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276
Review done.

Of course, that's only Part 1 of the process - checking out the tools. The main part - using them - still awaits.
I'll write a summary record of what I do, which tools I use, and why. Just for completeness really. My process will be idiosyncratic I'm sure, and of little interest to anyone else; maybe it will help me in future, especially identifying what didn't work.
277
Review
Pointing at the start of the thread is probably more useful: Review
True. And done. Thanks.  :up:
278
General Software Discussion / Review completed, such as it is.
« Last post by Dormouse on April 24, 2021, 05:56 AM »
Review done. Superficial, aimed at my own needs and my own working practices and subject to editing, tweaking and improvement.
But done.
Review

279
There's also DocXManager (formerly Writing Outliner) - https://docxmanager.com/

I'm afraid I won't be looking at this in detail after all. I downloaded it but found no sign of a dark mode, even though Word is in dark mode on my machine. Nor could I find an easy way to change the colour settings for the various panes.

From what I saw, the corkboard view was very simple and outlining the same as any two pane outliner.
280
a custom desktop wallpaper designed to suit your own personal organization, workflow, or brainstorming needs.
Mmm.
I was sort of aware of the possibility without ever considering it further.
But now that you've pointed it out, with illustration, I agree, and can see all sorts of extra possibilities:
  • There could be a kanban wallpaper; (I've been looking for wanting an alternative to Trello for some time - I like Trello, but it doesn't really fit any of my workflows);
  • or, eschewing wallpaper, the screen could be tiled with documents and notes attached to those documents. And you could choose which documents you wanted on screen at any one time.
  • brain burned out with the immensity of the scope

It's amazing how many possibilities there are in such a deceptively simple program. Thank you.
281
I've seen you talk about Transclusions before, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around what they entail. Do you have any examples you'd be willing to share?
I'll try to explain, because I think that will be easier.
Transclusion = Embed

The Syntax
[[linked file]]
![[transcluded file]]

So, if I'm writing a section, which I want to contain three photos, I will put in three links to those photos which preserves all my screen space for the writing.
There can be many photos to a section and, for example, four sections to a chapter. Each section to contain the photos as links.

I will have one note per chapter. All that note will contain is links to the sections, leaving plenty of space for comments produced during editing, review or development.
I will have one note for the book as a whole. All it will contain is links to the chapters. All easily fitted on one page, plus a few comments if needed.

The comments will not show on preview, export or print.
If I add an exclamation mark in front of every link, they then become transclusions. And an export of the book will include all the chapters and sections including the photos (apparently they can go many layers deep). If the CSS is right, then it's formatted just like a normal book.

This is the way I use them, I'm sure other people have very different uses.
The ease of adding or deleting the questionmark makes it very productive.

282
I've been interested to notice that my interest in new developments in Obsidian has dropped right away.

Apart from the students & developers who appear to be the core of the user group, I ought to be a prime target, since I make a lot of notes, am an active writer, and most of what I write has been in .md or .txt for a long time. They see Obsidian as a PKM application, but much pre-existing K is stored in non markdown files. The freedom of feeling that I could forget about conversions and just work with data and files in original format has been liberating.

I'm a little surprised I didn't develop it before, as I'm sure many people have been doing it for years, but the concept of nested vaults has been key. (And, conceptually, the 'vault' is quite different in this context to 'folder'.) But it absolutely requires relevant files to be in the vault. It's data and file organisation by project rather than folder. It means a 'vault' can be copied and moved separately on to any device or shared with other people, with no impact on anything else. Links work, but then the file location has to be considered and managed separately. I don't mind having more than one copy of a file if necessary, but once a project is completed the vault is automatically subsumed into something larger and any issues with doubling can be dealt with then. I'm not keen on symlinks, but maybe that will change.

For tags, I'll use a mix of #tags in text files and windows meta fields, and the XY database approach. This does imply potential issues in some future decade but the theoretically more resilient approaches just come with too high a cost at this point.

And I'll save everything into the nested vaults. (I am aware that this may cause Obsidian itself to slow dramatically.) I'll use Obsidian where it works, and other programs and formats when they are better. I'm happy to type wiki-links and #tags into all text tiles, whatever their extension.

