Scrivener for Android?

[pigfender]

Not a drain on my time at all. I'm here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress.

[Sanguinius]

and Scotoma (their new software which blocks out all distractions and allows the writer to focus on just the task at hand).

Is this real? Do you know how it will differ from Freedom? Is it going to be an internet blocker in that vein, or a computer blocker which allows only Scrivener to be open?

[Jordi Mora]

and Scotoma (their new software which blocks out all distractions and allows the writer to focus on just the task at hand).

Is this real? Do you know how it will differ from Freedom? Is it going to be an internet blocker in that vein, or a computer blocker which allows only Scrivener to be open?

It's actually a very good - though ever so slightly tasteless - medical joke.

[kewms]

Again, as soon as you allow your hypothetical Scrivenoid application to manipulate Scrivener project files, it is no longer "stripped down" in any meaningful way.

And if it can't manipulate Scrivener project files, how is it different than any of the hundreds of other applications out there? Several excellent mobile capture applications already exist that will synchronize the material to your desktop, from whence you can do whatever your heart desires. Including pulling the material into a Scrivener project.

Katherine

[meldroc]

Replying to KB - looks like there's a few experiments in play.

Count me as one of those who are voting "Yes, Scrivener for Android, please!"

It seems that it would have to have an interface that isn't necessarily simpler than Scrivener for Mac/Windows/Linux, but different - accommodating the touchscreen interface, dealing with the small screen, being at least semi-usable with an on-screen soft keyboard (though I also use a Nexus 7 with a small Bluetooth hard keyboard).

Heck, the interface for the tablet would have to be significantly different from Scrivener for a smartphone, which would most likely be a simple notepad app with the ability to open Scrivener projects and navigate with an interface sort of like the Binder. I'd think of it as the electronic version of the little pocket-sized pad of paper that authors always are advised to carry at all times.

I imagine the tablet version working kinda-sorta like Evernote for Android, in that there's more real-estate on the screen to work with, users are more likely to have a hard keyboard that can handle actual typing, so maybe for those devices, it would be cool to have a mini-Corkboard along with the editor and binder. I'd say that the editor for a tablet version of Scrivener would need to be pretty full-featured. I can imagine using it on my Nexus 7 when I'm at a local coffee shop.

I think you're right in that the more you think about it, the more it becomes clear that a mobile Scrivener can't be stripped down or simplified - it has to do what the desktop version of Scrivener does, but have an interface that's sane for the device.

[druid]

Several excellent mobile capture applications already exist that will synchronize the material to your desktop, from whence you can do whatever your heart desires. Including pulling the material into a Scrivener project.

Just to expand a little on that good advice from kewms

In SimpleNote or EverNote, to name but two online note-takers:

Create folders (or tags) with names like Characters, Plot, Ideas, Research, etc.
Then type notes and place/tag them appropriately.
When you are back to home base Scrivener, transfer/synch/export them into the project file.

Looking for any other kind of mobile app is going to involve a long wait.

[meldroc]

I've been using Evernote on my Android devices - seems to work pretty well for me.

I've used it for brainstorming, or typing up a little bit of prose, then using the desktop version of Evernote to retrieve the stuff and copy/paste it to Scrivener or wherever I need it.

[KB]

It seems that it would have to have an interface that isn't necessarily simpler than Scrivener for Mac/Windows/Linux, but different - accommodating the touchscreen interface, dealing with the small screen, being at least semi-usable with an on-screen soft keyboard... I think you're right in that the more you think about it, the more it becomes clear that a mobile Scrivener can't be stripped down or simplified - it has to do what the desktop version of Scrivener does, but have an interface that's sane for the device.

I think you pretty much nailed it. The binder, the corkboard, the inspector, and a full-featured editor (with comments, footnotes, inline annotations, images, Preserve Formatting and so on) are all core aspects of Scrivener that shouldn't be skimped on in a mobile version, and all those things can work on a tablet or phone if done right, but they have to be put together in a completely different way to how they interact on the desktop, a way that makes sense for a touch-screen device. And it all has to work on a phone (because I really want to make notes on my iPhone, as I'm sure Android users will with their phones), which is only big enough to support a single screen or column, and scale up to a tablet, which can accommodate different view setups depending on whether it is in portrait or landscape mode. The process we took with designing the mobile version was to go back to thinking about the core things I wanted from Scrivener in the first place, and to work out how that could work on a UI that has such a different input method, while making sure that it would still be familiar and instantly usable by those already used to Scrivener on the desktop.

I'm really happy with the design, and can't wait for users to see it. And once the iOS version is ready and out, we will get on to the Android version as soon as possible (although the Windows team has plenty of work planned on the Windows version, too).

All the best,
Keith

[Robotech_Master]

I think you pretty much nailed it. The binder, the corkboard, the inspector, and a full-featured editor (with comments, footnotes, inline annotations, images, Preserve Formatting and so on) are all core aspects of Scrivener that shouldn't be skimped on in a mobile version, and all those things can work on a tablet or phone if done right, but they have to be put together in a completely different way to how they interact on the desktop, a way that makes sense for a touch-screen device.

Just wondering...is any work being done to adapt the Windows version of Scrivener to Windows 8's touch-sensitive interface? If so, it seems to me that there could be some useful cross-pollination between that and the Android/iOS efforts, at least insofar as developing the interface goes, since a touchscreen is basically a touchscreen. (And if not, yet, then perhaps the work done for the Android/iOS versions would make a useful place to start one.)

[SparkyGetsTheGirl]

I had an issue with Android's sparse RTF support. What I managed to do (for Mac OSX only) is make a converter I could put in my Dropbox to change from RTF format to the much more flexible Markdown format. Note: Your pretty text formatting will be lost in this change, but your italicising, bold, headings, dot points will not.

So my work flow is to sync Scrivener (for example) to my Dropbox folder, run the converter and then edit the files as Markdown on my phone. Then I save them.

When I get home, I run the Markdown to RTF converter and then resync and *bam*, I’ve got my RTF formats imported into Scrivener.

The files are command line, but self-explanatory. If you want to convert from Markdown to RTF, you type md2rtf *.md
That converts all the files in the directory with the .md extension.

Here’s the link to my blog post with the files:
http://sparkygetsthegirl.com/blog/2014/ ... iting-app/

[Sanguinius]

Deja vu. I feel like I've read this post twice before.

[Amcmo]

Seems Kevin has made his very reasonable position abundantly clear, so why keep on flogging a dead horse.

Apart from the very clear technical reasons, why a lite version is not planned, why keep pushing L&L to taking very limited resources away from their primary task of developing Windows or iOS versions. Seems that will only push the major work back even further.

L&L is not an MS with hundreds of developers twiddling their thumbs waiting to be assigned a task. It's obviously a small team working their arses off getting on with the primary task at hand. Why not let them get on with it.

Kev, while I'd love (in my case iOS) version tomorrow I'm more than happy to wait for what will clearly be a top app.