Content Structuring on a desktop

[Dr Rick Smith]

I wrote my first two books by creating huge outlines in ThinkTank or  
MORE, and importing them into Framemaker. The last book was published  
in 2001 using Frame 5 or a Mac (grumble grumble). The MORE-to-Frame  
conversion created five levels of headings which became chapters,  
sections, subsections, on down to some bulleted lists. At the leaf  
level I could include a summary paragraph that I'd use as a starting  
point for the real writing.

I'm halfway through a new project (just converted from Frame 7 to 9)  
and I miss the old flexibility. The current crop of outliners are  
garbage. The MS Word outline format doesn't seem to bring format tags  
into Frame, so you lose the hierarchy. The only outlining tool that is  
close to MORE is a now-unsupported screenwriting tool. And its import  
ability makes it nearly useless, too.

I know how to build a structured document in Frame, but I see no no  
easy way to work with structure pieces at a macro level, like "Move  
section 3.2 to under 5.3" except by selecting and moving multi-page  
chunks of text.

I've read about DITA and I'd love to use a database to store chunks of  
the document (that's how I think) but these solutions seem to require  
server-level implementations or unexplained bits of additional software.

Rick Smith
http://www.cryptosmith.com/