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Originally Posted by Metal Mick
I see your point, but Scrivener is not nearly so complex as your examples. It is after all, a much, much smaller install. That said, LSB is regarded as having a steep learning curve and yet I was able to quickly learn how to drive it. WriteWayPro was even easier.
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I don't think that LSB has a "steep learning curve;" I think that the concepts behind it are badly documented, and the things that people expect to be there from the marketing spiel aren't. The developer, I think, in looking at it in hindsight, thought he'd do everything in databases, and allow each writer to "roll his own," so if using a builder suited one person, they'd use that. A planner, another; the outline, a third, and so forth.
He essentially put named elements (like chapters in rtf format) in a database, and then allowed the authors to "call them" into the various devices/tools (planners, builders, sequences, storyboards and the like) simply
to facilitate the ability to LOOK at the same data, presented in a different way. You could, say, write chapters in a Planner, or scenes (whatever floats your boat) and then pull them into the Outline, and then drag and drop them about to your heart's content. That part, I thought, was somewhat useful. Of course,
you can do exactly the same thing in XYwriter. {shrug}. And...I just like whats-is-name, at XY, more. (For whatever that is worth).
He (the LSB developer) also originally started from a screenwriter's perspective, as he himself has stated, which affected how he viewed the usability. It has some features I quite liked (the random character generator) and some that I thought were useless. (The storyboards, given their quite-limited functionality.) I felt as though the developer spent more time developing the "backgrounds" (to make LSB look pretty) than he did the functionality. Still don't understand the value of "sequences" over "storyboards," and I still prefer XYWriter's time-lining (done
for you, not
BY you) over LSB's, which is all manual labor. But, as we previously courteously agreed, to each their own.
And I think it's also quite clear that one needs to be happy with LSB as it is; I don't think an update has been forthcoming in what, 4 years now?
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If there is a clear need for books on how to drive a simple piece of software such as Scrivener then the UI is getting in the way of productivity.
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Well, there are books and easy-peasy online, interactive tutorials, on how to use Word, which has been around for decades, and apparently, based on the files from my clientele, nobody reads/uses them. ;-) Certainly, I find a rather huge percentage of the population has
zero idea about a huge amount of Word's built-in functionality, simply because they are apparently allergic or adverse to tutorials, manuals, etc. I don't know if that says something about the software, or the people using it. I'm never happy with any piece of software until I have, and have read, front-to-back, the manual. But, {shrug}, that's just me. I wouldn't have the business today that I have, had I not ever bothered to learn Word--wouldn't have had the fundamentals, and the understanding of how it works well enough so that I could map it to making ebooks properly and correctly via export to HTML.
Again, FWIW. I don't think that there's really any software out there worth two hoots that's entirely intuitive. A nice goal for developers, but...I can't think of any such examples off the top of my head.
Hitch