Call me old-fashioned but… the idea of watching a film on a phone is bad enough. Trying to write one…???
Heh… My justification for buying myself an iPod Touch is rapidly waning.
popcornflix - I’m afraid what I had in mind would certainly have none of that.
All I had in mind was a project that would take me about a week or two and that’s that; nothing that would divert any development away from Scrivener…
bodsham - I agree; I can’t ever imagine using a Touch or iPhone over my Moleskine notebook and it-writes-upside-down-bullet-style-space pen. You’d be surprised at how many requests I get, though.
Best,
Keith
Well I’ve had a Touch since it came out and it’s really useful as an iPod and for mail and web when there’s wifi around. I don’t use any of the few apps I bought for it (such as Omnifocus and Things). It’s just too much faffing and frankly I don’t find the sync terribly reliable or worthwhile (particularly if it involves the dreaded MobileMe. Mind you if I lost my Moleskine I’d be b&^^*ed (and it’s the special Rome edition too).
So if you want a neat iPod and the mail and web for wifi I’d say go for it. But I honestly can’t see it as a reading or editing tool - not when you can buy a netbook for £170 in Tesco that will read anything dumped out as rtf or Word. I got the cheapest Acer Aspire One that way, bunged on Ubuntu 8.10, which is a sight smaller than my MacBook Air and quite interesting too. If I need something for a quick train journey or the dreaded Easyjet it’s the best option (the keyboard is fine).
Oh - so can we have Scrivener for Linux then? 
For me, the whole idea of using my iPhone with Scrivener is about ideas within a structure.
I write non-fiction, and my writing is rigidly structured (while my ideas are often not). That is not to suggest that fiction writers are less structured (I wouldn’t know anyway). The structure and text of my present book project is something I want to have with me all the time, because they help me, or are more or less necessary, in developing ideas while I am not sitting at my desk (which I am frequently not).
So, my wish is a simple application that can read a structured view of my Scrivener project’s texts (or a format that Scrivener can export); that is, each and every document (or chosen ones) and where they fit in, just like an outliner:
-
Chapter
1.1 - Subject
1.1.1 – Document
1.1.2 – Document
2. Chapter
2.1. - Subject
2.1.1 – Document
2.1.2 – Document
2.2 - Subject
2.2.1 – Document
And so on. Then I would click on a chapter, subject or a document, and read the same text as my Mac’s Scrivener project has stored, and/or input my notes and ideas.
Neither I am convinced that I would use my iPhone for actual writing, only for note taking and idea recording, like I would not use the e-mail app for serious reading and writing of lengthy emails or emails with serious attachments.
But that may or may not include typing of short notes. The iPhone has two other input methods I find really useful: Picture snapshots and voice recording.
Just as I would not dream of using my iPhone for pictures to publish, I would not use it for dictation (or lengthy writing). But I would love to be able to take a snap of any place or subject that triggers an idea, of a written note (a Moleskin page for instance), a printed extract etc. Or record a reminder, or the exact phrase of a person that wants to share something important. And then import these, together with my written notes, into my Scrivener project.
To me, this is what the iPhone is all about: A communication device for short messages and ideas.
To sum up:
If I could access the text of my Scrivenings, and where it fits in, and input keywords , snapshots or short voice recordings into that structure, It would use it all the time. I would even gladly pay for it.
Toralf
Shame the iPhone can’t actually edit Word documents or you could do this through an export. I don’t know if this is possible or even desirable Keith but I throw in an idea anyway. Would it be possible to have Scriv export a specially tagged rtf document that could be read and edited in other programs, say Word or OpenOffice, then reimported into Scriv and have all the fancy Scriv stuff - scene breaks and everything - automatically recreated. Sort of a portable compatibility format. That way we could edit our work in different places and be able to bring it back to Scriv for polishing without having to go through any work dividing it up into chunks again?
If you had that then anyone with an iPhone could edit to their heart’s content using a simple iPhone text editor, I could do the same on my little netbook, and when I got home I could pull it all back into Scriv on the Mac? Sort of have Scriv put in special tags that denote separate scenes and document breaks etc? Obviously I expect you’d lose extra info though such as notes…
I hope what I’m suggesting is clear. If not do ask.
It’s funny, when I had a Psion Series 3a, I wrote a lot on that tiny thing. I could pour down my thoughts on it wherever I was, and really fast despite those tiny keys. It was the perfect keyboard for tumbtyping. I wrote papers for school, scenes for some plays, and later wrote papers on it when I was at the university. I thumbtyped on long trains rides. Battery seemed to last forever, and it was really light. When at home, I just hit sync and I could work on it on my PC. When that thing finally gave up, it was like I lost a limb.
