Some of you may remember a piece of writing software called PageFour. Personally, I'd forgotten all about it until I got an email from the developer today announcing his new application, Atomic Scribbler.

"Atomic Scribbler is a simple, light weight replacement for Microsoft Word, PageFour and Scrivener. It’s modern, has a fresh and clean look and feel, and is built just for creative writers. It’s new and it’s here to stay!"

Interesting that he added that last bit of reassurance. Anyway, here's the link to the website:

https://www.atomicscribbler.com/

At $47 it isn't a no brainer. But there is a ten day free trial. I've just downloaded it.

Steve Z.

A few quick observations:

1. The software is sluggish on my five-year old Windows 7 machine. Slower than Scrivener. Not sure this is a problem yet.

2. Atomic allows you to create notes as a separate type of document, and associate as many as you want with the various elements of your manuscript. This seems like a nice feature.

3. Atomic allows you to designate any piece of writing as a "fragment," which gets stored with the project but is removed from the main project tree. Out of sight, out of mind.

Steve Z.

The developer has the following warning for PageFour users:

"Atomic Scribbler is not a replacement product for PageFour. Where PageFour was a generalist product aimed at every variation of writer out there, Atomic is specifically designed for novel and short story writers. Academic writers will find it lacking. Journalists will find it lacking. Personal Information Manager users — many of whom were drawn to PageFour — will be frustrated by it. It’s not for them. Atomic was designed for one type of writer only, and that’s fiction writers."

I can't imagine why most folk here would want to investigate Atomic Scribbler further.

I wouldn't read too much into what a creator thinks their creation can be used for by other people.

There are so many seemingly single-purpose applications that can be adopted for other uses.

I don't see why Atomic Scribbler couldn't be used for academic or other type of writing.

But I haven't had a chance to try it yet. From the screenshot though it looks interesting enough.

xtabber wrote:

The developer has the following warning for PageFour users:

"Atomic Scribbler is not a replacement product for PageFour. Where
PageFour was a generalist product aimed at every variation of writer out
there, Atomic is specifically designed for novel and short story
writers. Academic writers will find it lacking. Journalists will find it
lacking. Personal Information Manager users — many of whom were
drawn to PageFour — will be frustrated by it. It’s not for
them. Atomic was designed for one type of writer only, and that’s
fiction writers."

I can't imagine why most folk here would want to investigate Atomic
Scribbler further.

At least in this version on my machine(s) and IMHO, Scrivener has nothing to worry about. A tutorial would perhaps help but I couldn't get rid of the start page and enter into a document in the middle window ... nothing seemed to work.

Page Four was a decent though very limited alternative to Scrivener. This? Not so much. On top of that, I've a 770K i7 cpu, SSD PC and this thing is s...l...u...g...g...i...s...h...ly slow

Not interested. At all.

The notes feature has some promise, but it's clunky like the rest of the software, and non-intuitive as well. For the short time I diddled with the software, I didn't find the software sluggish on an i7 Windows 10 laptop with 16 GB and an SSD.

I'm surprised the developer didn't offer his long-time Page Four users a discount to "upgrade" to Atomic Scribbler. They seem to have been left in the lurch.

-- Bob

I'd say the same -- but since they gave themselves an out by allegedly telling their customers "Atomic Scribbler is not a replacement product for PageFour" they absolved themselves of future customer-loyalty bonds.

I ran into similar with the crew at Clarify-It.com who announced they were abandoning their product with no promises of future support, and, oh by the way, if you like the product we just abandoned you might like our other product that is based on the old product and does similar things and costs $99/month. No discounts, sorry.

bobmclain wrote:

I'm surprised the developer didn't offer his long-time Page Four users a
discount to "upgrade" to Atomic Scribbler. They seem to have been left
in the lurch.

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.

Slightly baffled by this: Scrivener DOES have a "main central big editor window" as a default feature...

But you can set up Scrivener workspaces to do anything you like. In some of my files, I have four windows open simultaneously. In others, I go for two, side by side. Sometimes I just use that big ole' main central editor window. You can save out multiple workspace configurations and reload them whenever you feel like a change of focus.

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.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Slightly baffled by this: Scrivener DOES have a "main central big editor
window" as a default feature...

