And did your grandma have reasons to tell you that, I mean, in your case? 
Actually, I think it’s OK to politely tell Keith and the rest of us why Scrivener didn’t work as well as something else for some users. It might help them in planning Scriv’s evolution. And no one ever claimed Scrivener would ever be the best tool for everyone, or even for Scrivener users in all cases.
Actually, the definition of this subforum states:
This is a very open community indeed! In fact, It’s very rare to find a developer willing to host other people’s software --and even for competing apps comments in a formal space.
Even though I don’t use Scrivener at this time (while eagerly waiting for the iOS version) I keep coming back to this forum almost daily as it offers so much useful information about many topics related to writing. This is a great place. We should respect the proprietor of the house and, no, we should not p*** on the carpet.
Yes, I hear this occasionally and always find it a little bit odd. There is nothing in Scrivener that forces you to do this. I open it up, pick a template (or not) and just go.
Unlike Scrivener, Ulysses cannot handle automatic chapter headings/numbering and the page numbering is a little rigid. It supports a small number of paragraph types and I can’t add my own. Although Keith always denies it, Scrivener can compile a book of several hundred pages into different formats without having to use a word processor to typeset a single thing. I started the current book with Ulysses, but when I found that I would have to manually number all the chapter numbers myself, I went straight back to Scrivener.
I’m also not sure about having all my writing projects in a single database, but that is a personal preference more than anything else.
I’m a big fan of the CSS stylesheet system that Ulysses uses, but again, I find that small changes to the layout are a lot quicker in Scrivener.
But the typography in the Ulysses editor cannot be beaten. I’m not sure but I don’t think that’s a native framework they’re using; there’s no other app quite like it. I’d love to see it in Scrivener, but I imagine that would be a lot of work.
That’s a fair comment, but if you pick up a new app, the first thing you do is try the most important things you used in your old app. If the new app can’t do them then it’s an immediate deal breaker.
This is also the main reason I’m not using Ulysses III “in production”. I know others find the idea of the centralized database easier, but I don’t get the idea. The Finder is already a database - with a powerful classification system, tagging, and intelligent searching. So, why duplicating it, and making access to individual documents so complicate?
On the other side, I admit that the filing system of UIII is fast and effective. The versioning system is nice, but here, again, I find it to be a duplicate of Time Machine (even if more elegant and meaninful, since you can see the current and old text side by side). However, the snapshot system in Scrivener is far superior, in finding the differences for you.
I’m in love for these two chicks. The one is pragmatic and a great worker, the other is smart and nice. Sharing time between them may become a dangerous addiction? Will they abandon me? Will I end like the protagonist of McEwan’s Pornography?
Paolo
I second the sentiments expressed by rochefore (not p*** on the carpet)… Keith is a hospitable landlord and he and this group has encouraged and fostered the development of many (sometimes competing) products. Speaking of myself, my earlier product Published! grew out of the discussions with the very
friendly community here. Also, being a long time Scrivener user, I loved the cork-board interface of Scrivener. Its influence can be seen in the “Pins” view of MyStacki.com.
(sidenote about the Markdown and Rich-text options-- when developing Mystacki.com, I initially only had markdown. The Idea was that I would be later building iPhone/iPad interfaces and Markdown would be the best option from these devices (no formatting, text only going to and fro etc) My teenage daughter was my first “beta” tester and she declared that “Markdown was no fun” – she wanted fonts, colors, smilies etc… so I now have both markdown & rich text as options!)
It’s out—well, nearly:
ulyssesapp.com/blog/2015/01/ulysses-for-ipad/
I’ve been beta-testing it, and it’s solid—still missing a few features, like word count goals, but they should be there by the time it’s released.
I’m loving Ulysses.
However, I’m hating more than ever iCloud. Apple has never been (at least, not in the last decade) very careful about customer’s data integrity. Syncing between my two Macs and two iPads has been a nightmare. Sometimes, the files simply do not appear for several minutes and after repeated tries.
On the contrary, the years syncing Scrivener with WriteRoom and other editors via Dropbox and Box has been faultless, effortless, fast. I really hope Scrivener for Mac and the iPad will sync via these third-party services, in addition to iCloud. They may not be as easy, but at least they work.
Paolo
Yeah, we’re using Dropbox for the initial launch, and will look into other services (such as iClod) once we have time to do so. I can say in my own testing, even over my hideously slow home network connection, that syncing is quite fast and once it is up on Dropbox it is available immediately on the devices, no internal server waiting time as it sounds iCloud may suffer from. Really, it’s identical to what you have experienced with external folder syncing in terms of responsiveness.
