tconfrey

Hi @cyrialize , Hopefully this is an acceptable level of self-promotion. It sounds like my browser extension, BrainTool might be useful in your workflow. It's kindof a bookmark/tab management tool. It syncs to a .org file and allows you to do things like mark tabs as a TODO, which you can then track in org-agenda etc. There's some brief descriptions and videos here: https://braintool.org/2025/09/16/Browser-Workflows-with-Brai...

I've been on this bandwagon for a long time! I proposed org as an interchange format for Productivity and PKM tools several years ago [0]. Org allows me to unify my bookmark manager with the rest of my PKM as well as to-do management in a way that I don't think is possible with markdown.

That said I think that AI is changing things as it becomes best practice to document and define everything in plain text for LLM consumption. Since the default text format is markdown (due to github and PKM tool support) more and more people are exposed to it as the one true markup language. So maybe the boat has sailed and org becomes another example of the better format that doesn't win out. OTOH LLMs slurp up org content just as easily as they do markdown, maybe more so given the richer syntax. So maybe there's still room for both?

Either way I think the losers are going to be Sharepoint, Confluence, Jira etc, maybe even wikis, ie all the non standard ways people have been documenting their work to date.

Like us org folks have been saying all along, just stick with plain text!

[0] https://braintool.org/2022/04/29/Tools4Thought-should-use-Or...

I've been watching this trend toward SDD. Makes sense but it feels like the process pendulum is swinging back toward the pre-agile era of functional specs and design documents. Not quite Big Design Up Front[0] but maybe increasingly working software == comprehensive documentation[1]?

Waterfall anyone?!

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_design_up_front

[1] https://agilemanifesto.org/

Take a look at BrainTool. It's a bookmarks/tabs/todo-manager browser extension that writes to an org-mode syntax text file. Allows you to capture notes, containment hierarchy, to-do state etc and expose it all to your org PKMS. (Disclosure, I'm the developer.)

https://braintool.org

https://github.com/tconfrey/BrainTool

Thanks for the pointer to Writing Studio!

Note also that LogSeq is an org-mode based PKM (https://discuss.logseq.com/t/logseq-org-mode-compatability/8...)

org is timeless for sure! Personally I've been using emacs since the 80's. But as the developer of a personal knowledge management application I was hoping that an ecosystem of specialized, easy to use, tools based on org would emerge.

BrainTool is a browser extension for managing tabs and bookmarks. It saves your data in an org file. One feature is to allow an item to be marked as a TODO. For me personally I then integrate my BrainTool.org file into my overall org workflow and see that TODO in my org-agenda. But ideally a naive BrainTool user would be able to see that task in a tool like Todoist or whatever.

For a while there it seemed like there was some momentum!

Completely agree, on both counts. Users often ask me how they can edit their BrainTool.org file outside the extension. There's no way I can in good conscience point the average knowledge worker toward installing an emacs distro!

FWIW I use orgajs (https://github.com/orgapp/orgajs). Its well-supported and gives me a pretty complete AST. Highly recommend if you're working in JS.

"Growing support is easing collaboration via org files."

The same month this article was written (4/22) I tried to make the case for org as an interchange format for productivity tools [1] and pointed to most of the same tools supporting org. (Disclosure, my browser extension, BrainTool[2] is listed in the article). I still love the idea of a local-first, plain text model for sharing personal data across productivity apps, but three years on its not clear to me that the momentum has been maintained. Are folks still building new things on top of org?

[1] https://braintool.org/2022/04/29/Tools4Thought-should-use-Or...

[2] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/braintool-go-beyond...

Totally agree with this, having been in the situation multiple times. It's hard to get credit and additional resources for problems avoided and emergencies that don't happen, especially in a room full of excitable extroverted executives.

The Edge store was stricter in some ways but I find I can submit pretty much the same bundle to both. Note also that Edge runs fine on MacOS.

While there aren't visibility-boosting features, don't downplay SEO on the app stores. That is, if your's is the kind of extension that people will be searching for when looking the solve their problem. The Chrome store also shows a bunch of 'related' extensions at the bottom of every listing. It can't hurt to show up there.

Also, since you don't mention it, list on the Edge Add-ons store. My user count over there is ~40% of the Chrome store number.

I think it's like marketing any other type of software or service online - SEO, find user communities, influencers, ads/paid promotions etc etc. In my case I got lucky and impressed a tech writer who gave BrainTool a write up on ZDNet and gave me a jumpstart on the first 2K+ downloads. I wrote about the experience here:

https://braintool.org/2021/01/14/First-Two-Thousand-BrainToo...

I've heard good things about ExtensionPay[1]. It didn't have what I needed at the time so I hand rolled my own on Firebase using a Stripe integration component[2]. As you probably know the issue with extensions is that the whole codebase is exposed so you need some kind of back end if you're handling payments and associated secret stores.

[1] https://extensionpay.com/ [2] https://extensions.dev/extensions/invertase/firestore-stripe...

FWIW I wrote a blog post on how to get off of Tabs Outliner: https://braintool.org/2024/07/01/The-best-Tabs-Outliner-alte...

