I’d like to see better outlining capabilities in Scrivener: at the moment, it seems like you have to create a new document for a new section, which is awkward in academic texts etc. I’m a fan of using a text document and lists but, again, this function isn’t as user-friendly as in Word, etc.
Could you please elaborate? Scrivener uses the bullet/list system from the OS X system, which certainly isn’t as advanced as Word (but then I’m just one programmer whereas Word has a large team 
). Scrivener’s main outlining system is intended for arranging and structuring files. In general, when making requests, it’s really helpful if you explain exactly what you expect and what it is you feel that is lacking. “Better outlining capabilities” doesn’t tell me much, I’m afraid.
Thanks for your feedback!
All the best,
Keith
Yes, Scrivener’s outline mode is an alternate way of manipulating the structure of the binder files – but with more power because you can activate your choice of metadata along with.
What you are used to in Word is making an outline /within/ a text document. Word essentially provides you with built-in key commands for tagging paragraphs with an outline-level, and these in turn come with set paragraph styles (most importantly, different indent levels).
As a fan of outlining myself, I have a number of things to suggest:
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You can emulate Word-style outline to a certain degree by creating a set of paragraph styles in Scrivener with increasing levels of indent, and then using Sys Prefs to assign those styles keyboard shortcuts. Then, when working in a document (so long as the ruler is visible), you can use your keyboard shortcuts to assign paragraphs to different levels of indent. (Note: if you adjust the paragraph styling of outline levels in Word to match the styling you set up for levels in Scrivener, then copying from Word and pasting into Scrivener will preserve all your (visual) outline structure.) (Also note that this kind of outlining is all visual via paragraph styling, and does not interact with Scrivener’s outline mode which, of course, operates at the level of documents.
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If you really like doing your outlining in Word, I have written an ‘Outline Converter’ applescript program (available elsewhere on this forum) that has two ways to process a Word outline for import into Scrivener.
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In the end, I have found that for most of my outlining purposes, a good mindmap program is really better than anything. When I first started with Scrivener, my model of outlining was based on heavy use of Word’s outline mode – which is good. But I found that there are really a variety of different kinds of things that I do with outlining and different approaches work best for different things. So, I use a combination of mindmapping, Word outline, and Scrivener.
Hope I said something useful.
–Greg
YES. Having little postits on the corkboard is one thing, but I’d rather tie the postits to bullet items in an indented list, especially if that list is an outline. I realize I can “hack” this, but having native support makes me feel very warm and fuzzy.
alex
That’s really not what the outliner in Scrivener is for - it is for maintaining a one-to-one correspondence with your binder items.
All the best,
Keith
Because I’m mostly a newbie and don’t quite understand the modus operandi of Scrivener, can you rephrase that or PM something to me?
thanks
alex
I mean that the outliner is a way of representing the documents available in the binder. If you are using documents in the binder the same way as documents in the Finder, then you probably aren’t harnessing Scrivener’s full capabilities. The idea is that you work in chunks of test as small or large as you like - if you were writing a novel each document might be a single scene or a whole chapter; it’s entirely up to you. Each row in the outliner represents one of these documents. So if you were writing a novel, each row may be a scene, and each synopsis would sum up that scene so that you can get an overview of the whole and rearrange it using the outliner. So the outliner is intended for the restructuring or planning of your draft, not for single-document outlining or bulleted lists. If you haven’t already, I recommend going through Scrivener’s interactive tutorial (Help > Tutorial) or taking a look at some of the tutorials on our videos page:
Note especially that we have an entire 8-minute video dedicated to “Outliner & Synopses”, which should cover what you need to know. Scrivener 2.0’s outliner will be much more refined, but its basic function remains the same.
Hope that helps.
All the best,
Keith