I have been using the outliner more frequently lately, and have come up against a few limitations that make it a bit tedious to use.
First, sometimes I end up swapping editors. When I do so, the outline columns that were visible in the previous editor don’t show in the new editor. If there was a way to quickly copy the set of visible columns from one editor to another, that would be very helpful to me.
Being able to save outline column sets would be a nice outgrowth of that feature; I use different sets of columns for different aspects of a given project; they’re almost always the same 3 or 4 sets of columns, but since I can’t save & load them at will, it’s tedious to switch between them. And using Layouts to manage each editor’s column sets seems like a sledgehammer solution to a screwdriver problem… but it’s what I’m doing now.
Once I’ve enabled all the columns I want, they typically run past the right edge of the window, or they start out far too narrow. Adding functions similar to spreadsheets to size a selection of columns to either the heading or the data would be a great improvement, as would the ability to make all columns attempt (within reasonable limitations) to squeeze into the available editor width.
I never thought I’d use the outliner as much as I do now, especially since I don’t make use of a lot of hierarchy in my writing, but it’s been invaluable lately.
This has been addressed in a future version - swapping the editors swaps them completely, so the outline column settings swap too.
I’m afraid none of your other suggestions are likely to make it into planned upcoming versions, though. It’s already fairly quick to add outline columns (now that it uses a popover with checkboxes instead of a menu), and saving sets of outline columns gets complicated and adds to the clutter people complain about (I would love to get rid of layouts altogether, as they are complex, at least internally!).
