See https://lifehacker.com/you-can-get-a-lifetime-subscription-to-scrivener-for-3-1850155969

Great tool, and L&L's policy is to offer either free upgrades across major versions or upgrades at good discounts, no matter how old a license is.

The company is very friendly to the yet-to-be-discovered writer, too. That's nice.

Leib Moscovitz wrote:

See
https://lifehacker.com/you-can-get-a-lifetime-subscription-to-scrivener-for-3-1850155969

Stacksocial will be taking a big chunk of that $30. And the vendor aren't going to get an upgrade revenue if they are giving a lifetime sub. I wonder how they are going to be able to afford to give decent support?

--
Andy Brice
https://www.hyperplan.com
https://www.easydatatransform.com
https://www.successfulsoftware.net

I personally think that Mr. Brice has been making quite a lot of advertising for his personal business interests here; evangelisting for some software when you're fond of it, give the reasons, and have NO financial interest whatsoever, is one thing, permanently doing free advertising is quite another, as far as I'm concerned, but of course, that's foremost Chris' interest (to make him pay e.g.) - all the more so since NONE of Mr. Brice's software is an outliner, and btw, from his musings about software development, he has removed reader comments some time ago, and I can confirm that before, there had not been any problem with "inadequate" user comments, all to the contrary: many of them had been very constructive, but that's probably what motivated Mr. Brice to do away with them.

The constant IQ "ads" here are different, since IQ is a legit outliner, and probably even one of the best there currently are on the market.

Just my opinion, but if I had software to sell, I kindly asked about prices, instead of trying to constantly and persistently sponging.

I made one reference to my software on the ' Software that supports custom attributes and can generate all combinations of them?' thread, that I thought was relevant. A couple of other people commented on that.

I included a sig in this thread.

I think that is all posted in the last week or two.

Is that an unacceptable level of self-promotion?

22111 wrote:

and btw, from his
musings about software development, he has removed reader comments some
time ago, and I can confirm that before, there had not been any problem
with "inadequate" user comments, all to the contrary: many of them had
been very constructive, but that's probably what motivated Mr. Brice to
do away with them.

You are quite wrong on this.

Comments are open on my blog for some months after each post is published. They are then automatically closed to reduce the amount of spam comments (spammers like to target old blog posts). Check the latest post, if you don't believe me.

Speaking for myself, I have absolutely no problem with that!

I also find your question on Scrivener's promotion perfectly reasonable and legitimate. From my part, I am concerned when developers seem to be giving too much away for free or for peanuts. With scaled online services there is the theoretical concept of "zero marginal cost", but don't get me started on it...


Andy Brice wrote:

Is that an unacceptable level of self-promotion?

Andy,

I guess I can only speak for myself -- though I believe most of the folks on this forum would share my sentiments -- but I welcome your comments. I have no problem with you mentioning Hyperplan -- an excellent app, btw. It is good to get the perspective of developers. Sure there are some commenters who ramble on and on and on. But your posts are always succinct and interesting.

Steve

Andy Brice wrote:

I made one reference to my software on the ' Software that supports
custom attributes and can generate all combinations of them?' thread,
that I thought was relevant. A couple of other people commented on that.

I included a sig in this thread.

I think that is all posted in the last week or two.

Is that an unacceptable level of self-promotion?

22111 wrote:
> and btw, from his
>musings about software development, he has removed reader comments some
>time ago, and I can confirm that before, there had not been any problem
>with "inadequate" user comments, all to the contrary: many of them had
>been very constructive, but that's probably what motivated Mr. Brice to
>do away with them.

You are quite wrong on this.

Comments are open on my blog for some months after each post is
published. They are then automatically closed to reduce the amount of
spam comments (spammers like to target old blog posts). Check the latest
post, if you don't believe me.

Andy Brice wrote:

I made one reference to my software on the ' Software that supports
custom attributes and can generate all combinations of them?' thread,
that I thought was relevant. A couple of other people commented on that.

I included a sig in this thread.

I think that is all posted in the last week or two.

Is that an unacceptable level of self-promotion?

@Andy: No, for me your postings are not unacceptable self-promotion. For me you are a competent and helpful contributor to this forum. And I hope you will continue to be so despite that unacceptable attack by 22111.

@22111: Not only do you rant about software and OSses you obviously never really used, you also insult people here. In my world, that is absolutely unacceptable. Make useful contributions or shut up.

Andy's posts are totally fine with me. I personally appreciate small developers contributing to this forum.

Also, while there has always been a special interest in outliners specifically, this site has never been limited to that: we've always had a lot of discussion of note takers, wikis, databases, knowledge managers, etc., etc.

Let's limit our discussion to software and leave out the personal attacks, please.

Well, personally, I don't know Mr. Brice. I just buy his software for a fraction of what it's worth and exploit the crud out of it for personal gain. :-)

@22111 - If I may be bold, please continue to contribute but in a way that leaves room for differing opinion and use cases. I like to defend, no, strike that, I like to clarify and bolster my view of how a given application can support a given methodology. When I do that, I often learn from how others employ tools.

