Scrivener

[Starbeam]

Mickey's mentioned this in one of the stickied topics, and I've tempted several people into considering Macs by talking about it.  Just announced on their twitter--http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivenerforwindows/.

[Enjorous]

Here's the official announcement:

f you have forgotten entirely what Scrivener even is, well, it's a writing program that allows you to split up a long text into lots of small chunks, to edit them independently or together as one long document, to rearrange them on a corkboard or in an outliner, to view other documents - such as images and PDF files - alongside your text, and then to compile your manuscript into one long document for exporting to a word processor such as Microsoft Word, or for printing. I designed it to help me with my own writing as a wannabe novelist and someone who had to write a long dissertation. The Mac version is used by best-selling novelists, academics, lawyers, scriptwriters and many other writers. (You can read some of the testimonials of published writers at http://www.literatureandlatte.com/testimonials.html, but I'm not writing with the intention of giving you the hard sell.)

Enough preamble - onto the news:

• Scrivener for Windows has in fact been in development for the past two years.

• We hope to have it on sale early next year, in late January or February.

• We will be releasing a public beta late next month (around 25th October), so you will be able to download and try it very soon - in time for National Novel Writing Month ( http://www.nanowrimo.org ). (For those who have never used a beta before, a beta version is an early version that is mostly feature-complete but which hasn't been extensively tested yet. This means that there will be bugs we haven't found and it may crash occasionally. The idea of a public beta is that users who are intrepid and don't mind putting up with bugs can use it early to help us find the worst problems before it goes on sale to a wider user-base. Obviously therefore you should only use the beta if you are happy to put up with problems and back up regularly, but we'll give free copies to those who spend significant time and effort helping us track down bugs.) We'll release more news about where and how to download next month.

• When Scrivener for Windows goes on sale early next year it will cost $40 for the regular licence and $35 for the education licence.

• Scrivener for Windows will run on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

• Anyone who participates in NaNoWriMo this year and achieves their 50,000 words (and has them validated) will get a 50% discount coupon which they will be able to use when Scrivener for Windows is released next year.

• To whet your appetite, we have put together a small teaser video, which you can view here, along with more information:

http://www.scrivenerforwindows.com

We are aware that in the past year or two several Scrivener clones have appeared on Windows, but we really hope that you will try out Scrivener for Windows and that, if you were one of the many who have been telling us you wished we produced a version for Windows, you will be as excited as I am about this. The chief Windows developer is an Australian guy called Lee and he has done an amazing job in turning the version of Scrivener I designed for the Mac into a fully-native Windows application.

Thanks again for your interest in Scrivener. If you have any questions, please drop David a line at sales@literatureandlatte.com and he'll be happy to answer them, and please feel free to drop by the user forums at http://www.literatureandlatte.com/forums too.

All the best,
Keith

[LizW65]

Sounds interesting--is it a hugely complicated program or can computer idiots use it with impunity?  I'm planning to do NaNo again this year, so the discount is a definite incentive.

[Starbeam]

It's pretty simple to use, although I did find it quite helpful to watch the how-to videos on the website.  I didn't watch the videos with the announcement, so I don't know how those compare.  But I've found it to be an extremely useful program.  I have the Mac version, and I'm very tempted to put the beta on my PC so that I can go back and forth between computers.

**And having just watched the release video, you could definitely watch the basic Mac tutorial to learn how to do quite a bit of stuff.  Plus it's got a few things I've not used yet, because 2.0 for Mac isn't out yet, although it won't have all the same features.

[Enjorous]

It's pretty simple to use, although I did find it quite helpful to watch the how-to videos on the website.  I didn't watch the videos with the announcement, so I don't know how those compare.  But I've found it to be an extremely useful program.  I have the Mac version, and I'm very tempted to put the beta on my PC so that I can go back and forth between computers.

The video was pretty much a teaser trailer so it didn't really show it side by side it just highlighted all the cool features. I'm hoping it's as intuitive as the Mac one.

[jeno]

\o/ Awesome.

[meg_evonne]

Oh man....  I'd finally decided on snowflake.  Now what do I do?   Beta now?  New project isn't going to wait around...

[Starbeam]

Oh man....  I'd finally decided on snowflake.  Now what do I do?   Beta now?  New project isn't going to wait around...

I haven't tried snowflake, but it's very possible that the way Scrivener works that the snowflake method would work quite well on it. 

[meg_evonne]

I haven't bought snowflake yet, and wouldn't they be similar with some minor differences?  The problem is which is better and more appropriate for me.  now I have to use that side of my brain again, you know the CPA figure it out part.  it frequently languishes happily if I give it a beer every now and again.  Waking it up, poking it until it works to make the decision---so much work!  argh.

[Starbeam]

I haven't bought snowflake yet, and wouldn't they be similar with some minor differences?  The problem is which is better and more appropriate for me.  now I have to use that side of my brain again, you know the CPA figure it out part.  it frequently languishes happily if I give it a beer every now and again.  Waking it up, poking it until it works to make the decision---so much work!  argh.

Snowflake is a method of writing, from what the description on the site says.  Scrivener is a program geared towards writing projects--anything like novels, blog posts, magazine articles, thesis papers, studying for the bar exam, and lots of other stuff.  It's sort of like a word processor/outliner/corkboard all in one, with some other added stuff, as well.  So really, you could use Scrivener to write with the snowflake method.  Check out the literature and latte site; links in the first two posts, and maybe watch some of the tutorial videos.  Those are for the Mac version, but they should give an idea of what can be done with the Windows version, when it comes out.

[Starbeam]

Trial for 2.0 for macs and windows version is live.  http://www.literatureandlatte.com/nanowrimo.html

[Enjorous]

Yup, just downloaded the windows version and I'm gonna start the tutorial video when I get back to my room.

[jeno]

Whatever you do, don't hit ctrl + D or pick the option to make snapshots- it's a bug that crashes Scrivener. xD

[Starbeam]

Well, it is a beta version.  The plus side is that after NaNo, they should have all kinds of bugs found to be worked out before it actually goes live.  The Mac 2.0 version won't let you use almost any command keys.  Not even to quit.  Actually, I think the menu options don't work, either.

[Enjorous]

Yeah, and if you use the beta for NaNo and win you get 50% off.