A Very Handy Outlining Tool

One of the problems I have with creating detailed rules outlines in Word is that eventually I reach the point where I can no longer deal with the volume of info I end up with. Meaning that I can't think about stuff like chapter order, with all of the section/detail info in the way. At that point I always end up abandoning the outline, and writing rules up in full. Before I've completely worked out all the interrelations and dependencies. But then I keep going back to the outline because of how slow that is...

Well I've found a nice, simple (and cheap) solution to that problem. It's a $15.00 MacOS app called 'Tree' that's just what I need. Instead of a sequential outline format, it lets you edit in a set of collapsible 'pane' views that let you hide what you don't need to look at, and focus on the details that you do need.

1 Cover
2 Introduction
    2.1 The Third Age Of Mankind
    2.2 Welcome To WarStrike
    2.3 Overview For 40K Players
3 The Basics
    3.1 What You'll Need To Play
        3.1.1 Two Players
        3.1.2 These Rules
        3.1.3 A 6'x4' Battlefield
        3.1.4 Some Terrain & Obstacles
        3.1.5 A Strike Force
        3.1.6 Something To Measure With
        3.1.7 Dice & Counters
        3.1.8 Unit Cards
        3.1.9 Time To Play
    3.2 Rolling Dice
        3.2.1 You'll Always Use D6 Dice
        3.2.2 Types of Tests (List)
            3.2.2.1 Rolling N+
            3.2.2.2 Rolling N-
            3.2.2.3 Pass-One Rolls
            3.2.2.4 Pass-All Rolls
        3.2.3 Rolling N+
        3.2.4 Rolling N-
        3.2.5 Pass-One Rolls
        3.2.6 Rolling Multiple Pass-One Rolls
            3.2.6.1 In Series
            3.2.6.2 In Parallel
        3.2.7 Pass-All Rolls
        3.2.8 That's Um... Complicated
            3.2.8.1 Why We're Discussing Multiple Rolling
        3.2.9 Re-Rolls
        3.2.10 Roll-Offs
        3.2.11 Salvos

What's more, it will export whatever you have open into a plain text file (and other formats). Which makes copy-pasting to the blog really easy. Unlike Word, where I have to spend time 'converting' the text to try and keep some semblance of an outline format.

So expect more detailed outlines going forward. :)