App, tool, extension or site for organizing a certain kind of list?
August 25, 2020 6:13 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for something to help me brainstorm commonalities among various list items, all on the same page, and create sub-lists, preferably with a drag to add functionality. I usually use Chrome (in case there's an extension), and I'll be working on a Macbook.
So, let's say I begin with a list of 20-50 unassociated text items, where each item is also a link — this is my Original List: I can see this list of items, and my notes on each item. As I look over the list, I see that items 5, 12, and 30 all have to do with animals, say. So I create a sublist, "Animals," and drag those three to that sublist (but they are not removed from the Original List until I manually delete them). Now that I have this sublist category, I see a couple of others that fit there, and drag them over. But I see that item 12 also has to do with safety, and so does item 28, so I drag those two to a "Safety" sublist, etc., etc.
This tool might have other embellishments, but that's my core use, and I'd love for it to be sort of minimal and simple. Even though I've used numbers to refer to the items, I don't need the list to be numbered. I'd like to be able keep it all on one screen, so it would be helpful if my sublists could minimize when I'm not working with them, but it's not vital. In the end, I'd like to be able to copy a list of items (without the notes from the Original List) from a sublist, and paste them elsewhere. Each item would be a link to the source for that item (a text article, photo, video, etc.)
As a (sort of made-up) example, let's say one item is Vintage Evening Dress, with notes: red silk with embroidered silk and velvet appliqués with metal thread, bound with lamé, designed in Paris by Russian refugee Natalia Goncharova, retailed by House of Myrbor, about 1923, France. Museum no. CIRC.329-1968. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This might go into sublists like "Red Things," "Art Deco," "Fashion," "Appliqued Things," "Eveningwear," "Natalia Goncharova," "House of Myrbor," "Russian," "Silk," "Summer Dresses," "Victoria & Albert," "1920s."
Another item, an article about 1920s red scare political cartoons, might share the sublist categories "Red things," "Russian," and "1920s."
So the "Red Things" sublist at this point would look like this:
Do you know of a good tool for this sort of exercise?
So, let's say I begin with a list of 20-50 unassociated text items, where each item is also a link — this is my Original List: I can see this list of items, and my notes on each item. As I look over the list, I see that items 5, 12, and 30 all have to do with animals, say. So I create a sublist, "Animals," and drag those three to that sublist (but they are not removed from the Original List until I manually delete them). Now that I have this sublist category, I see a couple of others that fit there, and drag them over. But I see that item 12 also has to do with safety, and so does item 28, so I drag those two to a "Safety" sublist, etc., etc.
This tool might have other embellishments, but that's my core use, and I'd love for it to be sort of minimal and simple. Even though I've used numbers to refer to the items, I don't need the list to be numbered. I'd like to be able keep it all on one screen, so it would be helpful if my sublists could minimize when I'm not working with them, but it's not vital. In the end, I'd like to be able to copy a list of items (without the notes from the Original List) from a sublist, and paste them elsewhere. Each item would be a link to the source for that item (a text article, photo, video, etc.)
As a (sort of made-up) example, let's say one item is Vintage Evening Dress, with notes: red silk with embroidered silk and velvet appliqués with metal thread, bound with lamé, designed in Paris by Russian refugee Natalia Goncharova, retailed by House of Myrbor, about 1923, France. Museum no. CIRC.329-1968. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. This might go into sublists like "Red Things," "Art Deco," "Fashion," "Appliqued Things," "Eveningwear," "Natalia Goncharova," "House of Myrbor," "Russian," "Silk," "Summer Dresses," "Victoria & Albert," "1920s."
Another item, an article about 1920s red scare political cartoons, might share the sublist categories "Red things," "Russian," and "1920s."
So the "Red Things" sublist at this point would look like this:
Red Thingsand have several more items from The original List added as I go through it.
Vintage Evening dress
The Twenties in Political Cartoons, The Red Scare
Do you know of a good tool for this sort of exercise?
This sounds like a job for Trello to me. Your lists would be called "Lists" in Trello nomenclature, with the main items being called "Cards." Your sub-items would probably be added to checklists inside each card, or maybe just lines in the description field.
Trello has a lot of neat, not-obvious functionality, like the ability to copy a list of items from a spreadsheet or text file, then paste as either a) each line item is a card, or b) you create one card from the list. I believe this works with checklists too.
The only thing that might not be perfect: you can't see checklists on the front of the card, which shows up in the main view. That said, there's a Trello Power-Up (these add additional functionality; free users get one per board) called Tree View that might work.
I always feel like such a Trello evangelist when I answer these questions, but it really is an incredibly well-built tool!
posted by nosila at 8:44 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Trello has a lot of neat, not-obvious functionality, like the ability to copy a list of items from a spreadsheet or text file, then paste as either a) each line item is a card, or b) you create one card from the list. I believe this works with checklists too.
The only thing that might not be perfect: you can't see checklists on the front of the card, which shows up in the main view. That said, there's a Trello Power-Up (these add additional functionality; free users get one per board) called Tree View that might work.
I always feel like such a Trello evangelist when I answer these questions, but it really is an incredibly well-built tool!
posted by nosila at 8:44 AM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Maybe look into Notion? Haven't tried it yet but it's been recommended to me by several different people and I'm intrigued.
posted by Goblin Barbarian at 12:37 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by Goblin Barbarian at 12:37 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Dynalist is the answer. On phone, can't link, sorry.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 12:37 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by SuperSquirrel at 12:37 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Came here to nth Notion. You could create separate lists on one page, but this sounds like a perfect use case for tagging! If you're new to notion, you tag by creating a table. The prepopulated table will show tags as one of the columns. The databases I've created with Notion present as simple/minimal but house a lot of complex information.
posted by saltypup at 11:08 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
posted by saltypup at 11:08 PM on August 25, 2020 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you for these suggestions! I did find something just searching around that ends up doing exactly what I want for this project, but I am going to try out the all these recommendations for other work / organizing. What I'm using is called Workflowy, and it has a super minimal presentation, but is basically infinite nested bullets, so you can go as deep as you want to organize in as detailed fashion as you choose. I didn't really need that sort of depth for this, but it works perfectly: I just make every item from my Original List a bullet and add a note (which minimizes when you don't need to be looking at it); at the bottom of this list, I make every category a bullet, and drag and drop list items to nest inside the category items (I can duplicate an Original List item so it stays on the original list too). Everything minimizes, so you can really have unlimited info all on one page. I think other tools would work great, too, but this one was so easy to start immediately and worked almost exactly as my visualization, so there was no learning curve at all, really, and the difference in doing this task is huuuge.
I'm using the free version, which allows me 250 items per month, and which is probably enough for this one project (we'll see!), because I regularly delete and repopulate the Original List, and when you delete an item you regain it for use under the item limitation. (If anyone wants to try it out, you can mefi mail me for a referral invitation, which will give us both 100 extra free items monthly.)
posted by taz at 12:06 PM on August 26, 2020
I'm using the free version, which allows me 250 items per month, and which is probably enough for this one project (we'll see!), because I regularly delete and repopulate the Original List, and when you delete an item you regain it for use under the item limitation. (If anyone wants to try it out, you can mefi mail me for a referral invitation, which will give us both 100 extra free items monthly.)
posted by taz at 12:06 PM on August 26, 2020
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by fifthpocket at 6:56 AM on August 25, 2020 [2 favorites]