Scrivener for iOS - When?

[Ldee]

I am one of the many many who are extremely happy that Keith took over the programming and brought iScriv to the beta stage (and in record time)! Bravo and thanks! I suspect his love for the iPad Pro may have played a role in this, since it was obvious that he didn't care much for the regular iPad's form factor (too small for work, too large for the pocket?).

I finally went to an Apple store to check out the Pro and was impressed in many ways but I also made a discovery that gives me a new concern. I noticed that on the iPad Pro the built-in onscreen keyboard is a fuller, much enlarged keyboard with many of the keys missing or hidden on the regular iPad.

Not all of us have the means to buy an iPad Pro, or even prefer its form factor, so my worry is that iScriv will now pay less attention to enabling an extended and customizable keyboard when running on a 9 inch device, whatever its name (iPad, iPad Air, the new iPad Air Pro? etc.). Please Keith, don't forget the world between the iPhone and the iPad Pro!...

Writing, i.e., typing and editing ("text entry"), is obviously the most central activity in a writing app, and making it as efficient, as personalizable, as pleasant and inviting as possible is what makes an app a pleasure and a joy to use. I derive physical pleasure from using Scrivener on my Mac and sometimes go and scribble in it without any purpose, just to enjoy the experience, the genius of the environment! Any struggle with "text entry" on an iPad would poison this pleasure on the ground level. But, of course, we all want (and need) a different keyboard, so customizability is essential.

I wonder if a customizable accessory key row is still part of the iScriv design?
Hoping for a positive answer,
Dee

[kewms]

NB: the iPad Mini 4 with the Zagg slim book case is gorgeous, and very flexible -- but a little on the heavy side, and the keyboard takes some getting used to for typing because of course it's a bit too narrow.

I recently bought this cover for my Mini 4, and love it. The tactile response is fantastic -- comparable to a good desktop keyboard -- and the variable key sizes do a lot to make up for the overall narrowness. (For those who haven't seen the Zagg, the letter keys are nearly full-sized, but the punctuation keys are smaller.) I may finally have a device that will convert me to electronic notetaking.

Katherine

[Jordi Mora]

I finally went to an Apple store to check out the Pro and was impressed in many ways but I also made a discovery that gives me a new concern. I noticed that on the iPad Pro the built-in onscreen keyboard is a fuller, much enlarged keyboard with many of the keys missing or hidden on the regular iPad.

Are the sure the apps you were looking at were Pro updated? I agree that older apps look dreadful on the iPad Pro because of huge keyboard, but it shrinks to proportional size if the app is Pro optimised. Ulyssses only managed to do this a few days ago, Editor is in beta with it, but there are still quite a few that haven't made the move.

[Gordon Robb]

Well, if you want to be pedantic, the one is technically slide-over and the other is split view, but in terms of implementing them in code, they are the same thing when it comes to ensuring your app can work in split view or in slide-over mode.

I don't "want" to be pedantic, it's an affliction

[Ldee]

Thank you Dr Dog for pointing this out. To clarify:

I only own the first version of ipad Air, and am still running iOS 8. All my comments and concerns were based on a half hour play with an ipad Pro in an Apple store where all the apps, presumably, were updated for demo. I think I opened Notes, Word, Pages, perhaps something else, but they all had the expanded builtin (onscreen) keyboard.

I now realize I don't even know if this new software keyboard is hardware dependent (ie exists only on the ipad Pro for its larger screen) or is it OS dependent (ie it would show up on my old ipad Air if I upgraded to iOS 9)?
(I am not talking about any *hardware* keyboard attachment.)

My concern was based on the assumption that since the new larger screen ipad pro comes with a builtin solution to the problematic onscreen keyboard of the regular ipad I was worried that adding an accessory key row to iScriv would become less important or perhaps even unnecessary in the eyes of the iScriv team.

[istara]

I had to disable Slide Over on my iPad 2 because it was nightmarish trying to use iBooks with it: I kept triggering the Slide Over panel rather than turning a page.

