Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Drib
I'm not aware of a timeline.
I'm testing Aeon Timeline for that very purpose, but it's about the cost of Scrivener.
Aeon Timeline is geared specifically for writers.
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Well, drat.
I've been a happy YWriter user for a long time, but the way YWriter actually works--or doesn't--is giving me some agita with my Win8 laptop. I have:
- YWriter;
- LSBXE (all hat, no cattle, but I have some stuff in it that I don't want to lose--worthless as a writer's program, IMHO);
- Snowflake Pro, (useful, but also, not really designed for a cloud environment), and,
- something else I'm forgetting. Obviously, not that important.
None of these are really designed to work with a cloud environment. YWriter literally can't "see" its own RTF files, if I save it to Dropbox, from the Win8 laptop, because it uses the Dropbox for Mobile "app," really, not the usual Dropbox Desktop. That means that the dir. structure isn't one that YWriter can see or recognize. So, that's out. I tried using a LAN, across my own network, to shared folders on my desktop--where I do a large part of my work--but of course, that means that both computers have to be running, for that to work.
I don't want to lose YWriter's (frankly AWESOME) built-in timelining, if I can avoid it. I don't know any other writing program that has one--not one that you don't have to do manually. I'm utterly disinterested in that. (Having to input material I've already done, to manually create a timeline--what happens when you move scenes around? In YWriter, IT does the work.)
SPro can't, it seems, peer across a network and see the files that I've created on box X for box Y. That's frustrating as hell. I don't want to give that up, because frankly, I like the way that SP makes me THINK about my character development. If I've learned one thing, it's that if you create characters that people love, they'll read almost ANY dreck that has them.
I've debated on simply using YWriter with some type of kluge for Evernote or OneNote, but...that feels all clunky too. I really don't want to buy Scrivener, because it looks/feels a lot like LSBXE to me. Now--I'm just going to say this, and please, everybody, don't get offended, but vis-a-vis LSBXE, frankly, to me, it wasn't that useful. I felt like the developers spent more time creating a program that was all foofy and had all these bells and whistles, so that someone could
feel like a REAL WRITER, rather than focusing on FUNCTIONALITY. For one simple example, the RTF that it outputs is crap. The storyboards, which are a big focus of the program, are just...like index cards. You can't (for example) do a bunch of scenes, and then output a new outline or story from that revised storyboard listing. The timelines are the same as using something manual--you have to do all the input, even if you've already written the scenes, whereas in YWriter, it tracks that for you, if you ensure that you put the start-stop time of the scene in whilst writing it.
I realize that there's no magic tool. But I've reached the point with several programs, two computers that I do use relentlessly, and these programs NOT suited for saving across the Net/Cloud/LAN....phhhllllbbbfffftt. Just frustrated today, I guess.
Hitch