Re: existing work on TODO items

[Richard M. Stallman]

    > Well, it is another outliner, so it would need to include the basic
    > functionality of outlines.  Are you saying that it could use
    > outline.el instead of duplicate it?  That would indeed be cleaner--if
    > it is feasible.

    allout is backwards compatable with outline.el in that it supports
    outline.el's format, and provides similar navigation functionality. 
    the reverse is not the case - outline.el cannot handle most common
    formatted outlines, 

I think we're having a miscommunication.  The question is not whether
allout.el provides features beyond outline.el.  Clearly it does.

The question is whether allout.el could be built "on top of"
outline.el, to avoid redoing that basic outline functionality.
I said I don't know whether this would be a good idea.

    i'll devote some attention to that.  i'm reluctant to spend much
    energy changing to invisiblity and tuning that when i'm ultimately
    heading towards widgets.

What does "heading towards widgets" mean?