That makes applications more valuable to me.

Good grief, this is an unwarranted attack. Firstly, because it totally fails to acknowledge Andy's interesting contributions to the forum. Secondly, because it is based on a very narrow definition of the term "outliner". And thirdly, because of the unpleasant, accusatory tone.

What's got into you, 22111? Is this just one of your usual rants? Perhaps you could rant somewhere else, and return here when you've got something more intelligent to say?

22111 wrote:

I personally think that Mr. Brice has been making quite a lot of
advertising for his personal business interests here; evangelisting for
some software when you're fond of it, give the reasons, and have NO
financial interest whatsoever, is one thing, permanently doing free
advertising is quite another, as far as I'm concerned, but of course,
that's foremost Chris' interest (to make him pay e.g.) - all the more so
since NONE of Mr. Brice's software is an outliner, and btw, from his
musings about software development, he has removed reader comments some
time ago, and I can confirm that before, there had not been any problem
with "inadequate" user comments, all to the contrary: many of them had
been very constructive, but that's probably what motivated Mr. Brice to
do away with them.

The constant IQ "ads" here are different, since IQ is a legit outliner,
and probably even one of the best there currently are on the market.

Just my opinion, but if I had software to sell, I kindly asked about
prices, instead of trying to constantly and persistently sponging.

22111 has nothing intelligent to say. If he ever did have something intelligent to say, he'd not be able to express it in a form worthwhile to read. His posts are cholesterol, and his attempts to be provocative derive from his sad quest for attention. I've noticed that if no one engages with him, he disappears for a while.

In order to be coherent, you first have to be honest, and the developer whose constant advertising of his non-outliner sw I have criticized above, is not coherent in his reasoning: His post, beyond being an ad for his non-outliner biz, tells us - if I translate it more or less correctly here - that he doesn't understand how sw developers who charge 60 bucks, can (financially, organizationally - considering alleged after-sales services and so on) bear selling for 50 p.c. of that, when in the end, they will just get 50 p.c. (he didn't mention the percentage, but that it is.. for him, at bits...) of those 50 p.c., and which in the end will then make a quarter of the original - more or less adequately - calculated asking price...

whilst he's regularly on bits, where he gets 50 p.c. of his asking price over, and which might be 40, 50, 60 p.c. off his "list" price - I don't remember... (and even ( about 7, 8 p.c.?) less (i.e. off that initial fraction), probably, if you count the payment processor's share?)

but I remember that he's on bits very regularly, and at these conditions (since bits publishes them), and whilst I couldn't say he's to be found there every 3 or 4 months, it's very often indeed - which would be provable in case.

Thus my impression that his whining, and (obviously just made-up) "surprise" (or "disgust"? whatever) here about a third party's commercial strategy which, for once (?), mimics the, by himself, very well-beaten path, was just another hook for advertising his non-outline sw.

And I wouldn't have dared speak about that latter aspect here if I hadn't first retrieved that former aspect - whilst not having written about that one, but then you asked for it.

A post that makes 3 ads for one's own (and then, not even connected) biz interests in a row, but, in order to make those "pass", feigns "incomprehension" about that biz's own, and very largely applied by that very biz, marketing strategy, is...

yeah, you name it: SPAM.

And that immediate-previous poster is mistaken, too: I come here again whenever I've got new, relevant things to say, and then, also, I take the liberty to read here... and to comment here and there - co-posters' "fault" if the current "recent" list, yesterday, had been exceptionally (sic!) abundant in themes I've got my say, too - so sorry indeed! ;-)

I'd really rather not engage in mudslinging and ad hominm attacks. But I feel I need to respond to some of these misinformed comments.

Hyper Plan (dare I mention my product name) isn't an outliner, but I would call it 'outliner adjacent'. My understanding is that outlinersoftware.com is a fairly broad church, where people discuss all aspects of personal information management and productivity systems.

I do promotions from time to time with BitsDuJour. I get 50% of 50% of normal list price, which is a fairly miserable. *But* I then have the possibility to sell the customer a major version upgrade further down the line. Which makes it worthwhile.

The Scrivener promotion is selling a 'lifetime subscription'. So no chance to make any money on upgrades later. Quite different.

However Scrivener has been around a long time and I believe is well thought off. So I presume they know what they are doing. I'm genuinely curious about why they would agree to those terms. Normally you only see green and desparate startups offer lifetime subscriptions for low prices. Perhaps they have is some grand strategy I know nothing about. Or maybe I have misunderstood what the deal is.

Andy, I think Scrivener is doing exactly the same thing. The "lifetime" deal is for version 3, so if you want to upgrade to 4, you pay for the new version.

At least that is how I am reading it.

Jon

Hang on a sec.

Whining? Andy? Hardly. He isn't in competition with Scrivener. He just made a business observation.

