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List of newbie questions regarding software
tomos:
That sounds like Skrommel's ClipStep. Or try ClipX if you want some basic interface to manipulate clipboard contents, apart from extending it.
-Lashiec (September 03, 2008, 10:17 AM)
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that's been worked on a good bit since by TWmailrec -
http://twm.dcmembers.com/
-tomos (September 03, 2008, 10:32 AM)
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check out that webpage - he has a thread here too (it's probably linked too or do a search) - if you cant figure it out I'm sure he'll help
Dormouse:
For novel writing etc., it is worth looking at Liquid Story Binder and its Forum. Has been on both BitsduJour and GAOTD recently.
40hz:
What is the 2nd best most efficient and cheapest way to take notes while showering
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I'd suggest getting yourself an inexpensive notes recorder that is voice activated. Shop Staples, Amazon, OfficeMax etc. for selection and pricing. I like Sony, but there are lots of other makes out there.
Also effective while driving, on long country walks, and when your laptop battery goes dead.
Paul Keith:
Customization:
Here in South America a lot of computers are being sold through super markets. They use the gOS operating system. This (linux-based) O.S. is light on resources and comes with practically all a casual user would need. The interface is easy on the eyes (at least to me) And it seems to be a solid base for expanding it to your specific needs.
For more info: gOS
-Shades (September 03, 2008, 09:11 PM)
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Thanks Shades but I'm just not into gOS. My tech level's on that of a casual user level but I think my requirements run more along that of a productivity/PIM/notetaker searcher and gOS is like the OS version of Chrome on Linux to me. It's not a bad choice, just that it's user interface doesn't bring anything special to me.
I'd suggest getting yourself an inexpensive notes recorder that is voice activated. Shop Staples, Amazon, OfficeMax etc. for selection and pricing. I like Sony, but there are lots of other makes out there.
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I've never had one before 40hz. Could you give me an idea on what quality to look for? The closest I got to a voice recorder was from a PocketPC and that was very clunky both to use and to import data of.
First Impressions on Several NovelWriting Software based on their Demos
At first I thought I'd import the screenshots but I've made a mistake and copied them to OneNote so now I don't have a jpg to attach them into. Every one of these I found only through writerstore.com (where a demo was available) and from the replies located here.
Final Draft:
Very MS Word like which could be a plus for some people but a minus for me since I never learned MS Word and I barely use Wordpad. Skimming the help file only yielded very basic bookmarking and indexing functions which doesn't really benefit me much as I don't know the basics of scriptwriting. The minimal interface would have been a plus if I wasn't already using YeahWrite and Q10 or even Akelpad as a text editor which are more minimalistic.
Power Structure:
Ahh… this is more like it. The beginning options are a definite plus but only because I have never seen anything like it. At the same time, it can be a minus because unless you follow the manual and choose novel format, it can be pretty scary and confusing. I'd really be more comfortable if there were at least some tooltips available while choosing the options.
I love the font size slider but the size limit really leaves a lot to be desired since I find that 10-15 pt were the only sizes that were readable in my PC. (1152 x 864)
It doesn't bother me that much but I would prefer something like 20 pt for when my eyes get tired staring at the screen.
Drop down category lists are great but I find I need to re-click them instead of the entries being highlighted and allowing me to scroll through them using the mouse wheel.
The characters view looks like a user friendlier screen of ywriter4 and I'm still not really sure about these kind of things. On one hand, I like the challenge of needing to create depth with my characters and on the other, I find these things really tedious to work with. I just don't feel anything special about a character inputted through these methods. If I need something like this, I feel more comfortable with Compendium's Dialogue Mapping Style of Creating Things because then I could create entire scenarios for a single character and preview it all in one page with my preferred order instead of trying to conform my mind to this tree-based hierarchy which is just not for me.
Don't get me wrong, I do have a need for these type of templates, Power Structure's way is just the wrong kind of template for me. It's too focused on being rigid, on trying to make a format that would make sense if you show these texts to someone in this screen, on trying to write a biography and when I write, I'm going in the other direction. I write so that the story becomes good enough to be the character's biography. I write as if the character had forgotten themselves and only remembered when they were in a dilemma and in need of remembering who they are. I write asking what is the current state of the character in line with the current story and I connect the dots from there. But Power Structure assumes that I care whether I am in Chapter 1 or not. It assumes I'm more interested in a format that would allow me to create a Dungeons and Dragons character and then transport them into a Chapter-based format. It assumes the problem I have most with stories are in separating the parts so I can import them when my main stumbling block often comes from exporting them.
Actually the format doesn't prevent me from doing that but it also doesn't help me to begin improving on my story. It's more like now, not only do I have a big bunch of text to deal with, I also have several tabs distracting me from actually writing my story. This can be fixed by copying the text from another text editor or word processor but by then, I'm usually more worried editing my work than spending time separating them into snippets.
