Writing Software

The good news: I am completely enamored and in love with Scrivener. It's the best piece of writing software I've ever used.

The bad news: I don't own a Mac. Is there anything made for Windows that comes anywhere near Scrivener? Maybe yWriter or StoryRight? Any suggestions?

HOOS, you gotta pick up a smack habit before you can be a writer <^8

It didn't help.

I use Mellel and TextEdit but I think they're both Mac native

I pretty much just use TextEdit these days...I don't need a writing program that takes more than 30 seconds to load.

TextEdit kind of annoys me. I use BBEdit for stuff where I don't care about spelling. I haven't settled on a good program for other stuff.

notepad++ nigga

notepad++ nigga

― luriqua, Friday, September 7, 2007 7:28 AM (4 years ago) Bookmark

luriqua......otm.

hoos r u coding

yah i'm teachin myself web dev startin by relearning the basics of HTML & CSS, getting some front end stuff done, and then when i'm ready to learn back end i plan to learn mySQL & ruby.

i've been using komodo edit recently, it's nice once you turn off the terrible autocomplete thing that puts a little floating ) or } or > or whatever like over your code. it's open source and i haven't found a substantial difference between it and the $ bbedit.

also for whatever reason it's not hip to some html5 element tags.

i just started learning python. will probably forego actually learning *SQL anything too intensely because i think a lot of frameworks kinda sort that out for you these days

more interested in learning the programming bit, not so much the querying bit

right, i hear u on that

just tryin to buff up that resume

Scrivener for Windows has been out a while now. It hasn't got all the features the Mac version has but it's pretty good.

how much do i love notepad++

I use Scrivener for all my work now. It's incredible.

They've just started work on an iOS version. The intention is merely to support Scrivener use on a Mac/PC, not to be functionally equal.

I use vim.

scrivener is phenom

Scrivener is *the best*

The Windows version has a little way to go before all the bugs are ironed out, but the fact that I can build a complex document in Windows, have to go home because I'm >< THIS CLOSE to chucking up my guts and continue working on a Mac is glorious. Having a real where-have-you-been-all-my-life moment atm.

Scrivener + Celtx

i just started using scrivener and like it fine but don't feel like i'm getting religion about it, what am i missing?

soul

vim rules

http://files.sharenator.com/odoyle_A_Tribute_to_the_80s_Bully-s500x375-71417-535.jpg

xp to eethus: I played with it years ago and didn't get it then either. The trick is to apply it directly to something you're actually working on.

Scrivener is in essence a word processor with incredible flexibility built into it. In effect, what you're doing is writing a large piece of work in tiny chunks that can be organised in lots of ways – resequencing, sorting by keywords, etc. There's also a search-based binder that allows you to strip your work down to just those things that matter to you at the time (I can't really describe this; it's something you need to experiment with, but once you get it there's no going back). When you're at the first draft stage, you can select just those chunks that you want to proceed with, compile them into one document and polish it off.

Right now I'm writing a user manual for a stupidly complex IT thing that makes bugger-all sense unless you live and breathe it for a while. I've had to build up the document by making notes as I go along, writing work instructions as I come across them, piling up definitions as I work out what system elements are for, and so on. Right at this point (~70% complete) it's 3,500 words across 60-odd scrivenings. When I'm ready to send it out for review, I'll select only the scrivenings that I marked as final, compile them into a Word doc and circulate it.

(a scrivening is one piece of text)

I'm confused by this thread - is it about software for fiction writers/screenwriters? Halfway thru people start talking about HTML/code writing software.

It was designed for fiction writers/screenwriters, but the concepts are so universal that it works for just about any type of writing. I write more than manuals with this software now.

I don't see how you could *code* with it but whatever floats yer boat

WAIT I see what you're saying now, delete delete

Yeah there was a bit in the middle of the thread where it veered off :) But your answer also clarified the rest for me, all good!