Andy's Hyperplan works well as a replacement for Plottr. Set attributes for plot thread and chapter, and display chapters as rows and plot threads as columns (or vice versa).

That's why I bought it. I found it worked more to my liking as a kanban utility, but it isn't bad for story planning.

One strength it's got is that connections (lines between cards) are actually navigable. Typical mind maps allow adding connections, but don't have a way to navigate them. If you end up with a bowl of spaghetti, it's hard to follow the lines. Hyperplan will list the connections from each card. Superior.

Would you prefer not to be able to contact developers? Microsoft Word might be your best choice. If you can contact developers, is it OK for them to have a signature block identifying what they develop?

Andy, please don't stop posting here.

22111 wrote:

Thus my impression that his whining, and (obviously just made-up)
"surprise" (or "disgust"? whatever) here about a third party's
commercial strategy which, for once (?), mimics the, by himself, very
well-beaten path, was just another hook for advertising his non-outline
sw.
(snip)
A post that makes 3 ads for one's own (and then, not even connected) biz
interests in a row, but, in order to make those "pass", feigns
"incomprehension" about that biz's own, and very largely applied by that
very biz, marketing strategy, is...

yeah, you name it: SPAM.

Jon Polish wrote:

Andy, I think Scrivener is doing exactly the same thing. The "lifetime"
deal is for version 3, so if you want to upgrade to 4, you pay for the
new version.

At least that is how I am reading it.

Looking at it again, I think you are probably right. It is 'lifehacker' who are being (either deliberately or unntentionally) sloppy in their use of language, by calling it a 'lifetime subscription'. They should have called it a perpetual licence for v3.

Yes, that was my understanding, too.

Andy Brice wrote:

Jon Polish wrote:
Andy, I think Scrivener is doing exactly the same thing. The "lifetime"
>deal is for version 3, so if you want to upgrade to 4, you pay for the
>new version.
>
>At least that is how I am reading it.

Looking at it again, I think you are probably right. It is 'lifehacker'
who are being (either deliberately or unntentionally) sloppy in their
use of language, by calling it a 'lifetime subscription'. They should
have called it a perpetual licence for v3.

To Andy:

I've noticed an increase in the use of "lifetime" when referring only to a major version. This is potentially misleading but the developer probably means that you have the version for life with no additional charges.

To Amontillado:

Agreed. I learned of HyperPlan here and it is valuable for any number of things. But one unexpected benefit was to demonstrate the value of pivot tables (in an easy to understand way) for evaluating some of our data. For years, nobody got it. A few demos using HyperPlan and it clicked. I blame the teacher (me).

Andy's other program, Easy Data Transform has also been valuable and on occasion, saved me from anything from disaster to a day's slog through a morass of tedium.

Jon

Thanks for the kind words. But you do know you're going to set off @22111 again!

Not my intention. Still, it seems a shame to murder so many electrons.

Jon

I'm all in favour of developers contributing, replying, announcing so long as it's clear who they are. That just improves everyone's understanding.

I'm not sure why Scrivener is offering a discount. They always used to for NaNoWriMo but I don't remember others. And their versions have been remarkably long-lived so far. I can't imagine them wanting to go through the pain of producing a v4 for Windows. otoh, for general users, the whole design feels rather long in the tooth compared to more modern, frequently more expensive subscription-based, programs. Maybe they need more new users because that's their only source of income.

Regarding Hyper Plan as an outliner, I have not used it as a writing tool for some time - but I use it daily for personal management and it saves my bacon regularly.

I have a Hyper Plan file as a warning system for bills coming due. There are currently 66 lines in my budget. Most are monthly, some are per quarter and per year.

Vendors can't be relied on to send timely invoices (TXU, I'm looking at you) so I have to keep an eye on the next few weeks. My budget spreadsheet includes predicted due dates, and you would think that would do the trick, but obvious things get buried.

My budget Hyper Plan file lets me see the next week, two weeks, or month. When I pay a bill, I right click its Hyper Plan card and use the "shift date" feature to kick it a month, quarter, or year down the road, depending on its billing cycle.

I'm never late on a bill, even if I don't get a timely invoice.

Regarding Hyper Plan as a writing tool, I created a new file with attributes for chapter, arc, and pov.

I can view the cards as array with rows for chapters and columns for arcs. If I added a property for date, I could view the cards as a table sorted by date for a timeline.

If I added properties to flesh out Aeon Timeline, I could export the table as a csv file and import directly into Aeon. I haven't actually done that, but I'm sure that would work.... Oh, heck, it's just a few mouse clicks.... Yes, it imports into Aeon just fine.

I originally bought Hyper Plan for outlining and then used it for kanban like things. I think I might have a go tonight at planning a story with it.

Wow, that's an interesting use case! Never even occurred to me that HyperPlan could be used in that particular way.

There are many browser-based writing apps, some almost identical to Scrivener, others borrowing some of Scrivener's ideas. I imagine they must be having some impact on sales of Scrivener, which could be why the sale.

Steve Z.