little red hen needs help

Posted by Hugh
Feb 4, 2014 at 04:55 PM

andyjim wrote:
Hugh, Tinderbox looks incredible. It almost tempts me to get a Mac. Darn
>things are costly though! You’d think somebody would be working on
>an open source project to emulate Tinderbox.

Andy, the Tinderbox developer Eastgate announced some years ago that a Windows version was in the works. Possibly they were simply trying to head off Windows rivals - I don’t know. Since then there’s been little or no sign of it - but I imagine that a potential emulator would find things difficult, because it’s a very complex programme. My impression is that currently Eastgate have their hands full readying Tinderbox 6 for launch, which has required a complete re-write of the application. So a Windows Tinderbox may still be some distance away.

But in any case Mac hardware needn’t necessarily be as expensive as it sometimes appears. I bought my Mac Mini new not so long ago for somewhere between £300 and £450. It’s a very capable machine, although one does of course also need a keyboard and a monitor. A refurbished Mini would be less expensive still. And as other people will tell you, there are ways of running OS X on a PC.

>Still wishing to talk with a programmer/developer about the whole thing.
>Wrote to Keith Blount (or at least to Scrivener); no word back as yet.
>All the Best,
>Andy
>

Currently, as far as I know, Keith has his hands very full overseeing the launches of new versions of Scrivener for OS X and Windows, and overseeing Scrivener for iOS preparing for the launch of Version 1. But somewhere on the Literature & Latte website, probably in his blog, you may find descriptions of how he decided to create Scrivener and the way he did it. Even so, I think Keith is the exception that proves the rule. And the rule, as far as I can see, is “Buy in if you possibly can”.