The main reasons they released the Beta versions as early as they did was that: those of us like me who work with a collaborator, where one is a Mac user and the other uses Windows, or those who use both platforms, would be able to work as seamlessly as possible without the Mac users having to stick to v. 2 until Windows v. 3 was ready; and those Windows users who wanted to help with finding the bugs and issues in the Beta could do so.
My collaborator has been using th v.3 Betas for well over a year now—I think I started looking into it seriously around Beta 10, and she moved up from v. 1.9 a few betas later—without significant problems, though our needs in terms of features are small … it is stability that has mattered to us and it has been very stable even though features have been missing, albeit ones that she hasn’t needed.
The person you’re replying to is not an employee of L&L, so they are not venting anything at any customers of theirs. They’re acting as customers in their own right, giving their own opinions back to the person who has an issue. Respect is earned, and constant whinging doesn’t earn much at all.
A customer doesn’t HAVE to use the beta. They have 1.9 which they paid for and the option of using the beta.
I have extensive software development experience so am perfectly aware.
Many much larger companies have taken as long or longer to get software to full release. What about Google betas that ran for years? Much greater resources…
Claims like this only make you and the whole software development industry look dumb, so I suggest you refrain from posting along these lines.
Sure, software development is one of the many industries that don’t have precisely automated factories that allow them to say “it will take 3 hrs 46 min 16 sec to produce 200 items”, but that doesn’t mean scheduling and setting deadlines is impossible. People working in such non-automated service industries use their skills and experience to estimate how long it will take to deliver the requested service. When setting deadlines and agreeing on delivery dates with customers, they leave themselves enough wiggle room for unforeseen circumstances/force majeure/illness/contractor issues etc.
Do they sometimes miss their deadlines anyway? Absolutely. By a few days? Totally normal. By a few weeks? Still not unusual. By a few months? Well, for particularly large & complex projects, it happens. But by a few years? Nope. That’s a sign that the service provider doesn’t know what they’re doing, or lacks experience and therefore grossly miscalculated the required efforts, or is hiding other relevant information from their clients (e.g., a solo entrepreneur struggling with time-consuming depression might not want to make this information public because he’s afraid of losing more clients).
Whatever the case is with L&L doesn’t really matter here – point is: your claim above sounds highly uninformed and incompetent. And comparing a writing software project run by two (?) developers and a handful of support staff to the likes of Google, Microsoft and Adobe, frankly, doesn’t make you sound any smarter.
(And on a more constructive note: For those of you who would like to see examples of how to create a cross-platform writing tool with a very tiny developer team and nevertheless keep customers happy, take a look at the screenwriting software “Fade In”, which is being developed by just one guy. L&L could learn a lot from him.)
Having been in computers and software since the Altair 8800, I have seen software (and operating systems, plus myriad hardware) announced ‘coming soon’ and taking years before availability or even abandonment And there have been major companies involved, which is why my Google etc comparison is very apt.
You were saying…dumb, uninformed and incompetent???
I am very familiar with and use Fade In which while a great piece of software is IMHO the nowhere near as complex as Scrivener so not a valid comparison.
While the Fade In developer is very competent at copying and in some ways enhancing the functionality of Final Draft, to suggest Keith & co should learn from him displays a lack of understanding of the relative complexities. I remind you, the complex Scrivener Mac and iOS have both been developed by one person - Keith. Win V3 by 2 developers.
If you take the time to read previous threads on the topic you will see all these claims over the extended development time have been made and debunked many times over.
We’re hopefully only a very short time from the V3 release, so the whole whinging exercise is a bit futile.
3DRealms made some of the most beloved shooters of all time. Some of the most smash hit first person shooter software to ever hit the market. They were among the best at that in the world, hammering home hit after hit.
Look up Duke Nukem Forever.
You might have heard of John Romero. If you haven’t, you don’t really need to take this kind of attitude. If you have, you know of his prowess and skill, and how much amazing software has his name attached.
Look up Daikatana.
Multi year delays are not the exception in this industry. They’re common, recurring events, which come when the software being developed takes seemingly small steps outside of the previously established norm.
