Writing Software: Scrivener

[Anne Lyle]

Originally Posted by Montero

No, no, just meant that one is supposed to fill in cards and then write, not the autofill idea. That you are supposed to keep the cards up to date as you develop the story (with the thought it is easier to do that in one software package rather than needing to swap between).

Yes, it would make sense to update the synopsis field as you work. I am sadly too lazy to do that consistently

[Warren_Paul]

Originally Posted by Montero

I've just got an elderly 16 inch CRT monitor. I used to have a lovely big 21 inch CRT (courtesy of freecycle) but it died .

Somewhere deep in the "storage garage" we have more CRT monitors (throw outs from a previous job) and when I have the time, and it isn't raining, I'm going to dig into there and will rig up my machine for dual screen so I can have plot outline on one and manuscript on the other. (Also finding a spare graphics card at the same time.)

CRTs? You mean there are still some of those in existence?

LCD monitors are really cheap these days, even LED ones. They are so much better for your eyes, and much clearer displays. CRT's terrible refresh rate - the flicker, the flicker! - is a major cause of eye strain.

Trust me, your eyes will love you for the upgrade.

[Vertigo]

I've just started playing with the evaluation copy of Scrivener and I have a couple of comments/questions.

When I brought in a couple of word documents written entirely in Verdana, the ' and " all got changed to Times New Roman and occasionally they doubled up in the process. I checked back in the original Word documents and the quotes in there are definitely Verdana and definitely not doubled up. Any thoughts on that. Have I done something silly? I had to fix it as otherwise any time I start typing right after one of those quotes it all comes out in Times New Roman. It wasn't too big a pain to fix but might have been if I'd had other passages in a different font.

The biggest drawback for me at present is that it only has a split screen letting you view two documents at a time. Although it calls this a really 'important' feature in the tutorial, it strikes me as being way out of date. Surely those two split screens should be unlimited floating windows. This is the one feature (or lack of it) that might stop me from using this software. Whilst I like many of it's other features I do like to have multiple documents open and viewable at the same time (I have two monitors so have a lot of screen space).

My normal* approach is to split the story into chapters/scenes using folders and separate documents for each scene. Scrivener manages that fine. Then I have other documents with character/location sketches in them. Scrivener also manages that fine. But... I typically want to have multiple scene documents open along with multiple character sketches. This it would appear Scrivener cannot do.

For me at least this is a big limitation and may be the stopper on me buying the software.



* considering how short a time I've been attempting to write that's probably not the best word

[Anne Lyle]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

When I brought in a couple of word documents written entirely in Verdana, the ' and " all got changed to Times New Roman and occasionally they doubled up in the process. I checked back in the original Word documents and the quotes in there are definitely Verdana and definitely not doubled up. Any thoughts on that. Have I done something silly? I had to fix it as otherwise any time I start typing right after one of those quotes it all comes out in Times New Roman. It wasn't too big a pain to fix but might have been if I'd had other passages in a different font.

Sorry, I have no idea - sounds like a bug. You'd have to submit that one to the Scrivener forum on literatureandlatte.com

Originally Posted by Vertigo

The biggest drawback for me at present is that it only has a split screen letting you view two documents at a time. Although it calls this a really 'important' feature in the tutorial, it strikes me as being way out of date. Surely those two split screens should be unlimited floating windows. This is the one feature (or lack of it) that might stop me from using this software. Whilst I like many of it's other features I do like to have multiple documents open and viewable at the same time (I have two monitors so have a lot of screen space).

My normal* approach is to split the story into chapters/scenes using folders and separate documents for each scene. Scrivener manages that fine. Then I have other documents with character/location sketches in them. Scrivener also manages that fine. But... I typically want to have multiple scene documents open along with multiple character sketches. This it would appear Scrivener cannot do.

Try the Quick Reference mode in the View menu - you can use that to open as many floating windows as you like

(Unfortunately it's not available by right-clicking on a document, which would be more convenient, but maybe you could request that feature for a future version.)

[kaal]

They look cool, unfortunately Scrivener isn't available on Linux & yWriter (while available) is hopelessly borked on Linux, so it looks like I'm sticking with vi & LibreOffice for now.

[Vertigo]

Originally Posted by Anne Lyle

Sorry, I have no idea - sounds like a bug. You'd have to submit that one to the Scrivener forum on literatureandlatte.com

I shall maybe do that if I move forwards with it. I do like the compile features. Very useful.

