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Organizing Your Outline

CassiusAmicus edited this page Jul 7, 2026 · 1 revision

Organizing Your Outline

Tags

Tags are freeform labels attached to nodes. They appear in the outline as small chips and are used for filtering, searching, and the tag panel.

Adding tags

  • Click the tag chip area to the right of a node title and type a new tag
  • Or open the detail pane and edit the Tags field
  • Tags are stored as org :tag: syntax at the end of the headline

Filtering by tag

  • Click any tag chip in the outline to filter the visible nodes to that tag
  • Open the Tag panel (tag icon in the header) for a full list of tags in the file — click any tag to apply it as a filter
  • Use tag:name in the search panel to filter search results by tag

Status (TODO/DONE)

Nodes can carry a keyword status drawn from org-mode's TODO sequence. Status is shown as a colored badge next to the title.

Status Color Meaning
TODO Yellow Not yet started
NEXT Blue Up next / in progress
DONE Green Completed
CANCELLED Grey Abandoned

Cycling status

  • Click the status badge on a node to cycle through statuses
  • Or press Ctrl+Shift+T with the node focused

Nodes with DONE or CANCELLED status have their title struck through.

Priority

Nodes can have a priority of A, B, or C (displayed as [#A], [#B], [#C]).

  • Click the priority badge to cycle through A → B → C → none
  • Priority is stored as [#A] in the org headline

Scheduled and Deadline

Dates can be attached to nodes via the detail pane:

  • Scheduled — the date you plan to work on this item (appears in Agenda)
  • Deadline — the date it must be done by (appears in Agenda with a warning)

Dates are stored as SCHEDULED: and DEADLINE: properties in the :PROPERTIES: drawer. They appear on the Agenda view grouped by date.

Properties

Arbitrary key-value properties can be added to any node via the detail pane. They are stored in an org :PROPERTIES: drawer. This is useful for metadata like project codes, references, or custom fields.

Folding

Collapse a node's children by clicking its ▶/▼ bullet, or by pressing while the node is focused.

Fold all to depth: use the depth buttons (1 2 3 4 All) in the header to show only nodes up to that level. Deeper nodes are hidden but not deleted.

Hoisting: focus on a single subtree by selecting a node and toggling Hoist (the hoist button in the header, or Ctrl+Shift+H). Only that node and its descendants are visible. Press Hoist again to un-hoist.

Outline format

Nodes can be displayed as:

  • Bullets (default) — circular bullet points
  • Numbers — 1. 2. 3.
  • Letters — a. b. c.
  • Upper letters — A. B. C.

Change the format for the whole file or per-level in Settings → View.

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