Scapple 4+

Scapple has no competition when you need to capture and make sense of a lot of ideas or bits of information.
Works better than an outliner for problems that do not have a well-understood structure because it lets you visualize things and move around bits and pieces like a mindmapping tool.
Scapple works better that a mindmapping tool if the chunks of information you need to visualize are text with dense content (not just one-word concepts), notes, paragraphs, tec. Some people use it as a drafting tool, juggling around paragraphs, for short prose, speeches, essays, etc.

The only issue, which is getting really old, is that it has very poor graphical elements. The straight lines and arrows do not blend well unless you have a very rigid layout. It is a pity, because Scapple is great to put together networks of data with lots of connections, and the straight lines become a distracting visual nuisance. A little tweak to use softer curves (simple Bezier or splines) would elevate Spline’s original but dated interface to the level of a killer app.

I am consistently more productive using Scapple than any other outlining tool; I can work fast and focused even if the end product is an eye sore.

I expect there are an infinite number of uses for this app. I initially expected it to be useful in drafting story arcs, but within a few weeks I was relying on it for a number of other tasks as well. Character sketches, scene outlines, storyboards … This app is so versatile and easy to use that it’s now among my three favorite writing-related apps. My favorite features include the ability to save “note styles,” and to import images, but it does so much more. It allows me to manipulate text far more than should be expected from an idea-drafting tool. It lets me choose from a variety of fonts, text sizes and text colors. I can place text in any of several different bubble shapes with different background colors and border colors. Scapple lets me align, distribute, group and connect elements in ways so many ways … Scapple is everything I never before realized I needed. I’ve been using it for more than a year, and I can honestly say that I hope there never comes a time when I’ll have to write without it.

This is app can do absolutely anything you want it to when it comes to planning, organizing, managing, and innovating. Anything.

Many people will at first simply see at as a another mind-mapping tool. However, these people would be missing out on what is arguably the most useful business tool that exists (excluding process automation tools, of course—but those are no fun to talk about).

My favorite way to use Scapple is as a high-level dashboard that contains every idea, concept, and visual graphic related to my current project(s). I like to be able to open one window and simply sit back at the start of my workday and glance over and be reminded of everything I’m working on. In addition to serving as a “digital bulletin board”, I can also add text/paragraphs and link descriptions to objects and form relationships among everything on the page—images, ideas, current projects, future projects, priorities, to-do lists, etc.

In addition, it’s great for mocking up landing pages and web pages.

Finally, the lack of structure is what makes this app so great. Unlike other mind mapping tools, you can continuously add to a mind map (or dashboard in my case) for an infinite amount of time. Every day you can add something new to it and it’s easy to move everything around so that it continues to make sense.

This app could seriously be sold for a lot more money…so you might as well get it now while it’s so cheap.