list management" as a discrete thing before - however, I do think there's a huge opportunity in using tools like Git for non-binary document management generally. Whether you're writing technical manuals, short stories, lists, markup documents, articles, code, whatever - if there's a potential for edits and re-writes - especially across a team - then Git is the way forward. You can see changes, who made them, when and what their motivation was - as well as keeping a full history so you can revert to an earlier version. Who'd do anything otherwise?
-- zen_tom, Oct 07 2019


From the idea title, I was half-expecting this to be a reinvention of Lisp.

// Who'd do anything otherwise? //

Insufficiently technical people, who will almost certainly continue to exist (both unfortunately and fortunately).
-- notexactly, Oct 07 2019


// I do think there's a huge opportunity in using tools like Git for non-binary document management generally //

[zen_tom], I totally agree here, and that's the "why" part of the idea.
-- Mindey, Oct 08 2019


[Mindey], I'm getting connection timeout every time when trying to load your video.
-- notexactly, Oct 09 2019


[notexactly], sorry, that apparently was the problem of my ISP. Looks good now.
-- Mindey, Oct 09 2019


Yep, works now :)
-- notexactly, Oct 09 2019



random, halfbakery