Panes

Using Panes

Panes let you keep multiple parts of your Workflowy outline open in the same window. You can compare projects, work from a reference list, or move between related items without losing your place.

A pane is another view of an existing item, not a duplicate. Any edits you make in a pane update the original item everywhere it appears.

Each pane has its own breadcrumbs, search, back and forward history, scroll position, and page controls.

Panes are desktop-only for now

Open a pane

You can open an item in a new pane in several ways:

• Hold Alt (Option on Mac) and click an item's bullet.
• Open the item's bullet menu and select Open in Pane.
• Focus an item and use a numbered Open in Pane keyboard shortcut.
• Open the command palette, search for Open in Pane, and run the command.

The new pane opens immediately to the right of the active pane. To add another pane showing the current location, click New pane in the header of the rightmost pane.

Press Ctrl+R on Mac or Alt+R on Windows, Linux, or ChromeOS to open the active pane’s page in a new pane at the far right and move focus to it. You can also run New pane from the command palette.

Inside a pane, regular internal links open in that pane. Hold Alt or Option while clicking an internal link or breadcrumb to open its destination in a new pane instead.

Work in a pane

Click anywhere inside a pane to make it active. Navigation keyboard shortcuts apply to the active pane without changing the location of the other panes.

Panes are another view of your outline. Within each pane you can:

• Click a bullet to zoom in, or use the breadcrumbs to zoom out.
• Use the pane's back and forward buttons to revisit locations.
• Search only the content below that pane's current item.
• Open Home or Today without changing the other panes.
• Edit, complete, move, format, and reorganize items normally.
• Use header actions such as Share, Star, Show completed, and Change layout.

To resize adjacent panes, drag the divider between them. If the panes no longer fit in the window, scroll horizontally to reach the others.

Close panes

Click Close pane in a pane's header to close it or use the keyboard shortcut below. If you close the main pane, the next pane becomes the main view.

Keyboard shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts number the main page as pane 1. Additional panes are numbered from left to right, starting with pane 2.

Standard editing and formatting shortcuts also work inside panes. See Hotkeys / Keyboard shortcuts for the complete Workflowy shortcut reference.