Search will give me #tags and [[backlinks]] and identify the existence or not of files for [[links]]. The greatest friction will arise from creating the linked files that do not already exxist. That's okay, I anticipate it taking time to establish the best search system and optimal way of creating those files. Obsidian has system for marking blocks and linking to headings; I've never use either and have always felt the block marker to be an ugly kludge. I doubt I will need a replacement, but think I will just use a timestamp if I do.

Tranclusions are another matter. They are, effectively, a property of Obsidin .md files. By continuing to use Obsidian, I won't lose anything I have but I don't have an alternative for other formats.
283
OK. You've convinced me. I'll add draw.io to the Bubbl.us segment. Possibly it will take first place. It is what the segment was originally for.
And, have actually added to my list for checking out with my project. Looks good. Thanks for the suggestion.

Mindomo can do disconnected nodes, and doesn't need fixed rules either, except on export. But I don't regard it as a core part of the review - more a consequence. I might use it in future,  but it's overkill for the review.

Which does leave the segment without a good example.

PS I'm not looking for isolation, so feel free to interject any time.
Though I am doing the survey for my own purposes really, with the review only being a record, so I don’t mind being on my own either.
284
Flowchart < the most basic expression for your matter?
I did consider it and I like it as an idea. I use Edraw, which is pretty good with multiple options, and all the programs are usually better visually than mindmapping equivalents (more expensive too).
But they're usually designed to show the final outcome rather than in process development. I've never been keen on the basic principle of mindmaps (the central node starting point), but often the software can produce concept maps which can be a reasonable approximation to flowcharts. One of the initial reasons for choosing bubbl.us was a degree of visual similarity to flowcharts.

Equally, though, I wanted to keep my work to a minimum and only look at one example of each technique (the corkboard and storylines equivalents being an exception because they are, theoretically, designed for the purpose). I decided that mindmapping progs had a more useful range of import options and that they, with pen and paper, offered a sufficient facsimile of flowcharts.
285
Mini-Reviews by Members / Options with potential for my personal use
« Last post by Dormouse on April 19, 2021, 12:05 PM »
  • Pen and paper and digital equivalent;
  • draw.io;
  • Notezilla;
  • Jutoh 3 Storyboard;

Maybe, if all goes well:
  • Outlining

We'll see if it hits me when I'm working:
  • Plottr

Maybe at a later stage:
  • Spreadsheets (If they ere going to be the answer, it would already be done)

There is also a golden group for heavy duty, longer term projects. Grouped because they can exchange data via CSV or xlsx or opml:
  • Mindomo;
  • Notezilla;
  • Outliners;
  • Timeline 3;
  • Spreadsheets.
286
Posting this here because it seems to continue the same discussion.

I'm looking for a way to find Obsidian-type links and backlinks in non-md files.
PowerGrep seems not to have a dark mode.
dnGrep does, and seems to do the job well enough.
I'll think about find and replace in docx etc when I need to.
287
I've had further thoughts about Obsidian locking itself into full functionality only for .md files. That seems far too limiting for both writing and research where dealing with other formats is usually essential in real life. Like deciding on one wheel for motorised transport; yes, it's technically possible; yes, there are some advantages: but in the real world it ends up losing to alternative approaches.

The big remaining advantage for the program (because I really like wiki-links) is the automatic finding of files typed in a [[file]], and offer to create new if it doesn't exist. (And backlinks.) And it strikes me that it's not so difficult to set up such behaviour with the right search system, especially given nested vaults or folders; greater friction but not disqualifyingly greater. That leaves backlinks. Regex presumably required. Slower, and friction quite a bit greater than an automatic pane, but with the gain of working across all formats with text. And nothing to stop me just using Obsidian when pure .md will do.

At this rate, the programmatic centre of my system will be a search program. And, to be fair, that's always been the centre of my managing data/file concerns.
288
I'll put up what I have done so far later, and then add to it as I go down the list.
I've put up a marker in the mini-review section.
289
Mini-Reviews by Members / Mindomo
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:36 PM »
In very slow progress

Part One
After cycling through the Bubbl.us etc options, I realised that mindmapping programs had advanced since I last looked and decided to search for one to try out; this appeared to tick the vital boxes, so I fixed on it for detailed investigation.

