I'm also one of those weird Windows users who likes to manually control everything, including things like saving documents

Love the program, and will probably purchase it at the end of NaNo

Tue Oct 26, 2010 11:03 pm Post
Tue Oct 26, 2010 11:13 pm Post
Tue Oct 26, 2010 11:35 pm Post
Tue Oct 26, 2010 11:58 pm Post
Wed Oct 27, 2010 12:31 am Post
Wed Oct 27, 2010 12:54 am Post
Dropbox is my daily backup. The file is stored online and syncs to the hard drives of any PCs linked to it. All aspects of a proper backup scheme are handled admirably-- offsite backup, and local copies on multiple hard drives.
Edit: I save manually every couple of minutes or every couple of paragraphs, so even if a crash were to occur, I'd barely lose anything. Word 2007 crashed twice on me in over two and a half years of use, and 2010 never has.
Wed Oct 27, 2010 1:22 am Post
AmberV wrote:Yeah, the lack of save uploads with Word is what I was referring to. I've had further issues with it after closing too as well. I sometimes have to drag it out and back into the Dropbox folder for it to upload. Anyway the point was, it doesn't work seamlessly, and if you don't know the tricks it can cause problems. No different than with Scrivener. You can, with careful usage and a good auto-save interval, use Dropbox safely with Scrivener---like I said, there are those that do and have for years with no issues. You just have to be totally aware of what is most up to date, when going on and off line, and to make sure everything uploads before suspending the computer... etc. You know the drill. Not everyone does though, hence a general advisory. It saves a lot of people from woe.
That's how I treat it for single-file programs and zipped backups I make from Scrivener. It's great for that because like you say, it goes to all your computers and there server, and you get version control. Problem with Scrivener's format is that a mature project can have thousands of files in it named with serial numbers; gigabytes of research. This render's DB's version control difficult to use. A "version" of a Scrivener file is potentially many hundreds of files one way one minute and several dozen another way the next minute. The difference between corruption and flawless is somewhere in between there, and timestamps are the only clue you have to fix it. So yes, it's on computer A and computer B and server compound 29-X-7882 in some datacentre somewhere, but because you are constantly overwriting your one copy (which it effectively is in this context---even though it is physically located everywhere, it is getting constantly updated everywhere too, and thus a flaw wipes out all redundant copies at once), and restoration of that one copy is non-trivial, I'd put less stock in the usual Dropbox mantra.
Yeah, I used to be that way too. Most of the software I use these days is rock solid, or handle saving in the background automatically. Haven't had that habit in years, which is kind of strange feeling, now that I think about it.
Wed Oct 27, 2010 1:57 am Post
Are you using Word on a Mac? I understand it’s very different in terms of stability, reliability, and basic functionality.
It’ll be some time before I trust Scrivener with everything. Definitely after the beta…. I don’t think I’ll ever use Scrivener for that, so my personal projects probably won’t exceed a few megabytes of dataI’m comfortable with Dropbox handling that amount of data.
Just use OpenOffice for a novel or two, and you’ll get back into the saving habit very quickly. Urgh. I still haven’t lost it after over three years of Word’s stability.
I guess the main reason I’m making this request is because unlike a lot of Mac users, Windows users have diverse habits and far differing preferences as to how they want to use programs. We’re also used to endless flexibility in configuring just about everything we can get our hands on. Some of us change nothing, but some of us are relentless tweakers (raises hand). Losing that flexibility is pretty frustrating, no matter how much you might love everything else about a program.
Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:20 am Post
AmberV wrote:However, the problems I experienced were with Word 2010 on a Windows 7 netbook. It wasn’t horrible, but it was enough to cause me to decide to just work “offline” with .docx files and drag them to Dropbox before I leave the coffeehouse. No big deal, but for me that puts it at the same level of convenience as Scrivener; neither of which bother me.
Once the Windows version is caught up with 2.0, I think Scrivener’s ability to step in for some of what OneNote can do, will be better. The corkboard feature can be free-form, and it’s a lot easier to just work in an abstract way like that—and once you do reach a point where structures starts to emerge, the transition point disappears, you just flow straight from chaos to writing chapters. Windows version 1 will be about 80% there, I’d say, when it releases. Enough for most people, that is to say, but not everyone. Some around here on the Mac forums still use diagram style or other freeform tools prior to, or in parallel with, Scrivener. More did for a while, but eventually figured out ways of tweaking Scrivener to fill in for these other roles, and now work almost exclusive in it.
I actually came from Linux, prior to moving to OS X. I’d say only in the past few years have I grown to be really comfortable on a Mac. That might be a combination of acclimation and finding some cool tools that let me go beyond what the base system provides for—but for the longest time it was kind of frustrating not being able to do half of what I wanted to do.
Scrivener (for Mac) really is crazy flexible though, which isn’t really evident yet in these betas. It’s not like most Mac programs that have ten preferences and to hell with you if you don’t like it. This will gradually pick up as the beta fleshes out, and onward as it acquires 2.0 functionality. The documentation for the preference panels are about twenty pages of US Letter 10pt, and that’s mostly just a bare-bones account of what each preference does, not a discourse on them all (if I counted that, which is done elsewhere in the manual and thus harder to count, it would probably be close to 150 pages purely on customisation)—and the preference panels are only 2/3 of what can be altered. Another big chunk is project level customisation and it is more difficult to quantify that as it is spread throughout the documentation. So I guess what I’m saying is, this is one Mac program that caters to Mac users who aren’t as much like the stereotype—and so hopefully will live more comfortably in the Windows culture as a result.
The max auto-save thing should be increased though. 300 seconds isn’t too bad, but I think the Mac max is 9999 seconds which effectively shuts it off. Even 300 seconds isn’t awful. That’s five minutes of just sitting there doing nothing—if you have unsaved stuff after five minutes of idling, might not be a bad idea to have it saved anyway.
A “normal” book of 20 chapters with three to five scenes per chapter could net an average 250 component files—and that’s with zero supporting documents. No external notes, character sketches, research, etc. Hit the split command to cut a scene in two, and bam, that’s +1–4 files since split documents acquire meta-data.
Wed Oct 27, 2010 3:57 am Post
Maybe. I’ve looked at the corkboard thing, and the index cards just reek of “structure,” even if there really isn’t one.
Brave. I like tweaking things, but with ease. Linux drove me nuts, even after taking several sysadmin classes, and becoming comfortable with the command lineAnd OS X is too “visual” for me, and not flexible enough.
Pretty please with the increase? That would net you an instant buy on my end once NaNoWriMo’s over. I already save manually anyway before a surfing break.
I just write everything in one huge document, so my usage will be far outside the norm. I’m a random note-taker, but a linear writer.
Wed Oct 27, 2010 1:17 pm Post
Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:13 pm Post
Wed Oct 27, 2010 10:52 pm Post
In total there are 2 users online :: 0 registered, 0 hidden and 2 guests (based on users active over the past 5 minutes)
Most users ever online was 1048 on Mon Feb 06, 2012 9:07 pm
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests