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General: On Scrivener 2.0 and Ulysses

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      CommentAuthorbashosfrog
    • CommentTimeNov 1st 2010
     
    It's going to be a little discouraging for the Soulmen to hear the plaudits for Scrivener 2.0 over the next few weeks. They are deserved - I think everything anyone could want of a writing app has been shoehorned into this version.

    But after a couple of days of tinkering, I came back to Ulysses. I don't need index cards, a research folder or the Scrivenings feature, and it seems to me that these are the key differences between the two apps. And for me, the clean elegance of Ulysses, and the way it accomplishes things, just provides a better user experience.

    So my message to the Soulmen is: don't be disheartened by the fanfare around Scrivener. Ulysses is a superb piece of work. All the out-of-the-box thinking you've invested in it has changed the way people think about user interfaces. (I don't think you get the credit you deserve for inventing full screen view, for instance.) You may always be the underdog, given the ardent community that Scrivener has built up, but I'd urge you to continue innovating and refining Ulysses. It is a Leica to Scrivener's Nikon. Providing you keep breaking new ground every year or so, I suspect it will steadily gain market share among the cognoscenti. Just don't drop out of the game that you started.
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      CommentAuthorfehnman
    • CommentTimeNov 2nd 2010
     

    Thanks a lot, really appreciated. And fear not -- neither are we dropping out, nor are we going to be discouraged by the critical success Scrivener 2.0 will be receiving. We're here to stay; we intend to be on the Mac App Store, and we feel as if we can be a good citizen in the upcoming Mac OS X release (Lion).

    And although right now we're focusing on Dadalus touch for iPad, we're also steadily working on Ulysses. Steadily coming up with new ideas or improvements. These things need time, though, as it's much harder to come up with something new than to implement (or derive from it) it once you've seen it work.

    So thanks again, and welcome back. :)

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      CommentAuthorsmolk
    • CommentTimeNov 3rd 2010
     
    I am looking for the "like" button....
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      CommentAuthorFlex
    • CommentTimeNov 4th 2010 edited
     
    I've had pretty much the same experience.
    Last year I wrote my first NaNoWriMo book in Ulysses, basically switching on a hunch after using Scrivener for almost three years.
    Now Scrivener 2.0 is out, and the same thing happened - I ended up using Ulysses again.

    Scrivener has a nice collection of features, but the actual writing, which is kind of the most important part of, well, writing, feels most natural in Ulysses, and by a wide margin.
    With every single other writing software, Scrivener more than most, Ijust again and again end up in the fonts menu. Press the right key or the down key one too many times and whoops, you've got a different font.
    Who would ever want to change the font in the middle of a writing project?

    It's really that easy. When I'm writing, Ulysses leaves me alone. Others don't.
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      CommentAuthorniklas
    • CommentTimeNov 5th 2010
     
    >It's really that easy. When I'm writing, Ulysses leaves me alone. Others don't.

    That was spot on. It is Ulysses' main feature, in my opinion. And, like you said, not a small one for a writing tool.
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      CommentAuthorgodot
    • CommentTimeNov 21st 2010
     
    I am trying out Scrivener 2 ONLY because I run Tiger on my TiBook. I am planning on upgrading my laptop,but don't feel the immediate need to do so immediately for reasons other than my Ulysses 2.0.4 isn't fully functional under Mac OS 10.4.11.

    For example, Notes in Console mode do not show the text. One cannot change the text or background color, and so the text remains white on an off-white background. The Notes feature in Scrivener works as it should. I understand that Ulysses is optimized for Snow Leopard, but wordsmiths don't normally require the latest hardware, as long as what they have is reasonably fast, and chock full of memory.

    I wonder how many others are relegated to using the older version of Ulysses, or finding an alternative. I consider myself an Ulysses devotee, but there seems no harm in trying something else until I upgrade my hardware, or Ulysses is updated to be more compatible with Tiger. Alas.
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    Interesting to see your developments in the iPad arena.

    I'm also programming for iOS platform. That's why I'm requiring Ulysses for Epubs and complete control over exporting data.

    I don't know if its just me, but the mechanism of text selection in the iPad is very hard to use. To put the finger and hold it, and all that,
    wait for the menu, and then "touch" again. The lack of precision in touch vs mouse is huge.
    I can understand why you are thinking of removing even semantic editing.

    With Love,
    Uddhava dasa

    With Love,
    Uddhava d?sa
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      CommentAuthorfehnman
    • CommentTimeNov 21st 2010
     

    Actually, text selection is not that big of a problem, once you adjust to some advanced techniques: Double tapping a word, two-finger tap, two-finger tap'n'hold and move - the only thing I still find problematic is moving the insertion point, e.g. to correct a single character within a word.

    However, a lot of the problems can be lessened by increasing the font size and/or leading, which effectively increase the hit zones for our big, clumsy (often smeary) fingers. :)

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      CommentAuthormax
    • CommentTimeNov 21st 2010
     

    @godot: In fact, we have very very few users that still run on Tiger. All data that we have for this is the version information passed along with the automatic check for updates. According to this data, only 1% of all users run on 10.4. But even more interesting is the fact that even only 13% are still running on Leopard. The rest -- well over 80% -- are running Snow Leopard.

    Because of these numbers, we will drop Tiger support in the near future. Existing users can remain with the unofficial support in Ulysses 2.0.x or the official support in Ulysses 1.6. The next major Update, Ulysses 2.1, will only run on Mac OS 10.5 or newer.

    There are multiple reasons for us as developer to upgrade: first, having less platforms to support means less platforms to test for. second, being able to drop Tiger support enables us to program more efficient and more reliable. E.g. we could switch to garbage collection which would cause fewer crashes etc. There are more aspects to this story, we know. However, these two are the most important for us.

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      CommentAuthorgodot
    • CommentTimeNov 22nd 2010
     
    Ulysses on Tiger: if I choose to use 2.0.4 instead of 1.6, what major features will I notice that are not functional? Do you have a list I can reference, so that I can more easily decide which version is most suitable, because some of the new features in 2.0.4 I really like, such as the bookmarks in the side.

    I can't remember what the notes feature was like in version 1.6 of Ulysses (this is one feature of version 2 that doesn't work on Tiger).

    I could use anything, but I keep coming back to Ulysses.
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      CommentAuthormax
    • CommentTimeNov 22nd 2010
     

    here is no such list. Officially, Ulysses 2.0 does not support Tiger as well. However, there are a few things that don't seem to work. The notes panel in fullscreen (new in 2.0) and the new style settings (modified since 1.6) are the ones know to us. You're free to use it, but should be aware that we do not provide official support.

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