Originally Posted by Anne Lyle

Try the Quick Reference mode in the View menu - you can use that to open as many floating windows as you like

(Unfortunately it's not available by right-clicking on a document, which would be more convenient, but maybe you could request that feature for a future version.)

Hmmm I wonder if this is something they've done for Mac but not for Windows. On my version (only downloaded a couple of days ago, so should be the latest) there is no Quick Reference option in any of the menus. Searching the help manual for 'quick reference' also turns up nothing

As I said it is a bit of a pain and may well be a stopper on what does seem to be a very good program.

Maybe I should pop some questions up on their forums and see what I can find out.

[Anne Lyle]

Originally Posted by kaal

They look cool, unfortunately Scrivener isn't available on Linux

It's in beta

http://www.literatureandlatte.com/fo...58cf91b16d8ad9

There's also SuperNotecard, which is Java-based - I wrote the original "how to install on Linux" guide (now used on the SNC website) a few years ago, when I still had my EeePC:

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fro...rd/_EMJOpV3HFo

[Anne Lyle]

Originally Posted by Vertigo

Hmmm I wonder if this is something they've done for Mac but not for Windows. On my version (only downloaded a couple of days ago, so should be the latest) there is no Quick Reference option in any of the menus. Searching the help manual for 'quick reference' also turns up nothing

Ah, could be - sorry about that. The Mac version has been around for about 5 years, so it tends to be ahead of the Windows version on features. There may be Windows features I don't know about, though, since I'm Mac-only.

[Vertigo]

Okay, Anne, well thanks anyway. I might have to ask on their forums. If it is on it's way then I can probably live with it for now. Being a just beginning aspiring writer (isn't that a great title!) I can certainly survive without it for the time being!

And kaal, VI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, you have to be kidding. With a gun at my head I used to use that for programming. But writing a book. Eeeeeeeeeeeek

[kaal]

Originally Posted by Anne Lyle

It's in beta

Thanks. Just tried 1.1.0 and it segfaulted immediately. I'll try 1.2.1 when it appears.

Originally Posted by Anne Lyle

There's also SuperNotecard, which is Java-based - I wrote the original "how to install on Linux" guide (now used on the SNC website) a few years ago, when I still had my EeePC:

Thanks, again. SNC on its own doesn't seem to offer a great deal over my homegrown tools (although I could probably replace a couple of timeline & cross-story threads spreadsheets with it). I'll give it a look, JIC.

Originally Posted by Vertigo

And kaal, VI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, you have to be kidding. With a gun at my head I used to use that for programming. But writing a book. Eeeeeeeeeeeek

Yeah, vi. Been using it for 20 years. I can write faster in that than anything else (direct to html), but for editing drafts I import into Open/LibreOffice.

[Vertigo]

I used to use it programming Unix boxes back in '85 (shudder). Shifted to Emacs as soon as I could. I gather it has improved somewhat since those ancient days.

[Anne Lyle]

vim is great - I use it at work for writing Perl, HTML, CSS, etc. Wouldn't want to use it for fiction, though - I'm far too used to the organisational tools offered by a program like Scrivener.

Vertigo, I can't remember but have you tried Liquid Story Binder? It's quite similar to Scrivener, or so I'm told.

[kaal]

Can't get on with Emacs, always stayed with vi. Although there's now a "vim" "Vi IMproved", it's basically the same beast. One good thing about vim is that it "understands" C, shell, perl, HTML, etc., syntax. But it's really just the same for normal editing.
Thing is, to go along with editing in vi, I've had to write a few tools to give me book-style stats for the files. Hoping that I can retire those if I can get one of these other tools to work... They've had a good innings, almost 10 years thus far.

[Vertigo]

Anne, no not tried anything else. I only took a look at this as it seems quite well respected. I'm pretty organised with my files anyway and I'm not sure that I gain much there. However the ability to build all the files together with appropriate separators, chapters titles etc. does appeal. I can see that becoming a major paid with larger works.

Kaal: for me, back in those days, I loved Emacs because I could build it for almost any of the operating systems around which was an extraordinary level of compatability back then. However we shouldn't sidetrack with old reminiscences too much

[kaal]

Vertigo: D'accord.

While I'm waiting for the latest Scrivener to be out for linux 64bit, I've just realised that I have got Storybook installed... I suppose I should see if that's any good, really...

K