Smart Outline: live table of contents for AI chats

Ophel builds a live, clickable table of contents from your questions and AI headings — with bookmarks, filters, and keyboard shortcuts for long conversations.

The Smart Outline reads your conversation after every AI reply and builds a navigable tree in the side panel. Each of your messages becomes a top-level entry, and any Markdown headings inside the AI’s response become nested entries beneath it. The longer the conversation, the more value the outline adds.

How the outline is built

Every time the AI finishes a reply, Ophel scans the page and produces a tree from two sources:

• Your questions — each user message becomes a first-level entry
• AI response headings — Markdown headings (#, ##, ###, etc.) inside AI replies appear as nested children under the question that triggered them

You: Explain React core concepts
  ├── # React Introduction
  │   ├── ## What is React
  │   └── ## Why use React
  ├── # Core Concepts
  │   ├── ## Components
  │   ├── ## Props and State
  │   └── ## Lifecycle
  └── # Summary

Click any entry in the outline to jump directly to that part of the conversation.

Scroll following and locate mode

As you scroll the conversation, the outline highlights the entry that matches your current reading position in real time — a position indicator that keeps you oriented inside long threads.

If you scroll the outline panel itself and lose track of where you are, press Alt+L (Mac: Option+L) to snap the outline panel back to highlight your current position.

Filter modes

Three filter buttons appear above the outline list. They let you reduce noise and focus on what matters.

Button	What it shows
All (default)	Everything — your questions and all AI headings
Questions only	Hides AI headings; shows only your messages — useful for reviewing the conversation flow
Bookmarks only	Shows only entries you have starred

You can also switch filters with keyboard shortcuts:

Shortcut	Action
Alt+Q (Mac: Option+Q)	Toggle questions-only filter
Alt+Shift+Q (Mac: Option+Shift+Q)	Show all (clear filter)
Alt+C (Mac: Option+C)	Toggle bookmarks filter

Bookmarks

Hover over any outline entry to reveal a star icon. Click it to bookmark that heading. Bookmarks persist across page reloads.

If a bookmarked heading disappears from the conversation — for example, when the AI regenerates a response — it becomes a ghost bookmark. Open the outline toolbox and use the cleanup option to remove stale ghost bookmarks.

Expand by level

You can expand the tree to a specific heading depth without manually clicking every node.

1. Right-click any outline node

   A context menu appears with expand-to-level options.

2. Choose a depth, or use a keyboard shortcut

   Press Alt+Shift+1 through Alt+Shift+6 (Mac: Option+Shift+1 through Option+Shift+6) to expand to heading levels 1–6 directly.

Press Alt+E (Mac: Option+E) to toggle all nodes expanded or collapsed at once.

Word count on hover

Hover over any outline entry to see a small tooltip showing the approximate character count of that section. This gives you a quick sense of how long an AI response or section is before you navigate to it.

Copy node text

User question entries show a copy icon on hover. Click it to copy the original question text to your clipboard — handy for re-asking in a new conversation or saving to notes.

Shortcuts

Mac users: Alt = Option.

Shortcut	Action
Alt+R	Refresh outline
Alt+E	Expand / collapse all
Alt+Q	Toggle questions-only filter
Alt+Shift+Q	Show all (clear filter)
Alt+C	Toggle bookmarks filter
Alt+L	Locate current position in outline
Alt+F	Search within outline
Alt+Up	Jump to previous heading
Alt+Down	Jump to next heading
Alt+Shift+1..6	Expand outline to heading level 1–6

All shortcuts are customizable in Settings → Shortcuts.

Settings

Go to Settings → Features → Outline to configure the outline’s behavior.

Setting	Description
Auto update	Whether the outline refreshes automatically after each AI reply
Update interval	How often Ophel checks for changes (seconds)
Follow mode	Whether the outline tracks your scroll position: current, latest, or manual
Inline bookmark icon	When to show the bookmark star inside the conversation text itself
Panel bookmark icon	When to show the bookmark star in the outline panel entries
Show word count	Show character count tooltip on hover
Prevent auto-scroll	Stop the outline panel from scrolling itself when you navigate