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gmw · 03-25-2012, 09:59 AM

Crich70: Thanks for the suggestion. I've downloaded and tried out yWriter5. My initial (very brief look so far) is that I don't really like the interface all that much, nor the way it manages project files (though it would be easy to adapt to it, just remember to save your project(s) in a folder away from other files). The interface does compare very favourably with my initial (very brief look so far) reaction to Liquid Story Binder. LSB is prettier, but yWriter is more obvious and intuitive. With LSB I was quickly lost, unable to quickly tell where and how the various bits fitted into other bits. I think LSB is one of those programs that will take a long time to learn, whereas with yWriter5 I think I could get going quite fast ... except in my current situation where I have so much I would have to transfer before all the bits in yWriter could work effectively and let me continue the actual writing. One non-intuitive thing in yWriter: I haven't worked out how to manage time-lines yet, though it says it can do it.

Justin Nemo: My programming work is primarily database related, so a similar solution has occurred to me. It is particularly appealing because the common failing with all the tools, that I've tried so far, is their word-processors (after being used to using a full featured word-processor). My existing database framework allows for linked files so I could possibly manage things via the database while still using OpenOffice for my actual writing.

Dr. Drib: Thanks for your suggestion. SuperNoteCard is interesting software, deceptively simple. It does even support some sort of time-line capability ... but in a sort of round-a-about manner that I think would be difficult to use for anything but very simple requirements.

Starting to sound pretty fussy I guess. I was hoping that there might have been something out there that worked the way I wanted to work, something I could move over to and say, "Ah, yes, that feels right." Much of the software I've tried - be it Scrivener, LSB, yWriter or SuperNoteCard - is something that I think might work well when you first start project, so that your work would shape itself within the software features. Trying to fit an already extensive project into such software was always going to be a big ask, and perhaps not entirely practical - unless/until I am ready to commit serious time to it (which takes away from my precious writing time).

For the benefit of anyone reading this thread: I thought the initial tutorial with Scrivener was very good, a very neat and structured way to get a person familiar with the software. SuperNoteCard had a three-little-pigs example project which helped to see how you might use the software, not as good as Scrivener, but then the software is not as complicated. yWriter was pretty obvious up front, so a lack of built-in tutorial wasn't that much of an issue. LSB does have an example project but I didn't find that it helped me to understand how to actually the software for what I wanted (in their defense, it is intended to be flexible software, but that flexibility comes at the cost of having much to learn before you can use it effectively - or so it seems to me, I would be curious to hear comments from anyone else that's used it).

03-25-2012, 09:59 AM	#5
gmw cacoethes scribendi Posts: 5,818 Karma: 137770742 Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura One & H2Ov2, Sony PRS-650	Crich70: Thanks for the suggestion. I've downloaded and tried out yWriter5. My initial (very brief look so far) is that I don't really like the interface all that much, nor the way it manages project files (though it would be easy to adapt to it, just remember to save your project(s) in a folder away from other files). The interface does compare very favourably with my initial (very brief look so far) reaction to Liquid Story Binder. LSB is prettier, but yWriter is more obvious and intuitive. With LSB I was quickly lost, unable to quickly tell where and how the various bits fitted into other bits. I think LSB is one of those programs that will take a long time to learn, whereas with yWriter5 I think I could get going quite fast ... except in my current situation where I have so much I would have to transfer before all the bits in yWriter could work effectively and let me continue the actual writing. One non-intuitive thing in yWriter: I haven't worked out how to manage time-lines yet, though it says it can do it. Justin Nemo: My programming work is primarily database related, so a similar solution has occurred to me. It is particularly appealing because the common failing with all the tools, that I've tried so far, is their word-processors (after being used to using a full featured word-processor). My existing database framework allows for linked files so I could possibly manage things via the database while still using OpenOffice for my actual writing. Dr. Drib: Thanks for your suggestion. SuperNoteCard is interesting software, deceptively simple. It does even support some sort of time-line capability ... but in a sort of round-a-about manner that I think would be difficult to use for anything but very simple requirements. Starting to sound pretty fussy I guess. I was hoping that there might have been something out there that worked the way I wanted to work, something I could move over to and say, "Ah, yes, that feels right." Much of the software I've tried - be it Scrivener, LSB, yWriter or SuperNoteCard - is something that I think might work well when you first start project, so that your work would shape itself within the software features. Trying to fit an already extensive project into such software was always going to be a big ask, and perhaps not entirely practical - unless/until I am ready to commit serious time to it (which takes away from my precious writing time). For the benefit of anyone reading this thread: I thought the initial tutorial with Scrivener was very good, a very neat and structured way to get a person familiar with the software. SuperNoteCard had a three-little-pigs example project which helped to see how you might use the software, not as good as Scrivener, but then the software is not as complicated. yWriter was pretty obvious up front, so a lack of built-in tutorial wasn't that much of an issue. LSB does have an example project but I didn't find that it helped me to understand how to actually the software for what I wanted (in their defense, it is intended to be flexible software, but that flexibility comes at the cost of having much to learn before you can use it effectively - or so it seems to me, I would be curious to hear comments from anyone else that's used it).