Just a comment on cloud syncing (I haven’t used Ulysses – can’t justify the cost). I disagree with your comment about Apple’s approach to data integrity as I have found iCloud syncing to be rock solid. Since the transition from MobileMe* to iCloud, I have not had any corrupted files, data loss or unexplained conflicts. The same cannot be said of my experiences with either DropBox or Cubby. On the other hand, however, iCloud is not fast and I resonate strongly with your description of frustrated waiting. While iCloud sometimes syncs almost instantaneously, at other times it can take from several minutes to an hour for changes to sync. My only beef with iCloud is that there seems to be no way to trigger synchronisation on demand – you just have to wait until Apple is ready to pass on your data.
[size=85]*MobileMe was a different story: trying to piece together 6 years of corrupted calendar data from backups is not something easily forgotten. So when you repeat the experience… 
[/size]
Ioa, great news! I’ll continue using the usual syncronization methods. I’ve never had issue with Dropbox and Box, so I’m confident they will continue to serve me well.
Nom, unfortunately, I’ve been unlucky with iCloud deleting Notes and Safari bookmarks over the years. It happened just a few times, because I tried to avoid this system after losing the first data. At the same time, it seems that it is working reliably with Calendars. But, as you note, not fast enough to avoid scratching your head while waiting for your devices to be syncronized.
Paolo
I add a couple cases about iCloud syncronization, as they happened in the latest days.
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Syncronization between iCloud documents in Ulysses for iPad and Mac happened as soon as I opened the respective apps on the iPads and a Mac.
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Syncronization from Mac to the iPads of the markdown styles happened only after several minutes and several tries (including a forced quit of Ulysses for iPad).
I don’t know if the second issue was due to Ulysses or iCloud. Funny one of the syncronizations went well, and the other did not.
Paolo
I love Ulysses (in a different way to Scrivener, hence I use both).
The one thing I do not like about it is the fact that every document is stored in a single, central database. I cannot move old texts to some sort of archiving directory.
Therefore I write Markdown in both Ulysses and iA Writer Pro, where I can move files to wherever I like: much better for lots of small texts, which would flood Ulysses.
Once the iPad version of Scrivener is out, things might change again on my side…
Better late reacted than never, I would say…
After having fooled around with Ulysses and even copy/pasted a 5 years work travel-log to ensure it would do the trick for me on my amount work, I found that I even more treasure Scrivener.
It first glance, the layout of Ulysses (3) really attracted me and I was happily writing about.
Within a couple of days however, I became less enthusiastic when I noticed I started loosing work as a result of the iCloud synchronisation. It was my first use of iCloud and I was not sure which of the two (Ulysses or iCloud) caused the problem. Changing to Dropbox, Ulysses suddenly stopped synchronising the attachments, Targets and Keywords. This feature-drop if not using iCloud is actually documented in their help-files.
This was the reason from me to (gladly) switch back to Scrivener although the Ulysses experience made me spent a little time to re-configure my settings in Scrivener and I now write with a practically empty screen resembling the Ulysses layout and every other precious feature Scrivener has to offer within reach.
Synchronising with my Dropbox a-like cloud storage is a breeze and fully reliable preserving every single attachment and other feature I use with your marvellous piece of writing software!
Edit: I could have read through all other comments prior to posting this as apparent new information. Apologies!
Agreed. I relish Ulysses’ visual design and much of its philosophy, including the Markdown emphasis. But it doesn’t replace Scrivener’s functionality for my needs, so I also used U’s design (and Amber’s preference file here) to guide my own Scrivener project design. Although it seems Scrivener will always be oriented toward rtf (even though Apple seems to be moving away from it, at least in Pages), given the recent upsurge in interest in plain text, Markdown, etc. (at least among nerds), maybe that preference file could be converted to an official Scrivener template that could appear among the choices offered (like Fiction, Non Fiction, Recipes et al) that appear when you open a new project in Scrivener?
As for iCloud working fine with Apple Calendar: no, sometimes I get a “server syncronization issue” message, or something like this, from Calendar on my Macs. So, Apple’s own apps seems to have problems with it.
But why despair? Apple will simply shut down the service, launch another, more fashioned one, and give us the best of the best in syncing!
Paolo
Ulysses had some sync issues in my experience too. In one case it took about 24 hours to sync! In general iCloud works fine, but syncing may not be immediate all the time. If you remember that, you can work with iCloud syncing. If you expect immediate syncing (which happens pretty much all the time with Dropbox and OneDrive in my experience), then iCloud isn’t for you. I just don’t understand why Ulysses tied itself up to iCloud syncing only.