Panes

What panes are

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

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. Workflowy remembers your open panes, their widths, and their locations in the same browser or desktop app.

Panes are designed for desktop-sized windows and are not available in the mobile interface. They close automatically if the window becomes too narrow.

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 the 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.

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.

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. If you close the main pane, the next pane becomes the main view.

To close all panes at once, open the command palette with Alt+W and run Toggle Panes. Toggle Panes does not currently have a default direct shortcut.

Keyboard shortcuts

Pane navigation shortcuts act on the active pane. Click the pane first, or use Cycle focus: Main / Panes to move focus from the main page through each open pane and back to the main page.

Pane controls

Navigation in the active pane

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