go back to any previous version of any part of the text.
keep different versions of the same part of the text, and easily switch between them.
focus on content and structure.
write any type of text meant for humans.
export to any format imaginable.
collaborate with other people.
In May 2004, Adam C. Engst wrote about WriteRight: The Writer’s Word Processor where he laid out his idea of the perfect word processor. Over 6 1/2 years later there is still no such thing. Scrivener is a major leap forward but I feel it is still lacking in some areas, so here I have outlined my own ideas for the perfect writing software. Unfortunately all the good names are taken. The mediocre ones too. So I give you:
Continuing from last week’s ideas for Scrivener’s corkboard, here are some suggestions for the rest of the application.
Preview when configuring a compile
When it’s time to get my writings out of Scrivener, there will often be a lot of back and forth to get the output just the way I want it. It would save a lot of time if there was an instant preview when configuring the compile settings.
Scrivener is an excellent application and the closest anything has come to a great word processor (as opposed to a page layout application, which is what most word processors really are). Fiction and non-fiction writers alike love it, and I fully recommend it for writing anything longer than a blog post. But it’s so full of functionality and customisation options that it can be a bit unintuitive at times. So here are a few ideas for improvements.
As I mentioned a week ago, I have a strong dislike for the “Save” dialogue boxes that pop up every time you close a document. It seems someone at Apple, and by someone I mean you–know–who, agrees with me. The next version of Mac OS X will include auto-saving and applications will automatically resume where they were when they closed.
Some survey once showed that the dumbest question known to mankind is “Are you sleeping?” I don’t get it. That seems like a perfectly valid question. If you get no answer it means “yes” and if you get any answer at all it means “no”. Couldn’t be simpler.
No the dumbest question ever must surely be this one:
