Ulysses III

[ptram]

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

[AmberV]

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.

[nom]

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

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.

*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...

[ptram]

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

[ptram]

I add a couple cases about iCloud syncronization, as they happened in the latest days.

- 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.

- 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

[JoergW]

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...

[Cor Oldenburg]

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!

[brett]

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?

[ptram]

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

[marcoiac]

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.

[brett]

Interesting series of posts by SF novelist Gary Gibson re Ulysses and Scrivener. Thoughts?

[marcoiac]

Interesting series of posts by SF novelist Gary Gibson re Ulysses and Scrivener. Thoughts?

I agree with Gibson, even though I don't write fiction. Ulysses is pretty, Scrivener is what I end up using for pretty much everything now, even smaller projects (and btw, you can customize Scriv to make it look like as pretty as Ulysses, or close enough). Now that the iPad beta version is coming out, who needs alternatives?

[windy71]

Anyone taken a look at the Ulysses for iPhone yet?

[Jordi Mora]

Anyone taken a look at the Ulysses for iPhone yet?

Yes - but to be honest, only because I have it on my iPad and it's now a universal app. There is no Dropbox support which makes it pretty useless for the kind of things for which I use a phone app. Looks nice though.

Now that Editorial has proper iPad Pro support (in beta since the beginning of the week) it's also the only plain text phone app I need.

[windy71]

I've never tried Editorial, is that Markdown too?