I'm happy outlining in Scrivener, as much as I outline. But some people like to outline big time. For them, perhaps, Scrivener is not enough. They need a dedicated outliner, such as <a class="zem_slink" title="OmniOutliner" rel="homepage" href="http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnioutliner/">OmniOutliner</a>, or something of its ilk.

Can you do your brainstorming in something else then bring the results into Scrivener with little pain?

Oh yes. Provided your outlining program can export into the common outline file format OPML (which most, including OmniOutliner, can).

Here's <em>A Study in Scarlet </em>in OmniOutliner. This is a sample file from the developers themselves and includes the entire book (which messes up the export a little -- fiddle with where you put things to get the best results).

<a href="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-08.47.35.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-8111" title="Screen shot 2011-04-15 at 08.47.35" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-08.47.35-640x637.png" alt="" width="635" height="632" /></a>

Export it as OPML.

<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-8112" title="Screen shot 2011-04-15 at 08.47.56" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-08.47.56.png" alt="" width="586" height="286" />

Then create a new Scrivener document and simply import the OPML file.

You'll get this.

<a href="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-09.03.30.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-8114" title="Screen shot 2011-04-15 at 09.03.30" src="http://davidhewson.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/Screen-shot-2011-04-15-at-09.03.30-640x509.png" alt="" width="635" height="505" /></a>

Note that the body text is used for the title of the scene (which in the case of this sample document is the entire chapter of the book). You will want to do something different so play with the options. I can't see a way to fill in other parts of the Scrivener document such as the synopsis through OPML. You're basically talking about exporting scene titles as far as I understand it (though I could be mistaken).

There are plenty of OPML programs around for Macs, Windows and Linux so this is another way of feeding things into Scrivener from other kinds of computers too if that's what you’re looking for.

Personally I find it easier to structure directly in Scrivener itself. That will save you time and messing around with export files. So my advice would be: go this route only if you're the type who has to outline in something else.
<div class="zemanta-pixie" style="margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;"><img class="zemanta-pixie-img" style="border: none; float: right;" src="http://img.zemanta.com/pixy.gif?x-id=4bef4020-05a0-41a3-a582-f3c7a6d415f5" alt="" /></div>