My first thought for the trial was to directly tackle the initial problem. I decided I ought to brainstorm options and was about to write them down (pen and paper!!!) when wave upon wave of different perspectives came to me and I decided to sleep on it.
(Possibly a mark of a good tool. A sheet of paper, with a pen, is very simple but what you can do with it is limited only by your imagination - maybe this has the same characteristics.)
But equally implies that it is not a simple thing, and testing it out is likely to take some time.

I don't know if it will be my solution to the initial problem I wanted to tackle, but it will be my backup approach should nothing else work quickly to deal with the problem. And I'll use it for similar tasks until such time as I decide it doesn't work well enough.

I do not, however, recommend Mindomo for the purposes behind this review. It will be overkill and a productivity destroyer unless you are already a Mindomo Ninja.
OTOH, if you are writing the full version of War and Peace with the whole stories off all the characters less prominent in the published version, this should give you the tools to see all the paths through the trees and help you develop a topographical map. It's easy enough for a simple use (once you know how you want to use it), but temptations to delve deeper abound, so you are likely to route yourself through the treacle swamp.
290
Mini-Reviews by Members / Spreadsheet
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:35 PM »
Possibly I like spreadsheets nearly as much as many writers like outlining. I know there are writers who really like them too.

When I think about it, there are many reasons.
  • The concept includes a high degree of structure, yet invites chaos by being entirely flexible in how that structure is used. This means that ideas can be added anywhere and then transferred to their own sheet if that becomes warranted.
  • This creates the potential for a visual approach (quite different to the purely verbal outline) when groups of ideas can be scattered all over a huge sheet.
  • Ditto ability to use colour.
  • They communicate with many programs.
  • They are easily adjusted and reframed.
  • Arithmetical and graphical functions mean that numbers can be used across sections. This means that word counts can be entered and compared with target, reading ages (and changes) can be monitored, pacing can be seen statistically and graphically. No requirement to do any of it, but it's possible if wanted.
  • Any common template can easily be used.
  • The best way I've found of managing a long manuscript with Obsidian is using a spreadsheet derived table with wikilinks

There are cons, of course.
  • Inserting can be fiddly or very fiddly if it's not a whole column or row.
  • The view of the spreadsheet does not shout "Let's be creative!".
  • All the work and the ideas have to come from you.

So, they can be used at the brainstorming creative end but is more naturally suited to helping create the structure once the main bones are in place. And then they are excellent for tracking and monitoring detail and to support editing and review.
291
Mini-Reviews by Members / Plottr: Third and final update
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:34 PM »
Over the last few days (written 1st May), Plottr has introduced a beta feature that completely changes what I myself could use Plottr for.

Deceptively simple it is described as adding the ability to add Acts to Chapters and Scenes in the cards - a three level hierarchy instead of two. I had been switching between Jutoh Storyboard, Spreadsheets and Plottr as a way of managing the development of storylines, arcs and narrative always hitting usability difficulties or insufficient features. The issues arise from:
  • the need to work on both the event timeline and the narrative timeline at the same time during development;
  • the need to refine the overall structure of the narrative (not so much of an issue for those who follow templates);
  • ease of use in adding and changing chapters, scenes etc;
  • ease of analysing various aspects structure.

The new Plottr feature solves all these problems; with a little subversion.
Chapters and scenes can be left just as they are
But Acts can be used as an event timeline (named either as an Event or as a Date/Time) without any need to upset the narrative sequence in chapters and scenes. Additionally they can be used to split the narrative into sections (effectively equivalent to templates, but designed for specific purpose) with word counts. And neither use interferes with the other. That ticks the first two of those.
It's probably the easiest system for adding and changing. Analysing can be done via tags.
Additionally it has the most manageable view because of the ability to collapse Acts and Chapters (with the ability to view the collapsed scenes in a popout verticle panel on mouseover).
Amazing how adding one feature can change my perspective - I didn't see that coming. Templates can't be used with it, so it must be aimed a a completely different type of writer to the ones I'd thought they were aimed at, though it would be very easy to reformulate templates to fit this new system.
I've also realised that using wiki-links on all chapter and scene titles then exporting to docx and converting to txt means that it can function perfectly well with my usual txt workflow using Obsidian, WriteMonkey etc.

