Is Scapple still alive?

Please see this thread I started.
https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/is-scapple-still-being-actively-developed/33199/1

It includes a description of the Windows version (v1.0.0.0 - unchanged since 2013) and includes some enhancements which would make Scapple more powerful but without in any way interfering with the learning curve.

I’m sorry but I like to use up-to-date software that I can genuinely believe in and which I can recommend to my friends, but if Literature and Late want my money, then they will need to support, maintain and keep their software up-to-date, albeit only with occasional releases.

J

Literature & Latte policy – for both Scrivener and Scapple – has always been that you should purchase the software (or not) based on what it can do now, not what you hope it will do in the future.

With that said, I think this is simply a case of development resources having been temporarily diverted elsewhere – iOS Scrivener, primarily, and related enhancements to desktop Scrivener – rather than abandonment of Scapple.

Katherine

Is that the same thing as saying: “Literature & Latte know precisely what the world needs and do not want any help from their users and have no wish to be in communication with them” … ?

If so that is a very “last century” stance and I have no wish to invest my time learning their tools. Part of the reason is that can bet your bottom dollar that someone will eventually write something elsewhere which, through an ongoing process of user trials and intelligent listening to user feedback, will eventually kill L&L’s application off. Adapt or die.

It’s absolutely fair enough for resources to be diverted on a temporary basis, but development seems to have stopped for over 2.5 years. Their management are either being arrogant, naive or are facing an existential threat. Either way, this is not reassuring.

If I had meant that, I would have said that. Or rather I wouldn’t, because this forum wouldn’t exist.

It is simply an acknowledgment that all software development takes time – particularly for a small company – and not all feature requests will fit the developer’s vision for the software.

Katherine

How long a development cycle takes is simply a reflection of how many and how complex are the changes going into each cycle. For this reason it needn’t take long.

There are several purposes for forums beyond listening to users’ feature requests and that includes explaining to users how the software currently works, users exchanging hints & tips with each other about the current system, and ultimate soliciting sales of what currently exists.

In general unless really large structural changes are involved, the modern method is to solicit as much user feedback as possible, to listen to it very carefully, to deliberately not follow quite a lot of it, to have numerous short development cycles, to see how the introduction of new features affects user various metrics of behavior including Net Promoter Score and of course sales, and to remove as much complexity as possible if users in fact respond negatively to the new features. Google “The Lean Startup” business movement for further info.

Scapple is actually less buggy than it initially seemed from listening to their explainer video and experimenting for several minutes. The core problem was that for some weird reason, the Windows version of Scapple has completely different hotkeys compared to the Apple version and this was not made clear in the explainer video. In fact I couldn’t even find an explainer video for the Windows version of Scapple. It may exist but I couldn’t find it.

No matter, I can probably get the functionality I seek with more responsive suppliers. In case anyone is interested, the very low cost yEd is very different and vastly more complex but is looking like a promising alternative to Scapple. L&L could learn a few things from yEd, should they wish to listen to mere humble users.

If I read your alternate posting accurately, you are still using the trial version of Scapple. Which is to say, you don’t currently have any money at stake. Correct?

I’m sure Keith is grateful for your market study, analysis, and approach advice. Perhaps he is unaware of such matters, although I tend to suspect that, given his success thus far with Scrivener, it may be that he is aware.

Forgive the presumption, but you do not come off as a mere humble anything.

ps

Numerous short development cycles are indeed very common for web-based software, but neither Scapple nor Scrivener is web-based.

For more traditional, locally installed software, each new release imposes support and learning costs on both the user and the vendor. If the users don’t like the new features, they will insist on reverting to the old version, and there’s no good way to force them to switch. (Witness the number of users still running Windows XP.) Even if the users do like the new features, they will still cause some degree of confusion, leading to additional support queries.

Moreover, most users don’t want to be beta testers, they want to get work done. They’re perfectly happy to wait for months or years between versions, provided the current version fits their needs reasonably well. I’m sorry to hear that Scapple does not appear to meet yours.

Katherine

PS FWIW, the lean startup model does not appear to be universally acclaimed. johnffinneran.com/blog/fat-s … he-lessons

If I read your alternate posting accurately, you are still using the trial version of Scapple.
Which is to say, you don’t currently have any money at stake. Correct?
Whut? Scapple is not free. I have 28 days and then have to pay.

given his success thus far with Scrivener,
Only 3 employees and not enough resource to fine-tune Scapple is hardly Bill Gates.

Forgive the presumption, but you do not come off as a mere humble anything.
Your are conflating have strong opinions with arrogance. I have strong opinions yes, but I here to learn and assist.

Katherine - yes web-based is different and easier to have short development cycles. Yes there are some down-sides of having too numerous too short development cycles. Yes, once a product that fulfills a particular niche extremely well has settled, may need less and less evolution. Yes, Lean Startup much more art than science. No, it is not easy to execute. Yes it’s very very easy to annoy & alienate your users - hence the need for careful sandboxing. Yes OF COURSE you need to add value to users at every step (see article you site.) As the author found it’s very easy to find oneself testing the wrong thing. Ultimately, one startup’s failure to execute lean thinking does not invalidate an entire business ethos.

Either way nowhere is he saying what he should have done is down tools and wait for the money to role in, which appears to be what is happening here with Scapple. The principle of continually testing and measuring - albeit sometimes in slow motion, remains a valid one.

