Pinch to Zoom

One longstanding feature request we've finally implemented is "pinch to zoom". Previously you had to select the zoom level using a menu option, and that only had a limited number of zoom levels. Now, you can pinch to unzoom (or "unpinch" to zoom). Each time you do the pinch or unpinch gesture, the Linelo document will be zoomed one level.



Another very useful feature is that Linelo now carries formatting over from one line to the next. That is to say, if you have a line that is blue and underlined, then if you create another line that line will also be blue and underlined. Previously you either had to format each line as you entered it, which translated into a lot of unnecessary keystrokes.

One minor twist is if the current line is "expanded". In that case, the format applied to the newly added line will be the format of the first child line, rather than the format of the original line. This sounds more complex that it is... basically it just means that formatting behaves the way you would expect it to.

Introducing "Lobots"

You can think of "Lobots" as Linelo's way of helping you to get started; they are essentially templates that help you to apply Linelo to a variety of common activities. Each Lobot adds a few generic lines to help you get started. Some lines are there to be completed -- they might be where you would put in the date, or a telephone number. Other lines are just there  for organization or as examples.



The video above shows how you might use Linelo if you are unlucky enough to get into a car accident. You simply copy the "Car Accident" Lobot into Linelo, then complete all the fields that are appropriate. It even has tips about for when to call the police, what to do about your car, and what NOT to do at the scene of an accident.

Each Lobots comes from LineloNet (the cloud) so you will eventually have access to  hundreds, or even thousands of Lobots that will be able to do everything from organizing a meeting or event, to outlining a research paper for your class in Robotics.

Our First Video

We've created a small, three minute that shows how Linelo can help you build up big documents very quickly, using the Wikipedia integration. The video was created for the Google play listing, but stands on its own pretty well. Have a look, let us know what you think:



Over the coming days we'll post a number of additional, smaller, byte-sized videos that each explain a simple concept or feature of Linelo.

4.3 Million Linelo Documents

It's been a busy week here, we've just finished converting 4.3 million documents (!) into Linelo format so at long last, everyone can see what a powerhouse Linelo is when you throw a boatload of information at it.

To get started, there is a new "Wikipedia" menu option under the Cloud icon. This brings up a text field where you can type in pretty much anything from apple to zebra. Linelo will then find the document in Wikipedia, convert it into Linelo format and display it as a normal Linelo document. As we've mentioned before, Linelo is the ideal format for showing and storing big documents on your phone because of the way it collapses all the sections within sections within sections.

Once you've got the document on your phone, you can do whatever you like with it. You can add or remove content, adjust the formatting, copy bits of it into other documents, whatever you like - you are working with your own personal copy of the document, stored only on your phone or tablet.

The best part though is the navigation. All the links are translated into Linelo as well, so you can navigate from "Einstein" to "Violin Sonata" to "Relativity" to "Physics" to ... whatever, in a matter of seconds, with all of it ready to be included in whatever activity you happen to be working on. 

We've been finding it hard not to waste time just navigating around -- almost like back in those early days when the web was just getting started on desktop computers.

When we started the Wikipedia conversion we were just hoping to get a little content into Linelo so new users would have a few interesting lines to work with. Instead, we stumbled on a way to turn phones and tablets into the most powerful information tool we could have imagined, 4.3 million documents you can carry around in your pocket. 

Yowsers.