I tried to find a replacement, but wasn’t able to find the feel of that solid old Series 3a. I don’t know, the interface was just remarkable, so well thought out, and it didn’t even have a touch screen! Maybe it was because everything could be controlled with the keyboard that was the wonderful thing, because you didn’t have to switch between the keys and a stylus. The Series 5 felt too big, and I just couldn’t thumbtype comfortably on that thing. And switching between keyboard and pen, that’s not intuitive. I tried handwriting with a Newton, but those MessagePads 2000 are big, and it’s still slow to input text. It didn’t came close to the rapid thought train that was the Series 3a. Tried a Palm, but it’s really not fast having to use Graffiti, and an external keyboard makes it big. I also just don’t like having to use a stylus on small computers. I didn’t try any PDA with hardware keys after that. Maybe I should have bought a Blackberry, or something like that. I used paper notebooks for the last couple of years, but retyping my text does take long. Also, I don’t have pretty handwriting. And searching through my notes also takes a long time. Enter 2008, and I bought an iPod touch.
I thought long about buying it, and finally cave in just a couple of weeks ago. The device is everything I hoped for. And I did have my reservations about that virtual keyboard, but it’s not that bad. For me, typing on a glass pane actually feels quite good. Yes, there are occasional misses, but the auto-correct catches a lot. It’s just the whole interface that makes a good experience: it’s simple, functional, and I just totally get it. It’s the same feeling I had with my Series 3a. Everything is controlled with my fingers. No switching between two different interface types, meaning a pen and keyboard. It just makes sense, even more than keyboard and mouse on the PC. The keyboard slides up when I need it, and moves away when I don’t. I just type in my thoughts wherever I am. Sometimes, I don’t like sitting behind my PC. I walk around, and type a few things on my iPod touch. For now, the available software is still immature. Syncing my text to my Mac is a bit of a hassle. But man, I really think Apple has made a wonderful product for the future. For me, the iPod touch is just a wonderful tool for my brain, and I do hope that good software is developed for it.
ScrivNote might not be for everyone. Heck, the iPod touch might not be for everyone, certainly not for those who hate the virtual keyboard. But I was born in the age of the PDA. I like to carry a pocketable PC with me, instead of a paper notebook. I think the touchscreen interface is the future. I like the concept of a unified interface, meaning one way to control the interface. Like the Series 3a was a great tool that I could carry with me all the time, I’m positive that the task will now be carried over by my iPod touch. If in the future there is a way that I could enter a couple of thoughts on it, or even work out scenes on it during the day, and finally sync it with Scrivener on the Mac, that would be wonderful.
P.S.
Oh, and the Netbook is not the equivalent of the paper notebook in the digital age. It’s small, but it doesn’t fit in the palm of your hand. Yes you can carry it with you in a small bag, but you still need to put it onto a table or your lap when you want to use it. So there still is a place for the pocketable computer.
I’m constantly trying to tie my iPhone into every little aspect of my life just 'cause it’s fun to use. Sure, typing on it is a nuisance, but I think lots of people would be tempted into using such a thing just because it could be done.
So, whether or not people use it, it would probably be good marketing. And I think I would actually use it a bit, since my endless “Future Writing Notes” file is now in Together on my laptop, and not much use for capturing ideas when I sit bolt upright in bed with my brain buzzing.
Well, you asked. 
I use my iphone (and my PDA before) for jotting ideas all the time. At bare minimum, I’d like to see ScrivNote:
• Work in vertical & horiz modes
• List documents by headline
• Sync to Scrivener in some way, so transferring from iPhone to Mac is easy and fast.
Next most important feature would be at least one level of folders.
(You could also make the entry screen look like an index card from the Corkboard. 8) )
You can already read Scrivener projects on your iPhone.
It’s not a perfect setup, and I haven’t tested the method thoroughly, but it works for me.
- When you’re ready to export your project to the iPhone/Touch set the font in Preferences to something like 36 point. Leave everything else untouched.
- Then Documents > Convert > Formatting to Default Text.
- File > Export > Files and choose the HTML option
- Drag and drop the folder to your iPhone using AirSharing or other file browser.
- You can then change the font size back to normal, or just change the view to 50%, which is usually good enough for my purposes.