GEEBZ

Huh... I was all set to start a new thread when good ole ILX-bot suggested this thread (would be helpful if the suggested "do you want to post this in the following question threads" are clickable links tbh). I'd *never* seen this before. Yay ilx once again.

Right now, after using the trials for a couple of days, I think these two seem the best:

Scrivener: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php
Page Four: http://www.softwareforwriting.com/pagefour.html

I'm leaning towards Scrivener, but is there a way to strip it of all those 'fun' colours? I like my writing software black and white as possible.

So Scrivener is the most liked one here, yes?

Which colours? It's pretty customisable, but the Windows version is still new and has yet to gain all the features and customisations.

Page Four is Windows only btw.

These colours, for example. It's not the end of the world but I'd rather have it solely black and white.

Tbh I need a program I can work on both on Windows and Mac (use both between home and work), Scrivener does feel intuitive, I'm surprised by that actually.

Apologies to come across all anal but colours somehow really distract me when I write.

I've not used the outliner much but I'm pretty sure you can kill all those colours in both versions. I'm looking at the tutorial that comes with it (excellent btw) and those colours aren't even enabled.

Scrivener's free trial gives you 30 non-contiguous days (i.e. if you don't use it for a week, you don't lose that week in trial days). Bear in mind though that you would need to buy a separate licence each for Mac and Windows.

oh and the corkboard is the same – no colours unless you enable them.

Thanks AA, I hadn't figured out how to kill the colour yet, only been playing about with it for two days. That's quite sweet, about the trial rules.

I'm pretty sure that if I buy a license myself my employer will shell out for the other one so that won't be a problem, but thanks :)

Can you take "projects" with you though? Work I did at home, can I import that at work?

Yep. I keep everything in my Dropbox at work (Win XP), and sometimes continue work at home on the Mac, pointing to the same Dropbox files. It's designed to work that way. I did have a corruption issue at one point (probably because Dropbox hadn't finished syncing), but because Scrivener backs up your project every time you close it, I was able to restore everything.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Windows release is quite new and still has a few niggling bugs. The developer is on holiday but should be back into the update cycle in a few weeks.

Hey thanks! Great advice, I'll use my Dropbox for it then! *prepares for a funding pitch to my director on Monday*

The developer is on holiday

Aww, this had me giggle uncontrolably, so cute

haha yeah, it's a tiny business and they're all quite involved with their users.

Oh, I used a promo code and got 20% off the licence, but the link is at work. I'll post it here tomorrow.

That would be great, thanks!

Can somebody explain to me what the corkboard is good for?

Every card on the corkboard is a piece of writing. You can arrange the cards as often as you need to, and when you compile your master document they assemble in that order. That's the core of what Scrivener does.

You can also tag your cards by revision status (first draft, final draft etc), keywords (names of characters, subjects etc) etc etc. Then you can see what you need to at a glance, and even create custom searches that display just a handful of cards. When you've got an arseload of cards on the go, being able to view a small selection at a time is a godsend.

But I don't get it -- if I write something, it goes in a particular place in the book. What's the circumstance under which I would rearrange small pieces of writing?

Right now I have cards which are actual chapters, and then for each chapter a card which is notes for that chapter (so I can remember what the references were, still have quotes I didn't use, etc.) and then a whole bunch of unsorted cards which are notes for stuff I am going to write about later. But those latter guys aren't going to be arranged in some order -- they're just notes. I'm trying to "keyword" them (am I right that this is what I'd call "tagging" in another system?) so that when writing chapter X I can easily gather all notecards related to chapter X. But still, none of this seems to require the corkboard.

Code: http://www.retailmenot.com/view/literatureandlatte.com

I updated to Scriv 3 just after xmas, which has been fine in most ways, except -- maddening small exception -- smart quotes now delivers only 9s and 99s, no 6s or 66s. The forums mention this as occasional issue with Scriv 2, though I never had it. Has anyone else encountered it, and is there a fix (or a reason)?