Of course, that doesn't overcome issues over price etc. But it does mean that it seems to have a perfectly usable workflow for this small, but important, part of the creative process.

292
Mini-Reviews by Members / Plottr: Update after trying to use it on project
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:33 PM »
I've done more checking out of Plottr during my trying to use programs to take my project forward. I didn't think it would be useful, but was constantly drawn back to see what it would do, which was an interesting phenomenon to observe in myself.

As anticipated, it has nothing to help brainstorm.

For initial organisation, it seemed to offer less flexibility than Jutoh storyboard (where columns and rows could be predefined as desired). One of the problems with initial organisation is that my ideas tend to be rough and provisional and a lot of playing around is needed; once everything is approximately in place, then tweaking leads on the substantive more detailed organisation. There's no scratchpad. Most of what it did have were predefined templates (which can be changed, written and saved). My conclusion was that this was  product designed for genre writers who used templates who write series. My impression was that it would be better at the final stages of organisation.

I then realised that there were features I hadn't examined - story bible features such as characters and locations (with templates). Many writing programs have these as standalone modules; I appreciate their potential value, but there's usually no advantage to having them in the program and I regard them as an invitation to procrastinate by filling in details that will never be used or affect the story - for most writers, ideas evolve and develop with writing (and to a point during plotting) and initially they might as well be Blob 1, Blob 2 etc. But Plottr has a good filtering system, whereby characters and locations can be inspected to see where they occur or co-occur. This can be very powerful. It's a technique I have used myself with spreadsheets, but this is much simpler to use. So what Plottr offers over most programs is that the story bible features are part of an integrated whole. It also does this with user defined tags, which could be useful in the earlier stage of organising. It's something that can also be applied during editing, reviewing, or after first draft. So my current impression is that Plottr comes into its own in the final part of the organisation stage or  when reorganising  - except for the template users whose initial organisation is heavily guided.

Of course, I could write my own template. The structure is one of the first things I do after getting a sense of what a piece of writing will be; crude compared to published templates, but purpose designed. Even if it only gives the number of chapters, it creates a matrix which would make Plottr much more flexible in early ogranisation.

293
Mini-Reviews by Members / Plottr
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:32 PM »
Nice looking program, with many nice features. Lots of handholding for structuring and plotting a novel. Templates include snowflake, Hero's Journey, various beat sheets etc. I'm sure more must be available on the internet and it's easy enough to design your own.

It's designed for plotting rather than writing, and having achieved a plot, the idea is that it will be exported to Scrivener or Word with chapters, scenes, characters etc all laid out. It looks as if it would suit new writers who have done some basic research on plotting etc (though what they'd make of Scrivener, I don't know), but also those who follow a fairly standardised genre approach and write series. There's nothing to stimulate creativity or brainstorming - it's purely about plotting. I'm more impressed than I expected because many programs try to reach this market, but I haven't seen one that I believe does it as well.

The main plotting view is in the timeline. This follows the pattern seen in storyline tools above, but with the ability to prepopulate from templates and greater visual sophistication. There is the standard column of arcs on the left, with columns to the right for each chapter. But instead of a single cell/scene, each arc can have multiple scenes in each chapter. I think this is quite impressive as a way or organising and reorganising a narrative. And the templates can be used to give an idea of what the structure ought to be looking like. But I don't think that helps much with either creativity or problem-solving. It's about moderate tweaking rather than anything else.

Where it might help is that it's quite easy to shift to another template. For instance, if you already have a plot but aren't happy with it, you could add a new arc and select a different template. The old arcs would still be there, and you could simply move scenes from those to fit into the new template to see how well that works.