It’s certainly NOT the perfect solution, but I find this does not destroy your text formatting, and you can then read the text on the phone at good size. It also doesn’t affect your Compile Draft formatting, which is really where you don’t want to play with the formatting. The HTML format allows you to read without getting that pesky horizontal scroll.
Of course, a proper solution would be much better, and a ScrivNote that incorporates at least some organizational features would be my request.
I don’t have an iPhone, I don’t intend to buy one, I don’t even own a mobile phone anymore. (I had one, once, when it still was something special to have one, and kids were looking at you with big eyes when you were using it… remember? 
(Yes, I’m that old 
))
So, count me out as a customer. While on the road, I rely on notebook and pen.
This whole idea strikes me as an example of technological imperative: we can do it, therefore we should. Is this a needed step, an interesting step, a cute-but-marginally-practical step, or an utterly useless let’s-show-off-our-new-toy step? It strikes me as closer to useless than to needed, but as I can’t imagine ever using it myself, I have no interest in it; probably my opinion should not count for much in your deliberations. But you did ask.
Phil
Like PJS I am not sure this is needed by “most” folks. But…
If I were on a short trip, say to the market, and I see/experience/dream an event which demands inclusion in my work as a resolution, then it might be nice to whip out my non-existent iPhone, hit the sciv icon, tap the “new note” button and give it a quick write up hence alleviating my distraction. Since my writing is not my “job” I do not carry my 3x5 when I do a 15 minute (which turns into 60 minute) errands. It is almost inevitable that some idea will strike and I miss a significant part of it.
That said, my current mitigation (I have no iPhone anyway) is to haul a kid who always carries a notepad. My son always expects some all important secrete to fall his way, so he always carries a little notepad. He is getting quite good at dictation.
anyway, I think there are those who could use this, but I see it as nothing more than an index card stack. I would not even make an association of the card to a project in the iPhone. Have the integration engine do that. In scriv let me pick what projects I want to sync with the phone, then ask me to assign existing cards to these projects. New cards require manual assignment in scriv. Allow me to export all existing index cards from scriv to the phone. Just the card. Nothing else.
If that makes sense, great (it would be a first I think). If not … well we should be used to that by now.
Of course, for people who have never used PDAs and never will, and only use paper and their desktop / laptop PC, it will be considered useless. I do not know how large the PDA / handheld computer crowd is. Maybe it is not that big, maybe it is. To say that it is an example of “we can do it, therefor we should” is negating the fact that we live in a digital age. It is negating the fact that we use Scrivener on the Mac.
There is a generation that has grown up in the digital age, and use the digital every minute in their lives. And then there is also the older crowd who have embraced the digital as a great tool for doing what they did before, but better. Or else, we would all still be using typing machines - some great writers still do, of course, and many still use the pen! But there is such a thing as progress. People use their mobile phones and iPods for many things, because that is what they have in their pocket. It is their address book, their notepad, and more. Paper is only used when they have to print out something.
With Apple moving their iPods to the iPod touch platform, there will be a proliferation of handheld computers in people’s pocket. It is what people use for music in the first place, but soon they will discover other uses. Students will most certainly use it for many things. And then there is the crowd of longtime Mac users who have dreamed about a great Apple PDA for a long time, and now it is finally here!
How marginal the use of ScrivNote will be, cannot easily be guessed, not even from reading this thread. All I can say that if there will not be a Scrivnote, it is not the end of the world. But, I will still use other apps for writing on my iPod touch, because I am part of the crowd who has embraced the digital. Scrivnote will just make it easier for text to be imported into Scrivener, that is all.
Personally I wouldn’t use Scrivnote in the immediate future, not owning any “i” hardware currently…
But looking further ahead, I might, having been an owner of Psions and Palms in the past.
There’s also the wider argument that if you don’t do it, somebody else probably will.
H
Well, I used the “for business” excuse to buy myself an iPod Touch and I have to say that I love it… And the keyboard on it is pretty decent, I can get a bit of a speed up even after only messing around on it. I’d never use it for serious note-taking - the Moleskine beats it on every level for that sort of thing - but I would definitely use it if I was out and about and didn’t have a notebook on me.
That said, there is one thing in this regard that I think is pretty awful and really, really lax:
Part 1) Even the standard Notes app that comes with the iPod Touch/iPhone cannot be synchronised with your computer - you can’t get all the notes out as text files on your Mac. I was expecting to have the iPod appear in the Finder as a volume, as iPods to if you set them up to store files, with the notes appearing as text files there… But that doesn’t happen. The ONLY way of getting notes out is to e-mail them to yourself (which makes me wonder at the point of the Notes app, seeing as you may as well just write your notes in the Mail app in the first place…).
