A lot of my workflow is in FoldingText Markdown now (hash-headers and/or tab indents, with inline @key(value) tags, child-line key : value properties or just plain @key tags for booleans.

(Either authored in FoldingText, or on my favourite machine – an inexpensive AA powered ultra-simple portable with a good keyboard http://www.neo-direct.com
Tip – remove all software from the Neo except the plain text editor, quickly upload all the text files to OS X with the free NeoManager utility via USB).

I do, however, like to use OmniOutliner's excellent column display for some things, particularly to generate column-based PDF documents.

Here is a rough working draft of a script which I am using to paste FT-style Markdown plain text into OO3, with the inline @key(value) tag pairs, and the child element key : value property pairs going to values in key-named columns (either pre-existing or created, if necessary, by the pasting script).

In addition to moving tag values to columns it also normalises the mixed nesting style of MD (hash headers and/or tab indents) into regular OO3 nesting.

(⌘⌥V for OmniOutliner 3 in my KeyBoard Maestro setup)

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Updated (ver 0.04 above) to also translate MarkDown **bold** and *italic* emphases in row topics into OO3 bold and italic formats.

and ver (0.06 above) to translate MarkDown ordered list numbers into OO3 numbered heading styles.

ver 0.07 handles key : value property pairs in child lines as well as in-line @key(value) tag pairs - both are now transferred to column values for the appropriate row.

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Before and after:

(The plain text 'property lines' automatically become column entries in OO3)

1. Plain text in FoldingText, and
   
   
2. pasted (with script) into OO3.
   

PS on the matter of originating outlines and column entries in plain text (Markdown) format, for subsequent work in OmniOutliner, I came across this report of a good plain text authoring setup:

[iPad with Neo as keyboard](http://vimeo.com/11754480)

It turns out that the efficiency of the system can be improved still further by simply removing and discarding the iPad - this additional step has become even more important since a change in iPad system software rendered it inoperable for this purpose. Fortunately, the Neo itself continues to work very well, and, unlike the iPad, has a a decent keyboard, a standard built-in USB connector, and the ability to transfer text files directly and simply to the OS X machine.

Updated to improve parsing of inline @key(value) tags (for their conversion to oo3 column entries)

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[macula]

Very good stuff, thanks Rob.

Would you be able to offer us a free-form description of your workflow(s) involving FoldingText? For some time I've been trying to streamline my toolbox, move away from large software packages, and rely on plaintext as possible. Judging from your GitHub repos and your tweets, I suspect you're exploring FT-based workflows for todo list/GTD management, is that right?

Many thanks indeed.