Has Windows Version 3 Been Scrapped?

The last update, just stating ‘sometime in 2020’ was a year ago. We are more than half way through 2020 and have heard NOTHING.

We haven’t seen any updates since. I know that there is a beta, but shouldn’t we have gotten some word from the developers publicly outside of the forum?

As a customer I feel very strung along and lied too. We’ve been waiting for years for a new Windows version, and there are twice as many people working on Windows than MacOS. At the very least we should have had an update.

The development team should know that there are several articles out there about people jumping ship from Win Scrivener to other programs,

I’m starting to believe they are running out of money to produce this update and don’t want to tell us.

This is very unprofessional, and I am highly disappointment in the development team. The least we could get is a ‘fall/winter 2020’ OR and update saying that they just don’t know when it will be out, Even one saying its pushed back to 2021 would suffice. I feel they do not want to do that because of losing more customers, which is causing more customers to jump ship already anyway.

I do not want jump ship. Even just version 1 is a great product, but I fear if it waits to long for this update I will have to find another way to get my writing done effectively and will not be returning to purchase v 3.

Software is never finished, and everything I’ve seen is the beta version is perfectly functional and well done. Patches can be applied later, as long as it has most of the new features they have on Mac it can be patched later.

If anyone from the development team see’s this, can we just get a public update on what is going on? This is a great product and I don’t want to see it crash and burn because they are waiting for the Win version to be perfect before it releases.

Even if you don’t want to download and use the beta, all you need to do is read the Windows Beta forum to get a good sense of what issues are being seen and what is being worked on. The devs have even stated on a couple of bugs that they are not likely to be fixed before release, so we are starting to get a sense of what the cut-off line is.

L&L has stated multiple times they will no longer be providing ETAs.

Hi MagickMatt,

Development is demonstrably on-going. A new beta version is released at least monthly, and sometimes more frequently. L&L reviews and responds to bug reports on a daily basis. All the action is in the beta forum, here: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=57

On a personal note, I’ve been using the beta since late last year, writing my fiction. There are still bugs, but generally it’s an awesome writing environment.

Care to share? I’d be curious to read the articles myself. I’m unaware of any similarly priced long form writing environment on Windows OS that has anywhere near the feature set of Scriv v1, much less the v3 beta. Believe me, I’ve looked. So I’m also curious about which product(s) these people are moving to.

Best,
Jim

Y’all, this is something we all need to stop doing.

Just like we expect people to come here and read the beta forum and have some idea of what kind of updates are going on, we need to remember that people have come here and expressed their frustrations with 1.9.x. There are some long-standing bugs that could be VERY detrimental to a person’s workflow (the whole archived web pages fiasco is the first one to come to mind, but certainly not the last.) There are other bugs that in some ways are more of an actual hindrance to using 1.9.x on a daily basis than some that have already been reported and fixed in the beta.

There are actual, valid reasons why people might find that the current release version of Scrivener for Windows isn’t their cup of tea, and they aren’t embedded in the community here so they don’t know the whole backstory, so they look at the normal communication channels they’ve seen used in the past and they see…nothing. The situation is frustrating all around, and even when 3.x releases there will be people who are unhappy, but let us collectively stop trivializing those reasons for frustration.

Interestingly, I did a quick search online for such articles and the only ones I could find ‘discussing’ this topic are all quite similar saying ‘There are articles everywhere about folks leaving Scrivener’ but alas, no citations to said articles.

Considering that Scrivener is for writers, I would have thought they would be the very folk more likely to do appropriate research on the topic.

Unless, of course, there are a few trolls around, not that I would make that accusation ¯_(ツ)_/¯

Scrivener is a good tool, and the 2.9.x beta is quite good at this point. It seems to be progressing towards release.

I loved 1.9 and so far I’m happy with Beta, but I have to agree it’s ridiculous to have not made any public comment on the blog in almost 9 months. Say something. Anything. Even “We’re still working on it” is better than nothing.

The last public comment from the development team was in the Windows Beta forum, on August 14, 2020.

Katherine

That’s the thing, one need only refer to one of many topics in the beta forum, or look at the latest Release Candidate/beta which was released this month. Literature and Latte has been far from silent, one just needs to know where to look. :wink:

You know it’s likely that most Scrivener users never look at the website, but I feel it’s a safe bet that an even smaller number than that comes into the forums. Why make people go looking for answers?

I agree they’ve been far from silent, but it’s only been here in the forums where only a small percentage ever log into. People are naturally curious, but the company shouldn’t make it difficult for them to know where to look.

Painful experience. If users are not willing to come to the official forums, they’re also likely to completely misread and misinterpret blog posts as has already happened many times in the past. And then they actually do manage to come here…to complain about L&L not meeting “promises” that only ever existed in their own interpretations.

Both the blog post you mention and the main Scrivener 3 release page point to the Windows Beta forum.

Katherine

I came here today because I have heard or seen nothing from L&L. The Windows version wasn’t promised in 2020, it was promised in 2018. It’s been in eternal beta. I have not used the beta version because it’s a beta. If your entire project gets corrupted it was your own fault for using a beta, right? No thanks.
I’m coming to the conclusion my purchase for win3 was just a donation to L&L. Good luck with your future.

It wasn’t promised in 2018 either, Literature and Latte has only ever released estimates, they never made promises.

Here’s one example, from this blog.

That reads as an estimate to me, not a promise. You’ll find similar wording on other blog posts.

Scrivener 3.0 licenses have never been available for purchase. What you probably purchased was a license for Scrivener 1.X, a fully functional and robust piece of software which many of us have used for years without any complaints. It just happened to come with a free upgrade to 3.0.

Worth noting while beta software is generally use at your own risk, the Scrivener beta is highly stable, and many of us have been using it with little or no issues for months and in some cases even years.

Ahem. Please do not feed the trolls.

If you are not sure who the trolls are in this conversation, please consider that it might be you, and cut it out.

Katherine

Oh! be still my trollish heart! I’ve been outed!

Here is what L&L currently says about Windows Version 3:

“Scrivener 3: in the Works
We’re currently hard at work on Scrivener 3 for Windows (yes, we’re skipping a number!). If you buy now, you’ll get a free update to Scrivener 3 when it’s available.”

Note the use of the word “when”, not “if”. Sounds like a commitment.

But they also say:

“Disclaimer: Please make your decision to buy based on the current version of Scrivener (Scrivener 1 for Windows). This offer is a bonus for new users. We can make no guarantees on when Scrivener 3 for Windows will be available (we only release software when we are confident it is stable and the best it can be), and buyers of Scrivener 1 for Windows will not be eligible for a refund in the unlikely event that something happens to prevent Scrivener 3’s release.”

So L&L actively promotes version 3 in order to sell version 1, but the fine print says you might never get a version good enough for release.

Actually, the fine print says that you are not entitled to a refund if, say, an asteroid wipes out Cornwall. (L&L world headquarters.) Every company on the planet includes this kind of disclaimer.

Katherine

What tools are those? I am genuinely curious here. Links to the posts are fine.