Part 2) And this is really, really splendid: The drag type that is used by messages in Mail OS X is completely private. In other words, there is no way for developers to read messages dragged out of Mail. (Apple have their text views read a single dragged mail and create a link to it, which is why they appear as links in the text of Scrivener and other apps when dragged, but this is all done in private methods that developers have no access to.)
The upshot of this is that: a) The only way of getting notes out of the iPod/Phone is to e-mail them to yourself. b) Because developers can’t provide a way of you then just dragging the e-mails you sent to yourself into their applications, the only way of then getting the messages into other applications is to go through them one by one and copy and paste the text.
Thanks, Apple!
Anyway. I played with the iPhone SDK a little today for an hour or two (it’s a Sunday, I’m allowed to play). I can’t see myself developing anything for it in the near future, to be honest. It’s fun, but to create something meaningful would be a lot of work (work away from Scrivener), especially given the synchronisation issues, which I am still somewhat flabbergasted at.
However, this thread has been very useful - especially bodsham’s suggestion of some sort of “compatibility” format. That set me thinking, and I have come up with a way (in theory) of you being able to get your draft (or a subfolder of the draft) out of Scrivener for editing in another application - Word or whatever - and then getting it back into Scrivener so that the individual texts within Scrivener get updated with the changes you made (i.e. without having to split everything up again or creating duplicates). The use of this should be obvious: you could export your draft as an RTF or DOC file for so you can edit it on a Windows machine (supposing you have access only to Windows machines somewhere you are going, or at work or whatever), or on Linux, or on anything else, and then you could re-import it to Scrivener updating the existing files in Scrivener. I haven’t implemented it yet, but I’ve worked it all out in theory and I think this would be a very cool addition…
Right, off to play with my iPod Touch and new MacBook now…
All the best,
Keith
Glad to be of help, Keith. There are a number of annoying glitches in the whole iPhone, such as the inability to cut and paste and some really bad omissions on messaging (which is why I donated my iPhone to my son and went on to a Nokia N95). I think you’re wise to be wary of putting a lot of time into it. The compatibility format would allow it to be edited by a couple of add on text editors for the iPhone too.
I couldn’t believe the Notes didn’t sync with the Mac either - makes the Notes thing in Mail pretty redundant it seems to me. That said as an iPod that picks up mail and lets you go on the web it’s pretty amazing. If people want something simple to manage project (which does sync with a desktop app - as reliably as anything syncs at the moment) they might want to look at culturedcode.com/things/iphone/
Keith,
It’s been a while since I’ve been on the Forum… I haven’t been able to keep up lately, but I was delighted to see your feedback request for ScrivNote for the iPhone! I’m surprised by all of the negative press in this discussion. I for one would absolutely LOVE to see ScrivNote become a reality!!! The iPhone has become a lifestyle for me. I’m able to take notes much faster than I ever could on my WinCE iPaq PDA. And by jailbreaking the phone, I’ve got full access to a Unix computer in my pocket. The iPhone is also ideal for traveling. On my last trip to Africa, I took only my iPhone and left the MacBookPro at home. The iPhone is not as convenient as a full laptop, but the thing fits in my pocket. I was able to do everything that I needed to do (web, e-mail, contacts, phone, journal notes, etc.)
I really like the Hipster note-card idea that was posted here. Also, the sync example that the GTD app, “Things” uses. It’s very fast and convenient via WiFi.
Many of the iPhone’s shortcomings are remedied by a jailbreak. Also, as the platform matures and Apple eases up, I’m sure most of these nagging issues will be addressed (copy/paste, bluetooth keyboard driver, etc.). It’s a full blown computer, for crying out loud… and a powerful one at that!
Why not give it a go, Keith?!?!
I’m with Dr Coffee. Keep it simple.
Tim
I use iPhone as my notepad. Not the preinstalled app, but WriteRoom, which syncs nicely and allows editing the files on iPhone directly in the desktop’s browser.
Something like ScrivNote wouldn’t be something I crave for. When I need to work, I’ll carry my iBook with me anyway. The possibility to view the contents of Scrivener files on iPhone would be nice, though. I wouldn’t even want to be able to edit all the assets. Having the chance to add notes directly in the project (a single “iPhone” file could be generated in the binder?) would be great. But the syncing thing can’t be underestimated,
So … nice to have. But not essential.
Keith, at the very least, the “compatibility format” would be extremely cool, so I’m glad something came of this discussion.