Unfortunately you can't seem to disable it per app, only universally.

I could see it being a nightmare and getting in the way of Scrivener too, if one was trying to access the right hand Info panel. (Though honestly I would be fine if that panel wasn't part of iScrivener).

[Gordon Robb]

I had to disable Slide Over on my iPad 2 because it was nightmarish trying to use iBooks with it: I kept triggering the Slide Over panel rather than turning a page.

Unfortunately you can't seem to disable it per app, only universally.

I could see it being a nightmare and getting in the way of Scrivener too, if one was trying to access the right hand Info panel. (Though honestly I would be fine if that panel wasn't part of iScrivener).

In iBooks you can just tap on the rught hand side to turn a page, you don't need to slide.

[Ticino]

I've seen a review of Ulysses 2.5 on the iPad Pro on one of the Apple news sites. Reviewer found it so great to use he's cast aside his MacBook 12" in favour of doing all his mobile work on the Pro.

I'm certain Scrivener for iOS will be even better on the Pro.

Don't bother with Ulysses - unless you only ever plan to do very plain writing or pure Markdown.

I write content for a website; nothing very fancy, but I DO need to put in occasional HTML tags to ensure my links texts have the right colour (in this case, olive green) and weight (bold). Ulysses will not parse HTML tags correctly and so the preview is all cockeyed. Devs say you have to *tell* Ulysses what's code and what isn't. If I have to fiddle with putting in extra tags, that basically takes away all utility from the app.

I have been struggling for days with it and sorely regret ever having bought the app.

I'm better off going back to the ever-faithful Byword, which has NO problem parsing mixed MD & HTML, and synching via Dropbox.

BTW Keith, I'd love to test-drive iScriv on my iPad Pro!

[ptram]

I am unable to use my Mac for long periods of time because the screen is too bright and makes my migraines worse

You may try f.lux. It helped me very much in tolerating the new 'Dazzling' theme used in the recent Macs…

Paolo

[KB]

If it turns out they're releasing a 9.7" iPad Pro with a higher screen resolution than the current Air, I will be buying one (because pixels). (My wife has a current -- large -- iPad Pro because she does graphics work; my main mobile creative tool is the 12" Macbook, but an iPad Pro with Scriv would probably work better for me.)

That could be very nice. I do really like the iPad Pro, but it's larger than my 12" MacBook so there's not much point taking that over my Mac if I'm off anywhere.

NB: the iPad Mini 4 with the Zagg slim book case is gorgeous, and very flexible -- but a little on the heavy side, and the keyboard takes some getting used to for typing because of course it's a bit too narrow.

I recently bought this cover for my Mini 4, and love it. The tactile response is fantastic -- comparable to a good desktop keyboard -- and the variable key sizes do a lot to make up for the overall narrowness. (For those who haven't seen the Zagg, the letter keys are nearly full-sized, but the punctuation keys are smaller.) I may finally have a device that will convert me to electronic notetaking.

I bought a Brydge keyboard for my Mini. It makes a great little netbook, but I cannot type on that cramped keyboard very well at all. Amazon.co.uk reviews for the Zagg are terrible - a lot of complaints that the plastic grips break. Is that something that's no longer an issue? I'll have to look into it if so (I seem to be collecting iOS keyboards at the moment...)

I don't "want" to be pedantic, it's an affliction

My concern was based on the assumption that since the new larger screen ipad pro comes with a builtin solution to the problematic onscreen keyboard of the regular ipad I was worried that adding an accessory key row to iScriv would become less important or perhaps even unnecessary in the eyes of the iScriv team.

The iOS software keyboard differs depending on device. But don't worry, Scriv for iOS has a fully customisable keyboard row - three sets of eight buttons, each one of which can be set to use one of many different commands, from key navigation and selection to formatting and punctuation.

I could see it being a nightmare and getting in the way of Scrivener too, if one was trying to access the right hand Info panel. (Though honestly I would be fine if that panel wasn't part of iScrivener).

