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ConnectedText vs. Scrivener
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Posted by JBfrom
Mar 6, 2012 at 03:07 PM
Whaaat? A crimper can’t get his wife to sign off on a netbook?
I have a few basic non-negotiable needs: water, food, shelter, tobacco, two pc’s, broadband internet, and speakers - in that order. Women are not on the list.
Anyway, sometimes the solution isn’t the software, but the hardware.
I highly recommend a dual PC solution:
mac + windows, or
linux+ windows
I use two screens, one’s my laptop and the other a big monitor. I have screen integration with synergy, file integration with TeamViewer, and keyboard/mouse integration with a KVM switch.
That way, no more cross platform woes.
It’s like buttah
Posted by Franz Grieser
Mar 6, 2012 at 04:18 PM
Hi Stephen Zeoli
>(For the record, I’m now trying it with Ulysses, which shares some attributes with
>CT.)
No comment on that ;-)
Just: What does Ulysses do that you cannot do in Scrivener?
Thanks, Franz
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Mar 6, 2012 at 04:36 PM
Franz,
The true answer is: nothing. But I’m desperate.
The task at hand is very vexing—reworking a 100-page manuscript that is loaded with facts (it’s a history of a Revolutionary War fortification site), but is poorly written. Excessive detail in some areas. Minimal detail in others. Lots of excess words. I’ve got to chop it down then rebuild it. Oh, and I don’t have a lot of time each day to devote to it. So I’ve had trouble making progress. I’ve tried Scrivener and Tinderbox to no avail. I thought CT might be a good option, but… see above.
However, Ulysses is a plain text environment like ConnectedText. And I like the way it handles inline comments better than Scrivener, and I think annotating the manuscript might be the best (and latest) first step. So it is, as we say in the U.S., a Hail Mary pass (reference to a desperate, late in the game play in American football when the quarterback throws a deep pass into the end zone and prays his teammate will catch it).
Steve Z.
Franz Grieser wrote:
>Hi Stephen Zeoli
>
>>(For the record, I’m now trying it with Ulysses, which shares some
>attributes with
>>CT.)
>
>No comment on that ;-)
>Just: What does Ulysses do that you
>cannot do in Scrivener?
>
>Thanks, Franz
Posted by Hugh
Mar 6, 2012 at 05:12 PM
Steve, you haven’t asked for suggestions on this, and so it may be invidious to contribute, but anyway if it’s helpful here’s mine.
I’d use Word for this job. Currently there are no better tools for final editing of prose than its Comments and Track Changes features, in my view. (That’s not just my view, but also the view of several other writers of my acquaintance.) I’d probably “chunk” the 100 pages up with Scrivener, get the overall structure right and then export in rtf to handle the re-write in Word. To avoid the dreaded Word crash risk (although that’s probably now much-diminished or non-existent) I’d tackle only a few sections at a time. Finally I’d probably re-export in rtf to Scrivener to re-combine. (This all assumes there are few or no illustrations, or they could be added as a very late step.) Word in either its Mac or Windows manifestations would do, but I think the Windows version would be better in certain respects. (See David Hewson’s blog for his reasons.) That’s what I use Parallels on my Mac Mini for.
Final thought: of course this discussion may be an indication that the writing world is waiting for an editing/polishing app (as opposed to a drafting app) that isn’t Word. I’m sure Scrivener will achieve that if it can. Trouble is, so Keith Blount says, Track Changes or anything that approximates to it is darned long-winded to code.
Posted by Dr Andus
Mar 6, 2012 at 06:01 PM
Hugh wrote:
>Steve, you haven’t asked for suggestions on this, and so it may be invidious to
>contribute, but anyway if it’s helpful here’s mine.
>
>I’d use Word for this job.
>Currently there are no better tools for final editing of prose than its Comments and
>Track Changes features, in my view. (That’s not just my view, but also the view of
>several other writers of my acquaintance.) I’d probably “chunk” the 100 pages up with
>Scrivener, get the overall structure right and then export in rtf to handle the
>re-write in Word. To avoid the dreaded Word crash risk (although that’s probably now
>much-diminished or non-existent) I’d tackle only a few sections at a time. Finally
>I’d probably re-export in rtf to Scrivener to re-combine. (This all assumes there are
>few or no illustrations, or they could be added as a very late step.) Word in either its
>Mac or Windows manifestations would do, but I think the Windows version would be
>better in certain respects. (See David Hewson’s blog for his reasons.) That’s what I
>use Parallels on my Mac Mini for.
This reminds me of this previous thread we had on outliners for redacting text. I found Scrivener’s Ctrl+K split function pretty handy for breaking down the text into paragraphs and eliminating or reducing them one-by-one.
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/3167/0/outliner-for-redacting