Taking a Look at Folding Text
This is a post that is coming from some frustration with using some apps.
Let's talk about folding text. Folding text/sections, or whatever you want to call it, is something that has really caught on the past few years in the PKM space. I don't know if it was Workflowy or Roam or whoever started it, but it is definitely here to stay and it's insanely useful.
It's a feature that I have to have for a note-taking system. It can really clean up your notes and make it easier to navigate if you write a lot. It works great in daily notes to be able to have sections for meetings or projects and collapse them all and still have the day look clean.
Folding is mainly seen in outliner apps like Workflowy, but is making its way to standard note-taking apps now too which is great.
But doing it in standard document style note-taking apps is a bit tricky. You aren't dealing with specific "blocks" or "bullets". You are dealing with just standard text.
I'm not going to get into exactly how to implement it. That's for another day. But let me just say that there are two great ways to do it: Craft and Obsidian. Craft uses a block system where everything is a block and Obsidian has folding headers and indented folding as options for folding. Those are the two best ways.
I'm more interested in the actual aesthetics how to implement it.
And not everyone does folding well. So let me give my opinion on the way it should be done. Again, this is just my opinion.
Here's an example of a way to implement it that I'm not a huge fan of. But this way is pretty popular. This is from an amazing, underrated app called Noteplan.
When you hover over a block the folding triangle appears. But only when you hover over it. This isn't terrible, but it makes me think that maybe this section can't be folded at all. Maybe this is done to make the document look cleaner, but I'm not a fan.
Here's what it looks like when it's folded.
There is an ellipsis at the end. The folding triangle appears when you hover again, but now there is just an ellipsis. This just looks odd to me. I hate the strange ellipsis there. It just feels wildly out of place.
With folding text you have to have an indicator that this section is foldable and that there is content underneath it. To me, that's what the folding triangle does. But some people think that an ellipsis is needed. I disagree.
The folding triangle isn't there if it isn't a foldable section. If you see the folding triangle, that means the section has content underneath it and can be folded. Done. This is never a case where there is a folding triangle and there is nothing beneath it or the section doesn't actually fold. So if you see that folding triangle, then the section can be folded.
But this is a popular way to do it these days. Obsidian has the ellipsis, so does Bear (in beta), and Noteplan.
This is unnecessary and complicated to me. It also just looks strange because an ellipsis is an actual form of punctuation indicating an omission. And here's the funny part with  Noteplan. Take a look at the linked references section just above this.
At the very top where it says "1 References", it actually does folding the exact way it should be done! A persistent folding triangle with no ellipsis.
To me, if you are going to have folding all you need is the persistent folding triangle. If you have the triangle, that is the signal that something is beneath it. The ellipsis is superfluous.
Let's look at how Craft does it.
Craft works in blocks, somewhat similar to Notion, so you can turn any block into a folding block. I love the way this works. If you aren't an outliner app, this is a great alternative way to implement it. They have the persistent folding triangle and it's large enough to touch on mobile without any issues.
The triangle is there, it's centered to the first line, and it has a great faded line that shows up below it to wrap up the content beneath the triangle. It's perfect. This is how folding should be done.
Aside: Craft does this better than Notion just for the simple fact that with Craft you can turn this block into a header or any other style of text whereas Notion can only be body style text.
If you aren't a block-based app like Craft. Look to Obsidian. Obsidian has options that you can turn on or off as you please.
This way you can fold beneath a header or with indenting. Simple. It works well. Obsidian just suffers from things not being pixel perfect. The triangles are never really aligned properly, but it's getting better. Still, it works.
I know this isn't a big deal, but I just felt like I had to get it out because I want everyone to do it the same. In UX this is called "Jakob's Law".
Jakob's Law says this:
Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know.
So when I've been using Workflowy and Roam for years and then new apps start putting in folding text, I want it to work the same. Craft does it well, Obsidian is pretty good, and others are getting there.
But can we just agree that this is the best way to do it? No ellipsis, a persistent folding triangle, center the triangle with the first line, and have a small faded line when it's open to indicate what is beneath it. This is the way.