And Scrivener steps way outside the norm for Windows software.
In short, your statements betray a stunning lack of insight into the reality of software business.
Fade In has a MUCH narrower scope than Scrivener. Your statement that L&L could learn from that is laughable. Seriously, you’re spouting off about things you do not understand here. There is no similarity in scope and capability.
Yes, Fade In is extraordinarily capable in its chosen scope. It is a fantastic piece of software, well worth looking at if what you are doing is screenplays, and nothing more. But it is NOT comparable, in any sense, to Scrivener. The scope of Scrivener is SO MUCH LARGER that there simply is no comparison.
Also, the core point of Scrivener is not that it is cross-platform. The vast majority of users are unlikely to use this capability (except between iOS and one of the computer platforms). The core point of Scrivener is that it leverages the platform it is one extremely well, at least in the case of iOS and MacOS. Removing that would remove one of Scrivener’s main strengths. Windows is a different matter; there is not much to leverage there. There, the strength of Scrivener is native code and good feature parity with MacOS Scrivener. And those are very good strengths indeed.
Maybe they didn’t have a very productive period, or the remaining bugs are proving harder to tackle and hence the betas are having fewer fixes. I don’t think it’s wise to create expectations when the official L&L it’s not offer any date or whereabouts… When they release the final version, whenever that is, they’ll make sure we’ll know, and I’ll have my credit card ready. In the meanwhile I’ll keep on writing on my old second hand MacBook Air.
I didn’t create any expectation, and don’t recall suggesting any imminent release, unless you conjured something up between the lines. Just expressed my pleasure, given what I saw as a good number of fixes from the issues I’d been tracking, and my perception of progress.
Meanwhile I’ll keep writing on Macbook Pro and Win beta.
There is only one forum rule: be polite. While we do allow a great deal of latitude in the interests of open discussion, posts that violate it are subject to deletion.
Note that this is the first post in this thread by a member of the L&L staff, All other posts are from individual users, who speak for no one but themselves.
I still pop in here to check if we have a Windows v3 release a couple of times a week. As soon as there is one, I will throw money at L&L. In the meantime I have continued to work on 1.9
It will happen when it happens.
I can write and publish in 1.9, quite happily but the iOS version on my iPad has made me realise what extra bells and whistles I will acquire so the move to the windows beta may happen soon for me. :mrgreen:
I honestly feel a Mac in my future after years of working on PC, as soon as ‘she who holds the purse strings’ decides I have earned enough to justify it.
Ah, the dreaded ‘holder of the royal purse’, ‘chancellor of the exchequer’, ‘minister of war’.
I am attempting to get budget sign off on an XPS 13 or similar for work that requires Extensive testing on an actual Win machine rather than Win under Parallels.
Considering history of this promise it is unlikely there wil ever be the same version cross platform.
By the time scrivener 3 for windows will be released, the Mac version will probably be 4 or 5.
There are dozens (hundreds?) of us enjoying complete cross platform compatibility. Win V3 beta is already cross platform compatible with the Mac version if you bothered to check.
Anyway. You’re becoming the official bully of this site. Any post that steers from your perception is shot down in flames. Stop for a while will ya? Let people complain for the delay if they fee like, and let the good people of L&L defend themselves if they like it, we’ve got enough nerds in fedora hats and their m’lady’s infecting the web already.
Actually Team L&L, please close my Forum account. Feel free to delete all my posts as well if you wish.
Reality is I will never be able to stop myself responding to some of the self-entitled crap and BS abuse aimed at L&L and the team.
If I don’t have an account I won’t post.
Have no fear, I’m still one VERY happy cx and respect the team at L&L for the great product, hard work and self control that prevents them from telling some people to go do anatomically impossible things.
When the excellent Windows V3 is released to public, I will be one of the first to purchase.
This applies to yourself as well, doesn’t it?
The only difference is that you criticize those that criticize those that complain. And now I criticize you, who criticize those who criticize those that criticize what they perceive as a “delay”.
Maybe you are challenging the position as “official bully”?
But that’s really an inofficial title, invented by you, isn’t it?
