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Scrivener 3 is on the way…
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Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Sep 24, 2017 at 11:49 AM
What writing app do you use in Windows instead of Scrivener?
In my experience, Scrivener for Windows is a pretty full-featured writing suite in its own right. Yes, compared to the Mac version, it isn’t as feature-rich, but I haven’t found a better single-solution writing app for Windows.
Steve Z.
Posted by Franz Grieser
Sep 24, 2017 at 01:31 PM
Listerene wrote:
>Still irritates me that the OS with 85% of the market continues to get
>the short end of the stick in their development.
First: We don’t know how many of their customers use the Mac, the Windows, the iOS or the Linux version.
Second: I have both the Windows and the Mac version, and I can do everything I need to to in the Windows version. I can’t understand the Windows users’ whining. (And: Yes, I am aware of the differences between the Mac and the Win version).
Posted by Hugh
Sep 24, 2017 at 02:30 PM
Stephen Zeoli wrote:
What writing app do you use in Windows instead of Scrivener?
>
>In my experience, Scrivener for Windows is a pretty full-featured
>writing suite in its own right. Yes, compared to the Mac version, it
>isn’t as feature-rich, but I haven’t found a better single-solution
>writing app for Windows.
>
>Steve Z.
I think it’s true to say that most of the reasonably well-known author-users of Scrivener on the Mac came to it and first successfully used it for (published) books when it was significantly less capable than Scrivener for Windows is now.
The problem for Scrivener’s Windows development is that it started at least five years after Keith Blount had started work on the Mac version, and by and large despite considerable efforts by the (two-man) Windows team, the Mac version remains more advanced.
Why did Keith start on the Mac, not Windows? The arguments have been rehearsed on this forum previously. But if I remember correctly Keith has written that the Mac developing environment was simply more encouraging. In particular, the “frameworks and tools” that he needed (I take it this means “off-the-shelf pieces of code”) were available for OSX (now macOS) at little or no cost, and they simply weren’t available at all for Windows. He’d have had to code them himself, and that would have taken far longer.
That I believe is the reason that Scrivener was first launched on the Mac, despite economic logic perhaps suggesting that it was the wrong thing to do. (I hope I haven’t misquoted Keith.)
Now, I believe the circumstances have changed. Keith has written several times that Scrivener for Windows is skipping its Version 2 and is aiming for a Version 3 launch which will have “feature-parity” with Scrivener for the Mac at some point during 2018.
Posted by critStock
Sep 24, 2017 at 08:55 PM
Hugh, I think you have this all exactly right. As a Windows-only user, I remember waiting years for WinScriv, and I am extremely grateful for it! Almost none of the other wonderful-sounding Mac tools lauded by folks on this forum have even *considered* porting to Windows. So, again, I am extremely grateful to the L&L team. For this alone they should be cut a *lot* of slack by Win users. I have total respect, too, for the fact that they have put their loyal Mac user base first even as they have rolled out the Win version. And I am incredibly excited for the coming v3 for Windows!
Cheers,
David
Hugh wrote:
>I think it’s true to say that most of the reasonably well-known
>author-users of Scrivener on the Mac came to it and first successfully
>used it for (published) books when it was significantly less capable
>than Scrivener for Windows is now.
>
>The problem for Scrivener’s Windows development is that it started at
>least five years after Keith Blount had started work on the Mac version,
>and by and large despite considerable efforts by the (two-man) Windows
>team, the Mac version remains more advanced.
>Now, I believe the circumstances have changed. Keith has written several
>times that Scrivener for Windows is skipping its Version 2 and is aiming
>for a Version 3 launch which will have “feature-parity” with Scrivener
>for the Mac at some point during 2018.
Posted by Larry Kollar
Sep 27, 2017 at 03:39 AM
Dr Andus wrote:
>>I’ve built a pretty nice Scrivener workflow, based on MultiMarkdown
>
>Sounds interesting. Would you mind sharing your workflow with us?
Sure! I’m working on a formal series (with illustrations) at my writing blog, http://www.larrykollar.com/ —but I can give you the TL;DR version here.
I use Scrivener to structure the book, just like in a non-MMD workflow. But I use the MMD **bold** and *italic* constructs all the way through (and it looks like that won’t be a requirement for Scriv 3). For typewriter text (in fiction, I use it for text messages the characters send each other), I use American Typewriter and “Preserve Formatting”—character presets with that attribute get converted to backticks (`this is a text msg`) at Compile time.
Compile is where the magic happens. I make use of MMD’s transclude construct for section breaks, where {{file.html}} gets replaced with the contents of file.html. One of the neat things about this is, if you use * for the extension (like {{file.*}}), MMD uses file.html for HTML output, file.odt for ODT output, and so forth. For chapter breaks, I have Scrivener insert
(more about this later). I also have a front matter preset defined.
So, for eBooks, I compile to MMD using the front matter preset (basically “{{frontmatter.*}}” to insert a title page and copyright page). I use MMD to create an HTML file, load it to Sigil, remove the
tag because EPUBCHECK chokes on it, then hit F6 (split at markers). Boom, I have a formatted EPUB, and all I have to do is generate the TOC.
For printed books, I compile to MMD *without* the front matter preset. MMD creates an HTML file, then I use XSLT to transform it to either XSL:FO (formatting objects) or typesetter markup, and make a PDF. Both build the front matter and TOC for me. If I was made of money, I could use PrinceXML or Antenna House software to format the HTML and not have to maintain the scripts. :-P
That’s pretty much it. I have some technical chops, yeah, but I’ll say this: once you learn XSLT, you can do pretty much anything with a well-formed HTML file. XSL:FO is powerful, but it’s teeeeeeeeeedious.