Scapple is the software equivalent of how I work out my rough ideas on paper. (If I didn't hate the word "brainstorming" so much, I'd probably call it brainstorming software.) When I'm in the early stages of any project, whether it's a writing project or a software project, I tend to write a bunch of ideas on a large piece of paper, spacing out ideas that aren't yet related, clustering related notes together, and drawing connections between them to try to figure out how everything fits together.
In short, Scapple is a tool for getting early ideas down as quickly as possible and making connections between them. The main advantages of doing this in Scapple rather than on paper are that you never run out of paper (the Scapple canvas expands to accommodate as many notes as you want to create), you can move notes around to make room for new ideas and connections, it's easy to delete and edit notes, and once you know what you want to do with them, it's easy to export your notes into other applications.
I'm well aware that there's already a ton of mind-mapping software out there. Scapple differs slightly from most in that it doesn't force you to make connections, nor does it expect you to start with a central idea and then branch off from everything else. Instead, you can write freely anywhere on the virtual paper, and individual notes can be as short or as long as you like. Creating and removing connections is as easy as dragging one note onto another. Best of all, because it's designed to let you jot down ideas and quickly connect them, Scapple is incredibly easy to use. While I'm currently working on a full manual, the quick start guide below should cover everything you need to get started with Scapple.
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