There's no right-hand Inspector in Scrivener on iOS, because Scrivener uses Apple's standard split view, which only allows two panes and so works well across devices. The Inspector is handled as a pop-up panel instead, so this shouldn't be an issue.

Ticino - we'll let everyone know about beta-testing when the time comes. Once alpha-testing is finished (which will be soon - I had hoped to be in beta by now but took an extra couple of weeks to implement some cool stuff I felt was needed), we'll be going into a closed beta for a while, then a public beta which we'll announce.

Screen brightness: funny, I find that much more a problem with iOS devices; I love how I can turn the screen brightness of my MacBook right down with a key, whereas on iOS you either have to have it set automatically or dig down into Settings every time you want to change it.

[kewms]

I bought a Brydge keyboard for my Mini. It makes a great little netbook, but I cannot type on that cramped keyboard very well at all. Amazon.co.uk reviews for the Zagg are terrible - a lot of complaints that the plastic grips break. Is that something that's no longer an issue? I'll have to look into it if so (I seem to be collecting iOS keyboards at the moment...)

I haven't had it long enough to say from first-hand experience, but it seems pretty solid.

It's kind of tricky to remove the Mini from the keyboard folio. So if you did it often, I can see how there might eventually be a problem. OTOH, so far I haven't had much reason to detach it.

(To make sure we're talking about the same thing, here's the one I have. http://www.zagg.com/us/en_us/keyboards/ ... tone-folio)

Katherine

[Amcmo]

I confess to being puzzled by the complaints of brightness and 'dazzling' themes in Macs. I run El Capitan and with my standard settings, there's nothing over bright, or 'dazzling'. I suffer from migraines yet have never had one triggered by my MacBook.

iOS brightness. Night mode in 9.3, due out in the next week or so is interesting. Apart from being used for night work, the ability to change the 'warmth' fits nicely for me. Can be set to switch on demand from control centre, or at preset time.

[Gordon Robb]

Screen brightness: funny, I find that much more a problem with iOS devices; I love how I can turn the screen brightness of my MacBook right down with a key, whereas on iOS you either have to have it set automatically or dig down into Settings every time you want to change it.

If you swipe up from the bottom of the screen you instantly access a few settings, including screen brightness.

[KB]

I bought a Brydge keyboard for my Mini. It makes a great little netbook, but I cannot type on that cramped keyboard very well at all. Amazon.co.uk reviews for the Zagg are terrible - a lot of complaints that the plastic grips break. Is that something that's no longer an issue? I'll have to look into it if so (I seem to be collecting iOS keyboards at the moment...)

I haven't had it long enough to say from first-hand experience, but it seems pretty solid.

It's kind of tricky to remove the Mini from the keyboard folio. So if you did it often, I can see how there might eventually be a problem. OTOH, so far I haven't had much reason to detach it.

(To make sure we're talking about the same thing, here's the one I have. http://www.zagg.com/us/en_us/keyboards/ ... tone-folio)

Katherine

Thanks, I'll definitely check it out!

Screen brightness: funny, I find that much more a problem with iOS devices; I love how I can turn the screen brightness of my MacBook right down with a key, whereas on iOS you either have to have it set automatically or dig down into Settings every time you want to change it.

If you swipe up from the bottom of the screen you instantly access a few settings, including screen brightness.

D'oh!

[loribee]

incidentally, on the subject of beta-testing on different platforms ...


NB: the iPad Mini 4 with the Zagg slim book case is gorgeous, and very flexible -- but a little on the heavy side, and the keyboard takes some getting used to for typing because of course it's a bit too narrow. The iPad Pro is so big that, while the smart connector keyboards give you as much space as a full-sized Macbook Pro, the package also ends up as cumbersome as the Macbook Pro. A 9.7" iPad Pro with a decent keyboard cover, 4G data, and an all-day battery life? That'd be perfect.

I picked up one of these for my iPad Air3 and it works great

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Univers ... h+keyboard

Ironically it's made by Microsoft - but don't let it put you off.. it's a great keyboard.