Atomic Scribbler -- a Windows replacement for Scrivener?

Posted by washere
Mar 22, 2018 at 03:55 PM

I’ve been playing with Scribbler. Is it a lightweight Scrivener?

Yes and no.

The yes is obvious why. It has a tree outline structure column on the left. With similar nodes & subnode, for chapters or acts, scenes & notes. It also has additional data types as note/etc types for research characters etc. Doesn’t have index cards nodes type though for a board or other features there, hence a cut-down version of Scrivener.

It has the additional data types column on the right, like Scrivener and Rightnote, Whizfolders etc. Much less functions and types etc. though, ie the lightweight version.

In the middle, it has the big editor or word-processor, like Scrivener et al.

Being a lightweight Scrivener, is that good or bad, surely bad? I don’t know. If you like distraction free writing, you could call this sort of feature-free writing vis-a-vis Scrivener. But surely that’s BS & jive. I think so, you can forget about Scrivener features and just write. Instead of fidgeting around looking for excuses and distractions such as bells & whistles features as procrastinating &/or blocked writers do. Maybe, but again I’m not sure. Maybe there is something in this lightweight aspect that might actually be beneficial. I feel so.

That’s why it’s a sort of lightweight Scrivener. But why the “no” part? It has differences. Unlike the right column in Scrivener, the right column here is like a mini editor flip box. Sort of like an index-card box you can flip through. Not an index card board though, just a little box to flip through. Again simpler, and a different use, fast access for notes & fragments. Can flip through the opened notes there relating to the current document or group of documents.

The biggest difference though is in the main central big editor window. This is where it gives Scrivener a run for it’s money and what Scrivener should have as a default feature. Multi tabbed documents at the top bar. You can open as many tabs as you want and quickly access each by clicking the top tabs, like in your web browser.

You don’t have to expand & collapse branches in the left column tree and scroll up & down the tiny column scroll bar to open another document. If you don’t think this is not good, imagine replacing your browser top multi tabs with a long left column you have to scroll up and down and fiddling in little areas. I love the outliner tree, don’t get me wrong, but this, top multi tabs in editor pane, is extra. Horses for courses. And a killer feature.

Scribbler is usable for me as it now has a dark theme. The dev thinks it’s useless. But he doesn’t know much about what people need or even want or i suspect about people in general.

There is a place for scribbler. Less complex projects than Scrivener for sure. But also i see it useful for bigger projects too. Before writing, i use a few other genres of software to get to this stage in the tool chain. Scribbler looks useful for begging to write the project with notes/etc from the other genres. However, once it’s roughly in a good enough shape, i can move the project from scribbler to Scrivener. That would be nice.

I think it has a future. You get updates for a year. He says he hasn’t decided on how much or how he’ll charge for upgrades beyond the first year and will decide before the first year after launch is up.

Scribbler is a bit of a Greek gods’ mythology type of hybrid creation. Basically it’s as if Scrivener raped NoteCase Pro and the bastard child born was named Atomic Scribbler.

The whole thing is not very intellectual, but the bastard works.