New developments with PageFour

< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >

Posted by Jack Crawford
Mar 10, 2009 at 07:25 AM

I’ve just noticed that version 1.70 of this classy piece of writing software has been released. (http://www.softwareforwriting.com)

Even more enticing is the comment on the blog of the developer, Darren Devitt, that “A lot of work is planned for PageFour over the next couple of months”.

I live in hope that the outlining functionality of PageFour will eventually be enhanced. If that happened, it would be a candidate to replace the one pane outliners such as NoteMap.

Jack

Posted by JohnK
Mar 10, 2009 at 11:22 PM

I like PageFour, and I have praised it before here and elsewhere.

However, after trying most of the available writing programs recently, I switched to The Journal (http://www.davidrm.com/thejournal/).

Even though The Journal (TJ) is marketed primarily as a journal writing program, it is a fine general writing environment. Its export functions, in particular, are better than PageFour and it has a more polished feel.

I emailed the developer of TJ a few months ago, and suggested he was missing out on a large potential market. I said he should develop a new program in parallel, based on the TJ engine, but aimed at writers other than journal writers, with additional functions. We had a fairly detailed exchange, and he seems keen on the idea.

The main “missing feature” in TJ (and PageFour for that matter) is a proper outlining system for prose. I suggested that TJ should have an outliner similar to Scrivener on the Mac. The second screenshot on this page (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/screens1.html) looks just about perfect to me. It’s almost enough to make me go out and buy a Mac. But not quite.

Anyway, the developer of TJ said he would try to produce something by the middle of this year, so that may be worth keeping an eye out for.

In fairness, I should add that the developer of PageFour is a good guy as well. When I wrote to him a year or so ago and said that his licensing system was old-fashioned and probably costing him business, he agreed and changed his terms (he was selling single machine licences—you now have the choice of single machine or single user).

It’s good to see a new version of Page Four, but it’s been a very long time coming. I think the program needs a more rapid development cycle if it’s to become the premier Windows app for writers.

Posted by Chris Thompson
Mar 11, 2009 at 07:38 AM

Just worth mentioning… Scrivener 1.5 was released 10 days ago. If anyone’s checked it out before, there are some nice new features in this new release that are worth checking out.

—Chris

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Mar 14, 2009 at 02:06 PM

I was very pleasantly surprised to get the following message from Page Four’s development a couple of days ago:

“As we move into 2009, PageFour is a little over 3 years old. In all that time, we’ve done very little advertising. The vast majority of new PageFour users come on the back of personal recommendations from existing users.

As a token of our appreciation for all these recommendations, we are offering existing customers a complimentary PageFour license, to do with as you choose. So give it to a friend or colleague that might find it useful, or use it yourself on a work or family member’s PC - your decision.”

One of the best promotions I’ve seen around :-)

Back to topic list