This may be of interest. I think that it hasn't been mentioned here before:
https://slice.tech/

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.

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.

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

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.

As an aside to my previous remark: I am reluctantly concluding that despite its recent tribulations, Evernote is actually a very powerful tool…

Thank you for mentioning Slice, Alex.

Thanks for your comments, @MadaboutDana. My name is Joe Bellavance, and I'm Slice's founder.

I agree that Slice is a very complex piece of software!

Also agree that Ulysses and Scrivener do some things really well - for some writers. Other apps do some things really well for other writers. Tomato, tomahto, right?

Anyway, I'm glad you've found one that works for you!

Thanks for your comments, @Steve. My name is Joe Bellavance, and I'm Slice's founder.

Yep, Slice is fairly watered down right now. There's a lot more coming ASAP.

We currently email a link to your outputted PDF because of financial constraints. I agree that it's not an ideal solution. How would you like it to work? What kind(s) of output would you like to generate? I'd love to hear your preferences.

Yes, Slice supports collaboration, which can be very distracting. The easiest way to solve that problem is to not invite anyone to join your project. :) But if you're co-authoring, or if you want an editor to chime in, it's pretty handy.

I'm glad you've decided to try Slice - thank you! You're welcome to stay on the Free plan for as long as you want!

When the annual subscription renewal cycled around recently I decided to continue my Premium subscription to Evernote. Partly because I've invested it with so much content over the past ten years or more, and I've never found a satisfactory place to migrate the .enex files with high fidelity. And, more because I find that after fiddling with alternative software, there really is no good alternative for me.

MadaboutDana wrote:

As an aside to my previous remark: I am reluctantly concluding that
despite its recent tribulations, Evernote is actually a very powerful
tool…

Thanks for responding, Joe.

In addition to PDF, I'd like to be able to export to Markdown, Plain Text at a minimum, and Word or RTF, as well.

Steve

Joe Bellavance wrote:

Thanks for your comments, @Steve. My name is Joe Bellavance, and I'm
Slice's founder.

Yep, Slice is fairly watered down right now. There's a lot more coming
ASAP.

We currently email a link to your outputted PDF because of financial
constraints. I agree that it's not an ideal solution. How would you like
it to work? What kind(s) of output would you like to generate? I'd love
to hear your preferences.

Yes, Slice supports collaboration, which can be very distracting. The
easiest way to solve that problem is to not invite anyone to join your
project. :) But if you're co-authoring, or if you want an editor to
chime in, it's pretty handy.

I'm glad you've decided to try Slice - thank you! You're welcome to stay
on the Free plan for as long as you want!

@Paul, I’m coming to the same conclusion. Especially after a recent e-mail from Evernote suggesting that they’re going to be refining their subscription model.

We’ll see!

Transferring from Evernote to DevonThink Pro was not a painless experience (it took about a week of fiddling around to get things imported correctly and to set everything up), but I'm glad I made the switch. I've been happy with DTP and don't regret the move. Cancelled my Evernote subscription.

Thanks for these suggestions, Steve. I've noted them, and we'll incorporate them ASAP!

Joe