^This!^

With my app, BrainTool ( https://braintool.org ), I emphasize a visual hierarchy, but also allow notes and full text incremental searching across all saved content. Along with comprehensive keyboard commands, this enables a workflow where you can start typing what you are looking for, iterate through matches and then hit enter when you find it to open in a new tab, tabgroup or window.

Give BrainTool a look. Its designed to address tab hoarding by making it easy to file and close out tabs and tab groups and then re-find them with search and hierarchy and notes. Associated keyboard commands make it easy to open/close and navigate tabs as a group (eg open a tabgroup with all tabs for a given topic). Everything can be synced to a plan text file. (Disclaimer, I'm the developer, but also a user!)

[0] https://braintool.org

I've often wondered how important the tides are to the migration of fish onto land and our subsequent evolution. Our moon's relative size is another earthly anomaly and without the moon tides would be solar driven and pretty minimal (AFAIK).

Late to the conversation but in case the OP is still listening - great post and I'm totally aligned with your thinking. You mentioned my app, BrainTool, in the post (thanks for the inbound link!) so I thought you might be interested in my own rant on the topic: https://braintool.org/2022/04/29/Tools4Thought-should-use-Or...

Cheers,

Have a look at BrainTool (https://braintool.org) Saves bookmarks into a nested topic hierarchy with associated notes. Text search and full keyboard controls. Everything is saved to an accessible plain text file.

I think the general message here is that complex and complete architectures tend to fail in favor of simpler solutions that people can understand and use to get things done in the here and now.

Its interesting to me that the recent uptick in the personal knowledge management space (aka tools for thought)[0] is all around the bi-directional graph which is basically a 2-tuple simplified version of the RDF 3-tuple. You lose the semantics of a labelled edge, but its easier for people to understand.

[0] See Roam Research, Obsidian, LogSeq, Dendron et al.

+1 to this!

Support your local tool maker building on text!

My thoughts: https://braintool.org/2022/04/29/Tools4Thought-should-use-Or...

Tabs == To-do's

Every open tab is a pending to-do, if only to come back and close or bookmark it. Having hundreds of open todo's in your face the whole time takes a mental toll. For most people closing tabs will free up some mental space as well as swap space.

The problem is that it's still too hard to save and organize things as you go without the right tooling. My approach FWIW:

https://braintool.org/2022/01/28/Browser-based-Productivity-...

I think there's going to be an increasing push for people to own their own data, from whatever application it is they are using. Tim Bernes-Lee's Solid [1] is aiming at that idea and a lot of the new personal knowledge management tools like LogSeq [2] and Obsidian [3] can work from a local file. My own browser bookmarking plug-in BrainTool [4] reads and writes plain text (in org-mode format) from a local file. BTW I'm advocating for org-mode as the universal exchange format for productivity apps [5].

[1] https://solidproject.org/

[2] https://logseq.com

[3] https://help.obsidian.md/Obsidian/Obsidian#How+we're+differe...

[4] https://BrainTool.org

[5] https://braintool.org/2022/04/29/Tools4Thought-should-use-Or...

Interesting theory! I have seen previous replies on here saying non-FF is a deal killer. But any numbers I see show FF < 5% marketshare on desktop browsers, so I can't imagine there's more than maybe a quarter of HN readers on FF-only.

Thus far my time is better spent elsewhere but the code is open source and a couple of people have expressed interest in trying a port. (https://github.com/tconfrey/BrainTool)

Thanks for this great feedback. You are correct that currently BrainTool is more focused on active curation than passive recording. My personal #1 use case is being able to quickly open and close the, say, 5 tabs associated with a project, with #2 being to capture and file away useful resources. However it is on my roadmap to add a representation of the browsers open windows and tabs as you describe, i've had similar feedback from other TO users.

BTW I believe TabsOutliner is completely abandoned at this point. I've reached out to the developer several times, most recently here: https://groups.google.com/g/tabs-outliner-support-group/c/-1... asking about collaboration or open sourcing - crickets. As I noted in that message the extension will completely stop working in Jan '23 based on Googles forced migration to Manifest V3.

Keep tabs (haha) on BrainTool and see if it evolves in the right direction for you.

I've 'shown' this a few times before but with minimal response, so I'm still looking for good feedback from the HN community. And since I seem to be asymptotically approaching the monetized 1.0 version I thought I'd try again.

BrainTool is a private- and local-first Chromium (no FF RN) extension that makes it easy to save tabs into a nested 'topic' hierarchy along with a note, and then use those topics to control the browser, opening and closing tabs as a group.

Plain text file (org mode) data storage, full keyboard support with search, TODO's and more. I just added local file syncing and some UX upgrades.

Thoughts?

Chrome Web store link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/braintool-beyond-b...

BrainTool[1] is a similar bookmarking extension that is open source[2] and syncs data to a plain text file (org-mode format) on Google Drive.

[1] https://braintool.org [2] https://github.com/tconfrey/BrainTool

Hey this is great to hear @ews (BrainTool dev here). FWIW WRT this conversation, my long term hope for BrainTool is to generate a thriving ecosystem of shared curated topic trees, each one a little summary of a corner of the internet.