But you can set up Scrivener workspaces to do anything you like. In some
of my files, I have four windows open simultaneously. In others, I go
for two, side by side. Sometimes I just use that big ole' main central
editor window. You can save out multiple workspace configurations and
reload them whenever you feel like a change of focus.

> 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.

I don't know why the embafflement.

It's not that:

Scrivener DOES have a "main central big editor
window" as a default feature...

Most major tree outliner editors, have!

Secondly I myself said that's not the difference but THE SIMILARITY between the two. DOH!

Secondly, I wasn't talking about multi Windows being open.

Further to what you said, Scrivener 3 has: multi floating Windows.

Thirdly, Scribbler DOES NOT HAVE multi Windows being open at the same time as a feature. As you say a parity equivalent feature, which is wrong as it doesn't actually exist in scribbler.

Fourth, I did not say that either.

Fifth, I said multi tabbed Windows at the top bar of central editor window.
Then I went to explain this clearly.
Then I explained it again.
Then I have the example of a web browser window with multi tabs at the top bar.
Then I said Scrivener does not have this MULTI TABBED WINDOWS AT TOP BAR.
Scribbler does.

Frankly I thought I'd over-explained this simple difference. Honestly I thought so, but obviously not enough.

In fact there are simple structural misunderstandings of the basics by outliner coders/designers. I was going to explain one of those big ones holding back many top contenders, in the previous post too but didn't. Thought might be too much for a single post.

But you can set up Scrivener workspaces to do anything you like. In some
of my files, I have four windows open simultaneously. In others, I go
for two, side by side. Sometimes I just use that big ole' main central
editor window. You can save out multiple workspace configurations and
reload them whenever you feel like a change of focus.

True. You can do lots of stuff in lots of software. Others can comment what they can do in Scrivener too.

Or other software.

Or other configurations, hacks, etc.

But that, or those, are not what I was talking about. I was talking about having multi tabbed buttons for Windows at the top bar of the central editor pane specifically
+
(and let's get this bit clear too) For: a lightweight version or more frankly a smaller version knockoff of Scrivener. Not in Joe Blog's app.

The guy even put a hint in the name, Scribbler vs. Scrivener, or might call it Scrivener Lite.

Scrivener does not have multi tabbed buttons at the top bar of main window. Scribbler does, as do main web browsers. That is what you quoted is about. As explained further in that post. The rest is irrelevant to that particular point. Infinite configurations & features are possible in other software. I wasn't talking about them. Just that feature.

Scrivener should have done this, what I actually talked about ie multi top bar tabs in editor pane, in version 2, when browsers had already implemented it (big Bart Simpson: DOH). The new Version 3 doesn't have it either. Unless there is a hack which I like to know about, but I doubt it.

Maybe something will come of this, maybe it won't, but I can't see why anyone currently invested in Scrivener would descend from that hard-fought learning curve and start from the ground-up with Atomic Scribbler (a truly awful name). The developer abandoned his previous product, PageFour, which had been around for a while, and had been launched at a time when there wasn't so much competition. Given Scribbler's current feature set, and the fact that now there *is* a version of Scrivener for Windows, a very good version, I don't see the appeal in - or the market sense for - Scribbler. Of course I hope I'm proven wrong.

bobmclain wrote:

Maybe something will come of this, maybe it won't, but I can't see why
anyone currently invested in Scrivener would descend from that
hard-fought learning curve and start from the ground-up with Atomic
Scribbler (a truly awful name). The developer abandoned his previous
product, PageFour, which had been around for a while, and had been
launched at a time when there wasn't so much competition. Given
Scribbler's current feature set, and the fact that now there *is* a
version of Scrivener for Windows, a very good version, I don't see the
appeal in - or the market sense for - Scribbler. Of course I hope I'm
proven wrong.

Yes, that was my initial, and then medium term, impression.

Firstly comparing multi tabbed top bar, non-existent in scrivener, to multiple Windows is a very basic and to put it bluntly a wrong dismissal.