The lack of a proper editor for writing, with all of the associated features, word counts etc is a major lack. It's all very well to have templates for beat sheets, Hero's Journey etc, but they impose a relative word count expectation. You'd really expect to have that feeding back into the plotting to see how well on track you are, but it's not even a remote possibility without doing the writing itself in Plottr. Maybe in future there could be an optional target word count for each chapter taken from a combination of the template used and the overall target word count., and that would work in Scrivener or Word.

And it's not cheap. It's SaaS - $25 yearly for 1 device, $45 yearly for 3 devices and $65 yearly for 5 devices. (It's not actually SaaS, but pricing pages sound like it. Actually a bog standard sales contract where you keep the program but lose access to upgrades -  "If your license expires, you will still have access to the version of Plottr and files you had at the time of expiration. However, you will not be able to download updates and bug fixes afterwards without renewing your license." but still expensive compared to many other programs. Frequent updates though.)

Is it likely to help with my project? No.

After another day, I'm starting to question myself. It's a very simple program; it has a structure and can be played with. Maybe I shouldn't rule it out.
294
Mini-Reviews by Members / Timeline 3 beta
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:31 PM »
This seems to be a rebranding of AeonTimeline. imho it is a substantial advance on previous versions in terms of ease of use, but it is still a bit of a beast. Not for brainstorming, not for early development of ideas, but excellent for fleshing out minutiae. Starts being really useful at some point past early development depending on how complex the scenarios are.

Now, like everyone else, I'm not an expert on Timeline 3, but I wouldn't describe myself as more than a dabbler in 1 or 2 either. I dived in when I felt it necessary, for as far as necessary, and then stopped. So my judgement on exactly how complex a scenario needs to be to crank the program up may be awry. If I had it down to a fine art, I might start entering details once I had the initial early basis for the main plotlines and characters, but I can't see that I would ever do it if the scenario weren't complex enough.

So why would I ever use it? Because it's ability to track and manage time is unparalleled. When there are a multitude of events and times and characters and locations, this makes it 'easy' to work it out and tie it together. The way many people start is to input details from a spreadsheet and then add and adapt from there. Historians apparently download detailed lists of events and times and input those as a way of knowing exactly where any event (eg a diary entries they are transcribing from the original) fits into the timeline. It can account for Julian and Gregorian time, and it's possible to devise completely original systems of date and time for use in science fiction. It's useful for legal and medical experts to construct timelines from the masses of bits of disparate information they need to put in order. I'm happy putting together a structure on a spreadsheet once I have all the bones, but changing it when the need becomes apparent is quite hard work - this makes it much simpler, and the spreadsheet view makes it much easier than it used to be.

So will it help with the issues I want to tackle? I hope not. This isn't a highly complex scenario, though maybe not simple either, and I'd hope that something simpler would work. It's partly diving in without thinking through all the detail (I'd hoped I wouldn't have to, or alternatively decide it wasn't worth it and go back to something else). Using Timeline 3 would imply that the issue was purely working out this detail, and I don't think that's true.
295
Mini-Reviews by Members / DocxManager+Writage+Word
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:30 PM »
I didn't look at DocXManager in any detail because it seemed not to have a dark mode, and I just found it too glaring.
From the little I did see, the corkboard was very simple and the outlining as in a two pane outliner.
296
Mini-Reviews by Members / WriteItNow Storyboard and Storylines Editor
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:30 PM »
The Story Board is very simple and an analogue of the corkboard/pinboard except that it includes chapters (left column) as well as scenes (remaining columns). You can shuffle chapters vertically and scenes within and between chapters. That's it.

It could be quite useful for working things out, it is well integrated into the program, but it's more for minor adjustments than problem solving.

The storyline editor shows who does what, where and when in the story. It' a visual record of where in the story different props, places, characters etc appear. That's it. Personally, I'd remember that for all major players and the display would be far too confusing to try to apply it to minor ones. I accept that it can be helpful to have a record of such details, but I'd question the value of a separate tool to display them.

