Alternative to mindmap software
I would like some alternatives to using a mindmap to organize my thoughts while writing. Mindmapping is good, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't preserve the sequence/order, therefore it makes things difficult when I try to organize my thoughts into paragraphs and linking them. Anyone use any other tools?
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How about Powerpoint (or similar)? Advantage over word-processors is you have "slides" that you can move about. Slides can contain pictures or text. You can label each slide with a large label. Then you can look at a bunch of slides in "slide view" and rearrange them. Disadvantage is that this only has two levels of organization. [i.e., You can 1)rearrange text boxes on a slide, and 2) rearrange slides. {I'm ignoring nesting textboxes within textboxes, which is much clumsier.}]
But I think what you really want is an outline. Most word-processors have an "outline view" which works sort of like a multi-level version of Powerpoint's "slide view." You can expand and collapse whatever section(s) you want, at any level. You can change the order of sections by a simple click and drag, or by easy keystrokes (e.g., Ctrl-UpArrow).
Try one or both of these two methods. If you find one or both helpful, but are still frustrated by limitations and/or clumsiness, then probably you want something more sophisticated like Scrivener (which @Lauren Ipsum suggested in another answer). I checked out her link, and found that the makers of Scrivener supply links to competing software (which almost makes me want to buy theirs just to reward their good behaviour). See Links for Writers.
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I love Scrivener for this kind of thing. You can put each thought onto an individual page, and then drag them around as you see fit. It even has a virtual corkboard screen so you can see many individual notes at a glance.
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