It's like saying to billions of people who use tabbed web browsers to open multi tabs every single day that you are wrong and stupid and should instead use:

Multi browser floating Windows
Multi instances of browsers
Multi browser types
Frame based websites
Multiple Virtual OS boxes
Multiple virtual desktops in Windows/Mac
multiple monitors
etc etc

Instead of multiple tabbed pages in a browser. Most are not wrong nor stupid to do so. We all do it. Same thing here, scrivener simply doesn't have it.

Secondly, imaging one is writing a chapter. At any given time, we need to have quick access to a few relevant files. You might say you can click on the tree. What if some files are not in the SUB branch but way down, common data files, reference, notes etc.?

Why should one fiddle with tiny scroll bars, moving up & down a big long tree and expanding collapsing branches? When the relevant top tabs for current chapter are there as one closed the software?

Not to mention CTRL+TAB to switch between them fast. Long live the tree, but this is something else.

Thirdly the right column flip box of index cards are unique too. It keeps last session's ones also.

Fourth, it's got other features like its own note & fragments etc types.

Fifth reason I changed my mind, it's got top section interface buttons for 2 whole other sections with their own:

Tree +
Top tabbed Windows

These are:

Fragments +
Research

These are two whole separate environments. With slight differences to the the main DOCUMENTS environment. You can copy stuff between environments.

Scrivener will incorporate multi top tabs at the top bar, dragged kicking & screaming at some point. But this trio of environments is where the dev can distinguish himself further and keep scrivener running. It has great potential. BUT it's already very useful.


Sixth main reason for me, it's good for smaller projects. Better all-over fast view etc. To dismiss this is similar to saying all general word processor smaller than MS Word are pointless. They are not. For a variety of reasons. Sometimes people use MS Wordpad or event notepad or thousands of other editor software.

Seventh, due to the above reasons, it's very useful to start even a large project in scribbler, give it some meat and work out the main structure too before migrating the project to scrivener.

These are some of the reasons I changed my mind. Each to his own, but I do see a point, now.

@washere: As much as I love tabs in my web browser, I hate them in a word processor. I often have to or want to compare 2 or more documents (part of my work involves translating). And that's simply not doable in a multi-tabbed window.

@Franz

Most people who can code use lots of shortcuts & work much faster than others generally & w/ multi documents & wares, not just 1 or 2.

However,

CTRL + TAB

in browsers is used by many who are not coders & not even techie nor computer savvy & basically ignorant of any tech abilities. This I've seen myself in some of such users, switching across numerous tabs, fast. It's not brain surgery or rocket science.

This is an outliner detailed discussion topic/forum for relevantly interested people though, most of whom use multi tabs in browsers, note takers, etc. on a regular basis. As do billions everyday.

The other points remain too.

I see a place for it in my tool chain. I don't just use a couple of documents or software at a time. Lucky you.

Glad to hear you made up your mind and decided this is not for you.

@washere: I do know that I can use CTRL+TAB to switch tabs. But I do want to see 2 documents side by side. That's why I need 2 or more windows and no tabs.

@Franz I know you need dual windows open. I've worked with big contents hence translators since my first job.

I even suggest softwares to them, like a couple from a specific genre I use myself occasionally.

Outliner/Tree genre though is very apt for creative/building up data structures from scratch.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Some of you may remember a piece of writing software called PageFour.
Personally, I'd forgotten all about it until I got an email from the
developer today announcing his new application, Atomic Scribbler.

"Atomic Scribbler is a simple, light weight replacement for Microsoft
Word, PageFour and Scrivener. It’s modern, has a fresh and clean
look and feel, and is built just for creative writers. It’s new
and it’s here to stay!"

Interesting that he added that last bit of reassurance. Anyway, here's
the link to the website:

https://www.atomicscribbler.com/

At $47 it isn't a no brainer. But there is a ten day free trial. I've
just downloaded it.

Steve Z.

Atomic Scribbler is available today (March 30 2018) on BitsDuJour for $7.
http://www.bitsdujour.com/software/atomic-scribbler

That buys you a permanent license for one user on all owned computers and one year of updates. If you're interested and have time to play, it does make it more of a "no brainer" to try, but that may still be a big if for many here.

scriv is onenote/evernote kinda at least for core functions/features

doesnt seem to stand out much for helpfulness tho