So, neither useful for my purpose.
297
Mini-Reviews by Members / Outlining
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:29 PM »
In my mind, I was thinking of programs such as Dynalist and Workflowy when I considered outlining as one of the approaches. I've actually used Dynalist for this purely because I have it on this computer and don't have Workflowy. I believe that this is right at the opposite end of the spectrum to Timeline 3, being best for brainstorming and early development. The brainstorming is easy - writing ideas as they come, each idea being a branch from the previous idea or a new one. Complete freedom to go up and down and put new ideas in whenever they spring into being. Once there are enough ideas, they can be shuffled around - potentially many times - until a structure starts to develop. There's nothing fixed about what sort of structure it ought to be and nor, yet, is there a need for a sequential list of scenes. Pictures, photographs and other files can be attached to the appropriate bullet. Focus is improved by being able to fold/hide all the branches that are irrelevant, and Dynalist has hoisting so the single branch can be elevated on its own. Many writers have never felt the need for anything more than outlining for both brainstorming and development. Plottr has templates for beat sheets, Hero's Journey etc, but it is easy enough to do in outlining with the beats as main nodes.

It's never really worked for me. They're useful when I'm in full flow, but simply don't provide me with the stimulation I need when I stutter to a standstill. I'm aware it's just me. I find drawing, mindmaps, diagrams - anything visual - helpful; I find spreadsheets helpful because I can work backwards from target wordcounts into structures and see what is still needed (and what definitely won't work); but, when ideas and words aren't flowing naturally, outlining doesn't trigger them. So they won't help me with my current problems until and unless something else gets things going, and the words flow again. When words do flow, outlining can be good because it's a fast and efficient way to capture the ideas produced (at the risk of requiring a structure that doesn't properly represent the relationships of the ideas).
298
Mini-Reviews by Members / Jutoh 3 Storyboard and Writer's Cafe Storylines
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:27 PM »
I've combined the two programs into a single review, because they appear to be essentially the same program, with the Jutoh version updated, and somewhat simplified.

Like the corkboard/pinboard programs, there are cards, but they have (optional) straight linking lines (horizontal or vertical) and the background is arranged as in a table or spreadsheet and each card has to be in a cell. In Jutoh, there can be more than one card in a cell but not so in Writer's Cafe. This sounds like the lines option in the Scrivener Corkboard, but, imho, it is much more useful because there can be cards in every cell in a column. The original idea was that rows would represent chapters and rows, but they can be configured and that allows huge flexibility in how they can be used.

For instance, let us imagine plotting a country house murder. The rows could be set to rooms and the columns to times. Cards could represent characters, each character having one card per column; on that card could be written what the character was doing. As the plot was developing, and options were being considered and changed, the cards could be moved around between the rooms, until they fitted. Some of the fit would be designed to provide descriptions when the surviving characters were interviewed - it would be clear who and what they could see at the time in question. Part would be to detail the movements of the murderer and the murdered. Some to grant, or hide, lines of vision. And then to plant red herrings. All this can be done using the cards to check it out and to record the relevant plot details. As only Jutoh allows multiple cards in a cell this would only work with Jutoh; images can be used in both.
Or
Columns could be times again, but the rows could be arcs, giving a description of what is happening with each arc. Moving the cards as necessary to produce the best integration of events in all the arcs. Tags could be used to indicate whether the events were in the narrative, or omitted.
Or the columns could be characters, and the rows too. Reading across, could give the row character's feelings/perception of the column character (including self). Only half the cells would be filled, of course. This use though might best be done on a table or spreadsheet, if there would be no value in changing the position of the cards.
Or or ...

I've gone into some detail of possible usage in an attempt to illustrate the difference between this and corkboards and spreadsheets. It isn't a tool to be used in the brainstorming or early working out stages of a project (other techniques are better for that), but it can be very useful when starting to work out some details. And yet it is very simple and easy to use. The text in a card can be linked to the text in the narrative, and can actually be the primary writing screen if it is preferred.

