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Slice is focus-first writing software
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Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Jul 7, 2021 at 04:38 PM
This may be of interest. I think that it hasn’t been mentioned here before:
https://slice.tech/
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jul 8, 2021 at 08:48 AM
Heh, I find myself thinking, along with Jos de Blok: “I don’t believe a word of it” (actually, he said that about Steve Jobs’ book, but still).
A quick scan suggests it’s basically an online version of Scrivener.
Scrivener is, of course, a complex piece of software. But by the sound of it, so is Slice, in that it gathers everything a writer could possibly want together in one place.
No matter how many times you insist “it’s all about helping writers to focus”, combining lots of things together in one place makes your app complex.
That’s why Ulysses is so much simpler – it doesn’t have all the bells and whistles that Scrivener does. And this suits many people admirably.
But others find the all-in-one portmanteau approach more useful. And they’re also the target audience for Slice, I think. So not really simple at all.
Posted by Amontillado
Jul 8, 2021 at 02:48 PM
Individual tools addressing individual problems suit me. I could almost be happy with vim and Affinity Publisher for word processing.
On the other hand, yesterday I ran across a need for merge fields in Nisus Writer Pro that were built with Perl.
That might be considered a complex feature, but it’s hidden until you need it. When you need it, it’s pretty handy,
If it were JavaScript instead of Perl, it would be a perfect feature.
MadaboutDana wrote:
>But others find the all-in-one portmanteau approach more useful. And
>they’re also the target audience for Slice, I think. So not really
>simple at all.
>
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jul 8, 2021 at 03:20 PM
Thanks for the headsup, Alexander. I had never heard of Slice before and I’ve been looking for an online writing app. I’m not sure Slice will do the trick, but I’m willing to give it a try.
First impressions:
I agree that Slice is a (watered down, actually) version of Scrivener. Its advantage is that it is available via the Internet. Of course, that’s also the disadvantage… you can write on it if you don’t have wifi. You also don’t really have control over getting your pieces out of Slice. You have to click a button to send it to the Slice servers (or whatever happens), then you get an email with a link to the PDF. That’s off-putting to me.
It also seems to want to provide the ability to collaborate with others, which to me is the very definition of NON-focused writing.
Still, it is a pleasant writing environment that allows for markdown formatting. I am using the free version at the moment, and I suspect I won’t feel the need to upgrade to the $5 per month fee. But worth keeping an eye on.
Steve
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jul 8, 2021 at 06:58 PM
I’d certainly take a look if they decided to create an (offline) app, but personally, I’ve foresworn all purely online environments.
I’m quite enjoying my current comparison – of Notejoy with OneNote with Evernote with Notion with Nuclino with Walling. Wrangling out the strengths and weaknesses of each platform is more complex than one tends to think.