It really comes off more as a professional story marketing program than a novel writing software. All these options can make it easier for editing if you can't find your text but for me, if you can't find what part of your story needs editing then chances are, the to be edited part is not just the problem but also the actual content of the story otherwise why wouldn't I want to reread what I wrote? (Yes, there's time constraints but I find that I have no problem rereading the books that I'm really into.)
Also if it's only purpose is finding the edited portion, then ywriter4 is free and this isn't so even if this is more user friendly, I think it just doesn't benefit me enough for me to want to pay for it. In the end, I think this is something that I might look back on because the fill in the box approach especially combined with the questions approach can be really addicting but there's a fine line between addicting and helpful especially when it comes to payware.
Movie Outline:
Now, right off the bat, I felt the introductory documentation is a whole let better here. It confirms my suspicion that there is a reason for why Power Structure and ywriter4 have a glaring similarity. "Step-outlining", I still haven't been explained enough value from applying it but a word is a better start than a quick start guide. Of course, either programs could have mentioned this later on or in their main sites, but I think it's something a newbie can easily miss that the right way to put it is definitely when the program first begins.
Overall, the interface looks like a more polished hybrid of FinalDraft and Power Structure. A bad thing in my book because it makes many of the options on Power Structure complicated but at the same time, it's less specific question templates are both a bane and a blessing. On one hand, I'm glad I'm free from the more specific questions Power Structure asks of me but at the same time, many of the questions are obvious and are made easier in Power Structure because they turned these questions into options.
In the end, Movie Outline preys on the inadequacy of my writing, making me considering on choosing it for the temptation of using it's analyses programs to draw me in but at the same time, I'm not sure if a rejected review from a publisher is much more worthwhile advice.
Storymind/Storyweaver:
This is probably the first program I really felt comfortable with. Links to videos (though I never tried them), light and finally a simple offer without trying to paint complexity into the program. At first, I was confused because the whole thing looked like a help file and I thought I downloaded the wrong thing so I went to a different site to download the same thing and I was scratching my head for a while there until I finally got it.
If there's anything keeping me from buying this, is that I haven't tested it to the end to see whether it was all really worth it but the questions here are definitely less rigid than both Movie Outline and Power Structure and they are written in much more details that makes it more invigorating to answer them than the other two. If there's a con to this program is that it begins assuming you don't have a story in progress and starts you from scratch but that’s also the pro of this program as it's very difficult to be attracted to a program that assumes you already have a story you want to be massacred into a complicated hedge of step outlines.
Dramatica:
I'd say this is 2 for 2 as far as checking this applications made by Melanie Anne Philipps. There's just something reassuring about her writing style that clicks with me that the shock of finding out that she has a transgender support site didn't phase me after all. I'm not anti-Transgender but I'm a straight guy and as much as I want to stay as objective as possible, these things should bother me so when it didn't, it in turn gave me more faith that these applications are written by someone who was interested in elevating their story rather than just due to a damn good marketeer. Of course, I've been wrong before so we'll see... (I'm a sucker for infomercials)
Interface wise, it draws on my curiosity because even though it's different from StoryMind's, it's actually much clearer as an app this time but at the same time, it gives me that Civilization 2 like feel that I just want to click on the buttons and it's probably the first app that really made me want to click on Help even though I find all the description texts, too small.
All I can say is that I've only tried the StoryGuide in the beginning and I like that it reads like an interactive fiction on helping you to create a story. I also like that from the get go it warns me that the level 3 path would take 3 to 4 days which makes it easy to set aside time when further testing this product.
All in all, the thing that keeps me from using this is the small fonts, the lack of scrolling through arrow keys and that's it. Among all that I've written about at this point, this made the best first impression.
Storyview:
Very MS Word like. Not my thing. A let down compared to Power Structure and FinalDraft.
WriteMonkey:
Thanks. It can never hurt to know more about these programs but I already use Q10 so while I do plan to make a feature by feature comparison of these two someday, I'm not really foreign to these types of software and it's a good editing platform to string along with rewriting my story on paper but it's not something that I can live with on it's own.CeltX:
This looks very promising but I can't see it's similarities with FinalDraft but I'm judging purely on the UI. This is definitely something I'd like to get a chance to explore someday but right now, I can't really tap into many of it's options since I don't really understand anything about pre-production and without that, the value of being able to preview something just isn't there. Even trying the sample comic book didn't really give any clue as to how this would help me as the slideshows aren't really any different from creating a comic book panel by panel and putting them all into images. I'm really tempted to request for a guide to pre-production but at the same time, I'm not sure I can absorb the information well. The whole feel of the program just screams "more than one person". I really don't see why I couldn't do what the program offers with any outliner on a single person basis.Liquid Story Binder:
Umm…wow. I need someone to teach me how to work this thing. This looks like the GIMP of novel writing software and unfortunately I haven't even graduated from Photoshop.
mouser:
Nice post Paul.. i'm sure others will find your first impressions useful :Thmbsup:
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