Unfortunately neither version has a dark mode which will limit my own usage a little - but I can mitigate this by doing most of the Storyboard work in full screen mode (F11) which can hide all the glare. There are a number of differences between the versions, but, personally, the multiple cards in a cell clinches it for Jutoh. I'll use that anyway for formatting.

screenshot-storyboard.png
299
Mini-Reviews by Members / Notezilla
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:26 PM »
As everyone will know, Notezilla is a sticky note program where the notes can be coloured, formatted, resized and moved around freely (including on top of each other) - just like the WC Pinboard. But it has a few extra tricks in its locker which extend it's range of use.
The first of these is noteboards. So instead of one pinboard there are as many as desired - and notes can be dragged between them. (You can have more than one pinboard on WC, but the process and use is much more laborious.)
Also tags.
And the notes can be attached to windows, so although the text is not directly linked to writing content each note can be stuck to a file in which you are writing.
Word and character counts are helpful. Ability to do reminders, todos etc could sometimes be useful too.

From the perspective of the review, the advantage of the memoboards is that they allow the notes to be structured and organised. They act like folders in a file explorer, thereby giving a hierarchical structure as in outliners including Scrivener. So the notes can be organised in any way, reorganised easily at any time, and the system can contain different types of organisation at the same time.
For example, if someone is writing a novel, they could brainstorm and develop characters, or groups of characters, on one board with places etc on others. Plot, events and scenes could be worked up in a different group of boards. It would be possible to write up those scenes in full on the notes, arrange the folders and sequence exactly as in Scrivener and then export the whole as an HTML file (or CSV or individual txt files) - a full book written in Notezilla; I wouldn't suggest anyone did this - there are too many useful features in editors in writing programs that would be missed - but it is possible.
There's also the possibility of synchronising across all devices ($14.95 pa), making for easy cross-platform use.

For my project, this is looking like a very attractive option. It is simple, flexible and very visual. Organising and reorganising is easy and adaptable. Cross-platform and sync. With the added bonus of CSV import and export, it's starting to look as if Excel, AeonTimeline 3, Mindomo and Notezilla could be the core of a complete creative and organisational writing system for all types of writing.

It wouldn't suit anyone who likes the support of an integrated structured system as is found in most programs aimed at writers. There's no suggested structures or recommendations or pre-existing links between different components of the writing system.

Screenshot_Insert_Pictures_Inside_Sticky_Notes.jpg
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Mini-Reviews by Members / Scrivener Corkboard
« Last post by Dormouse on April 17, 2021, 06:25 PM »
The Scrivener 3 Corkboard is at the other end of the spectrum from the simplicity and ease of the Writer's Cafe Pinboard. It really is very Scrivenerish. Now, I am no expert on Scrivener, let alone the new Scrivener 3 and some of my observations may be due to ignorance of the precise menu or setting that would have produced a different outcome. Whereas the WC pinboard is only really suitable for brainstorming and early development (and reminders), the Corkboard seems as if it ought to be capable of detailed organisation and reorganisation. There are certainly enough options.

The question, for the purpose of this review, is whether delving into them is likely to be a productive use of my time. And it didn't take me much thinking to know that the answer is 'No!'
To explain - the corkboard has a freeform option the same as the pinboard, but it also has the linking lines as seen in the WC Storylines feature, as well as a grid view option. Relevant controls exist at the bottom of the Corkboard pane, and in Corkboard options under the view menu; there's also an entry on the Navigate menu ('Corkboard Selection Affects'). Whereas the WC Storylines allows cards in the same position on every line, thus giving a freedom of choice about exactly what the lines represent, the Corkboard allows only one; moving them along shuffles them on other lines and will also change the sequence of the linked section in the binder. The analogy is that they represent scenes in a book and two scenes cannot be in the same place on the same page (though while this is true for conventional text books, it would not necessarily be true, for example, in picture books and need not actually be true in text books, though I wouldn't like to format an ebook to achieve this; many textbooks don't have this arrangement either). Additionally there are labels and icons etc etc, but I'm already fatigued.
The point is that it doesn't simplify anything unless you have a book that is already structured on Scrivener lines - and, given the extent of interdependence of the features, being constructed entirely within Scrivener.

And I used to be such a fan of the corkboard!

I have never been assimilated into the Scrivener system, but I have dipped into it at times for individual tasks where Scrivener had especially useful features. I anticipated that ought to be the case here with my project, but I can already see that the amount of work I would need to do to get it in, and the reading and learning I would have to do to use it, is way over the likely benefit. And the lack of flexibility over the 'track' feature makes me doubt there would be any benefit at all.

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