maxsuite Diagrams

Outlines

Outlines

Outlines are nested lists instead of pages of prose: plans, agendas, checklists and structures you reorder often. Each line can be indented under another, folded away, ticked off, turned into a task or lifted out into an outline of its own.

In the sidebar under Content → Outlines. Needs: Folders and Tasks. An outline can be filed in a folder, and a line can become a task.

Outlines screen

The screen has two parts.

  • The list, on the left: your outlines as a tree, because an outline can sit inside another. Switch between All and Shared with me, and search by title. Drag the ⋮⋮ handle to nest an outline under another or to reorder. New creates an untitled outline and opens it.
  • The outline, on the right: its title, then its lines. Each line has a kind (Text, To-do, Heading, Quote or Code), a fold control when something is nested under it, and Promote and Task buttons. Across the top are Close, Share, Share link or Stop sharing, Copy link, History, People and Delete. You can also pick the Project the outline is filed under. Below the lines are History, People with access and Comments when you open them.

You see an outline when you created it, when it was shared with you or a team you are in, when you are one of its members, or when it sits inside an outline you can see. An administrator sees every outline. If it was shared with you to read, the screen says so and the lines cannot be changed. An outline filed under a project is also listed on that project's home page.

Write an outline

  1. Choose New, type a title, then Start writing.
  2. Press Enter for a new line, Tab to indent, Shift+Tab to outdent, and Cmd+↑ or Cmd+↓ (Ctrl on Windows) to move a line.
  3. Pick a line's kind from its menu. A To-do line gets a box to tick. Fold a line to hide what is nested under it.
  4. Paste several indented lines at once and they keep their nesting.

Changes save themselves as you type.

Lift a line out, or make it a task

  • Promote turns a line into an outline of its own, taking everything nested under it. The line leaves this outline.
  • Task creates a task on the Tasks screen with the line's text as its title. This needs permission to change tasks.

Go back to an earlier version

  1. Choose History. A version is saved before each change to the lines.
  2. Choose Restore on a version. Every line the outline has now is replaced, and those lines are saved as a version first, so a restore can be undone the same way.

Let someone in

  1. Choose People.
  2. Pick a person under Add someone…. They can read the outline.
  3. Choose Remove next to a person to take them out.

Share gives the outline to a person, a team or everyone here. Agents can also make someone an editor. See Sharing and visibility.

  1. Choose Share link, then Copy link. Anyone with the link can read the outline and comment, signed in or not. The link has the form https://<your-deployment>/share/outlines/….
  2. Choose Stop sharing to kill the link. Sharing again makes a new link; the old one stays dead.
  3. To comment yourself, type under Comments and choose Comment.

Delete an outline

Choose Delete and confirm Delete it and everything in it. Every line, comment and version goes with it. Outlines nested inside it move up a level rather than being deleted.

Who can do what

PermissionLabelLets you
outlines:readView outlinesOpen Outlines, read the outlines you may see, see their history, members and comments, and comment.
outlines:writeManage outlinesCreate, edit, move, nest, promote, restore and delete outlines; add and remove members; share by link and stop sharing; remove comments.

Which outlines you see is decided per outline, as described above. See People, roles and permissions.

What happens on its own

Nothing in this module runs on a schedule.

What agents can do

An agent can read and write outlines line by line, paste many lines at once, move lines and outlines, restore a version, comment, and manage who is let in or whether there is a public link. By default reads go through, and anything that changes, removes or shares something waits for a person to approve, unless an approval rule says otherwise. See Agents and approvals.

Outlines

Read only: outlines.list, outlines.read

Write: outlines.create, outlines.update, outlines.move (reaches others: a move into a shared folder is a share), outlines.remove (cannot be undone)

  • outlines.update renames an outline, archives or unarchives it, or changes its place among its siblings.

Lines

Write: outlines.addItem, outlines.paste, outlines.updateItem, outlines.moveItem, outlines.promote and outlines.removeItem (both cannot be undone)

  • outlines.paste inserts many indented lines in one call.
  • outlines.updateItem changes a line's text, kind, tick, fold, formatting, who it is assigned to, or the project or task it points at.
  • outlines.removeItem deletes a line and everything nested under it.

History and comments

Read only: outlines.versions, outlines.version, outlines.comments

Write: outlines.addComment, outlines.resolveComment, outlines.restoreVersion and outlines.removeComment (both cannot be undone)

Who is let in

Read only: outlines.members

Write: outlines.addMember (reaches others), outlines.share (reaches others), outlines.unshare, outlines.removeMember (cannot be undone)

  • outlines.addMember lets someone in as a viewer or an editor. Asked again for the same person, it changes their access.
  • outlines.share makes the outline readable by anyone with its link, and says whether they may comment.

Over MCP the same tools are named outlines__list, outlines__read and so on. See API keys and MCP access.