I think you will find the prevalent message to “new features” for L&L is a gently stated “no”. KB, the captain of the L&L ship, is a firm believer in the KISEFV (Keep It Simple Enough For Vic-k) methodology. When really great ideas come up things like Scapple emerge.
No, really? Last I heard, he was deep in the innards of Linux
And on his way to making Scriv run on Raspberry Pi :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
Rhubarb crumble… smart arse!
Both wrong. Scrivener draws its essential nourishment from the traditional Cornish pasty, and, like that esteemed culinary masterpiece, “T’is a proper job, me 'ansome!”
I don’t get why you’d put corn in yall’s pastry. Anyway, down 'round these parts we got these exotic little critters called possum.
Possum pasty? Tasty is’um?
Hmm, my wife just made me watch a documentary on burlesque (honest! It was quite good actually). But now I’m confused by “possum pasty”. I don’t think the word “pasty” is being used in quite the same way? I blame vic-k. Not so much for the pasty mayhem, just in general…
Oh NO! 
I’m not going to suffer with this mental image alone: I just had a vision of vic-k in a leather welder’s apron, possum fur pasties and… rhubarb crumble.
Rhubarb crumble? It’s the whipped cream that scares me. Do you think the welder’s apron might carry through to Vic-k’s dominatrix obsession?
This Cornish pasty is definitely a “Proper Job”.
By the way, no possums or other exotic critters were harmed in the making of this culinary delight. So there! 
:mrgreen:
Anything is possible with enough ketchup.
Actually Scrivener is funded by an alternative revenue stream.
I knew it!!!
Is that a bottle of Jamesons on the shelf above that Guinness?
At least that would solve the mystery that is vic-k. 
Mystery?!! Mystery my tootie!! (if you’ll forgive the rude word 
)
Fluff
Someone call the wahmbulance.
I prefer Scrivener for my writing, but Microsoft Word suited me fine until my manuscript got really large. Scrivener is a niche tool for writers. I really love it and prefer it for that purpose, but for general stuff, Word is better. And you really can’t compare the two. Besides, you don’t have to deal with Word until you finished your work. Just export it and be done with it.
It always makes me laugh when people blame their own incompetence on the software. This sounds like an angry guy who’s angry with Microsoft in general while being stuck in principles way past their expiration date. Let’s be honest, no one really gives a shit what Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did in the 1980s and even less people even know what BASIC is or the Apple Lisa.
I really like the ribbon interface that was introduced in Office 2007. Sure, it took some getting used to, but once I got the hang of it, I got a lot faster at a lot of things. It was a nice upgrade from the old-fashioned menus and I never had any problems with it. And besides, real pros use keyboard shortcuts for the majority of actions.
Word has been a great friend for me through college, because it’s an extremely complete package. It’s the only word processor that makes it easy to insert beautiful tables, smart objects and images, and it has great tools to keep track of sources and adding a bibliography in the appropriate style. I recently installed Office 2013 (on Windows) and it’s by far the most feature-rich word processor out there with great built-in cloud functionality.
If MS Office really sucked as bad as the author suggests here, people would abandon it, plain and simple. Look what happened with Windows Vista. Consumers and businesses avoided it like the plague. MS Office a great suite for 99% of users and Microsoft couldn’t care less about the angry 1% that laments over the good old days and how unfair it all is.
Wake up and smell the coffee, pal. Microsoft Word ain’t goin’ nowhere.
Going further on, there is a bottle of Tanqueray. I guess the mistery is fading away, drop by drop.
Paolo
Well it still isn’t on the iPad and iPad is one of the hottest markets outpacing many other devices in current and future sales. (many people are replacing aging PC’s with iPads).
Also take into account things like Google Docs, Open Office, and PDF taking over many users who are tired of proprietary formats and restrictions and you see a decline in Word usage over all.
But hey awhile back VHS was all the rage and when the DVD came out people swore that 4 Head VCRs weren’t going anywhere.
You can still buy a 4 head VCR in some stores, and even find somethings on tape. The main use for VCRs now a days is to have one watch old tapes. Then again during the transition phase many people sold those VCR to DVD devices which moved more to DVD and pretty much made the VCR obsolete.
Word is headed in the same direction. There is not one thing Word does better than anyone. It does many things “ok” but the only reason why it is still around is legacy usage and people who haven’t “changed”. We are in the transition phase where people want to share files, open them on many different devices, be more open standard in a lot of cases or to run slim and trim to save battery. Instead of 1,000 features you probably will never use - instead you might use an app that just specializes in that one thing “There is an app for that”.
The mentality of the user has changed faster than Microsoft’s business model. Gone are the days of locking files to one system or only sharing with others who also pay premium. Here are the days of startups and fast apps, sharing and instant gratification. Connected devices and open formats.
Now a days with apps in the $0 - $50 range why is someone going to pay hundreds for MS Office? They aren’t because now with connected devices you no longer can justify the Premium price for Office for many users. Hence the decline in sales over the years.
With the internet and the “cloud” gone are the days of the Office requirement for compatibility. Here are the days of the “Connected Device User”. Microsoft is way behind in that market and will have to make big changes to their business model or they will continue to suffer attrition and eventually will fade away from the consumer market to dwell in the corporate market of servers and services…
Nothing lasts forever. To think otherwise is futile.
Are you calling me incompetent?
I write books for a living. I’ve written (and sold) books using Microsoft Word. My hatred of that product is informed by hardcore experience; I’ve been using one variety or another of word processor and text editor for close to 30 years; I’ve been using MS Word itself on and off since 1991: I used to work as a programmer: I have a computer science degree: and I still don’t like Word.
And just to bring the discussion full-circle, here’s why I still use Word (despite everything) …
Oh-ho! Now you’ve gone and stepped in it, b-man! Perhaps blanket insults aren’t the best way to go, especially here, where we try to keep our debates civil-like. We even succeed for the most part.
I for one am more persuaded by Charlie’s arguments than by yours, though your tone does make it hard to judge your words with anything approaching dispassion.
As a thought experiment, imagine that the world has for several years been essentially happy using some non-Word program.
One day you’re handed the BETA version of a brand new word processing program called Word and asked to evaluate its readiness for release. To get things started, the BETA team asks to you to evaluate the new program’s:
- Ease of use
- Quality of documentation
- Reliability
After a couple of weeks or so of working with the BETA, you’re asked to report your findings.
The first question is, do you recommend that Word be released? Or will you report that the BETA team has more work to do?
And based on what you’ve seen, do you believe you’ll want to switch to Word or continue using the existing word processing standard?
Cheers & have fun,
Riley
SFO
P.S. I’ve been working with computers since 1981. I also have a reputation among co-workers as a highly effective user of a wide variety of software tools. Including Word. Despite this I’ve never enjoyed working with Word and would be perfectly happy If I never had to bother with it again…