But Scapple has had no new releases not just over many months but 2.5+ years. Moreover the talk appears to be that Scapple is done. Finished. Perfect. Yes, at the first release. Version 1.0.0.0.

Within a few minutes of using Scapple it became clear to me that there are numerous small modern ways to slightly improve it without over complicating what it does. If L&L can’t be bothered to listen or keep evolving it would be very tempting to write a competing product that does exactly what Scapple does, but does it just that bit better, in a more fluid, more obvious manner.

Can anyone here think of a single thing in the whole of human history that perfect at it’s first release? I can’t.

I agree that a major part of the joy of Scapple is it’s very simplicity and short learning curve. And I agree that whatever is done should not compromise that. But that still leaves a large number of possibilities whether or not L&L can be bothered (or have the resources) to do so.

Have to pay? No. You have 28 days of free use left. If, as seems obvious, you do not think Scapple suits your needs at the end of the trial period, then you delete the software and pay nothing. That is one of the great advantages of trial periods. Use and evaluate; purchase or don’t purchase based on your evaluation.

Not very polite, really.

You come across as though you are here to criticise and instruct.

The reason Scapple was created was because the developer wanted software to fulfil a need he had, and couldn’t find it on the market. Actually, that’s how Scrivener was created too, funnily enough. If you can’t find something to suit your needs, then by all means create it and sell it.

Michelangelo’s David.

I was more thinking of functional tools than works of art but since you raise it… Although works of art are in a special category of their own and although it is generally ill advised to go back and pop a bit more paint on something like say the Mona Lisa so as to change that famous smile for example, Nonetheless all expensive works of art are regularly maintained or “conserved”. And yes even solid marble needs to be repaired and maintained from time to time.

But maintenance aside, was David ‘perfect’ when made?

…certain part of his anatomy are widely recognized to be way out of proportion. By which I do of course mean that his head and right hand are both too large…

Both his over-sized head and some conservation in action can be seen here:

Just had a very interesting quote come across my twitter feed that I think is very applicable here.

It was a re-tweet by Wayne Pepper, a GTD Coach at the David Allen Company. The quote is from Ken Rutkowski ‏@kenradio

“If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.”

I think that applies here. If you think Scapple is not suitable then go find something else or write your own.

I wish Scapple were alive … on iOS! Badly needed indeed!

In my quest for alternatives for Scapple on iOS I’ve hit bull’s eye: iThoughts.

You can read about me praising this wonderful app here:
https://forum.literatureandlatte.com/t/brainstorm-storyboard-outline-apps-for-ios-compatible-with-scrivener-until-scapple-has-a-mobile-version/35204/8

I was watching some YouTube videos about Scapple and one comment said Scapple was no longer being developed. This made me sad.

I’ve read this thread, and sincerely hope to avoid any controversy by asking if this is true. I intend NO criticism of L&L—there is nothing to criticize! But I would like to know if L&L sees Scapple as an active project: anything from as minimal as “no new features necessary, but will quash bugs as they appear (in new OSs)” to “tweaks and enhancements as time permits” to “we have some great ideas we want to include in a future release.” If it’s no longer an active project—no bug fixes, tweaks, enhancements, new features—it would be nice to know that too.

I love the napkin sketch simplicity, more so now after a couple of kind users shared some pretty awesome examples on Facebook, so I’m working on incorporating Scapple into my writing workflow, but if it’s not active, I might consider alternatives.

My sincerest thanks for a reply and my thanks for creating such a great app!

Scapple has not been abandoned.

I cannot speak for the developer, but I believe it is seen as “finished” in the sense that it meets the goals for which it was originally written. So future versions are more likely to include bug fixes and minor tweaks than major enhancements.

Katherine

Scapple has definitely not been abandoned, although it has certainly been a long time since there has been an update, for which I am sorry. The simple fact is that, on the macOS side, I am a single developer, and along with Scapple I develop the much more complex Scrivener, and in 2015 I had to abandon hopes of another developer helping me with the iOS version of Scrivener and code that myself, which took up the latter part of 2015 and a huge part of 2016. Along with that, over the past couple of years, I have been focussing on a big update to Scrivener on macOS. On the Windows side, the two developers there have been concentrating on getting Scrivener for Windows caught up with the macOS version for the next major update.

Because I knew from the start that Scrivener would take up most of my time, I deliberately designed Scapple to be simple and something that would not see (or need) too many updates, and that would be fairly low maintenance. That said, there are a number of enhancements and fixes I do want to make to it. By this summer, I hope to have Scrivener back in maintenance mode for a while, following the major development push on the macOS and iOS versions over the past two years, which should allow me some time to make some updates to Scapple. That said, I’m not planning on making major changes or additions to Scapple, because it was designed to fulfil a very simple need (the software equivalent of the way I scrawl over paper).

All the best,
Keith

Yeah, maybe one or two, but don’t get carried away.

Good.

… which it does. And quite nicely.

ps

So looking forward to Scapple for iOS… Haven’t found any replacement for it.

I love to write and doodle on paper. We are in the midst of going paperless. While I have enjoyed Scapple on the Mac, to be able to write and make connections in iPad pro would be a dream come true. Love ya’ll work – started with Scrivener for PC - when I had to get a new laptop I switched to Mac just to have these programs in their native environment (okay - the other reason was because my husband bought a Mac air the same year I bought my PC and it is still going . . . ) Thanks again for your work! -a

Is Scapple alive. I is like using a pencil: if you use it, then it’s alive as much you are alive yourself. (Not always is more, more, more a sign of being alive.)