Out of curiosity, I did look to see what I could find on both people leaving Scrivener and alternatives. Here are some of the information I found:
melleesmith.com/2019/12/08/ … scrivener/
reddit.com/r/scrivener/comm … ft_behind/
alphaefficiency.com/scrivener-review/
reddit.com/r/writing/commen … tware_you/
getnovelize.com/why-scriven … your-novel
reddit.com/r/writing/commen … rade_to_3/
chrisrosser.net/posts/2018/08/3 … s-ulysses/
forum.atomicscribbler.com/t/i-o … ger/299/11
Would you mind summarizing?
I only opened one of those links. It’s “Why Scrivener sucks for writing your novel” brought to you by the people trying to sell you something called Novelize, which I never heard of before. The anti-Scrivener screed has nothing to do with Scriv 3 for Windows not being released fast enough for anyone, but is all about how Scrivener is too complicated for all us dummies.
There were a couple of links in there where people explained why Scrivener didn’t fit their writing process, and those were good.
Yet for the most part, all of the supplied links were filled with factual errors from people who have unrealistic expectations about what software does.
No way. This stuff happens in the software industry. My guess is they got hung up with the tools or their documentation but Scrivener is a complex ground breaking product - which is why we keep coming back here to see where things are.
Remember the worst platform for software development is Windows - any version. The registry! The virtual memory (partly Intels fault because they think they are doing something “new” every time they reinvent technology Digital Equipment had 50 years ago. Windows dev. looks great at the seminars but the performance is awful.
Then there’s the “documentation”, and the illogical values you can set but never clear, and let’s not get into updates. If Scrivener gets V3 to work on Windows they should get a medal, even two.
We’ve had Windows for 50 years and suffered with a paradigm driven only by better hardware enduring 10,000 “updates”, bug fixes, patches, knowledge base articles, and support so incompetent you wonder where they dug up the bodies. There’s a reason Gates got into medicine.
In the meantime if you need to get going buy an old MAC and upgrade it. It’s cheap and believe it or not a 2011 MAC with its i5 and a couple 2TB SSDs screams.(DVD morphed into the second SSD).
My guess is the developers are working really hard, but its like trying to land on the deck of an air craft carrier in high seas. You have no idea where the deck will be in 20 minutes when you get where you thought you needed to be 30 minutes ago.
Let’s cut LL some slack. We’ve had COVID crap for almost 8 months and NOTHING IS ON SCHEDULE. So let’s not sweat the small stuff. Promises before COVID are not fair game. (I have no financial interest in anything mentioned or their competitors.).
/Len
Windows 1.0 was released in November of 1985. That’s not 1970.
Windows 3.0 was released in 1990. That’s also not 1970.
Windows NT 3.1 was released in 1993, and that is arguably the start of the modern Windows lineage. Still not 1970.
My 2011 Mac does not scream, even with an SSD-ectomy. I frequently do, however, waiting for slow OS updates.
But don’t let little things like facts get in the way of your little rant…
Xerox Alto… 1972. It is the foundation of modern user interfaces. OS-X, all Linux variants, and windows are based on Alto concepts.
1973 also saw the x-net protocol developed to support alto. X-net was foundational to a little thing know as TCP/IP. Then there’s the mouse to navigate Alto. Also the concepts of GUI navigation like icons, forward, back, and tabs.
So yeah. The “new” tech has been around a LOOOOOONG time. Still agree with Devin though. The MS Windows nightmare is not common to all windowing systems and is a bit new than the graphical UI.
So there are these two friends, Kev and Leon. Kev and Leon are both excellent chefs, but they live in different countries so have access to completely different stuff.
One day, Kev invented this fantastic recipe for a completely new dish. Let’s call it Ratatouille. It was incredibly popular, but it was only available in Kev’s own country - the UK. Leon had visited the UK and tried this wonderful dish and, being a talented chef in his own country (Australia) struck up an agreement with Kev to make Ratatouille for Australia.
The trouble is, Ratatouille requires certain ingredients or it’s not Ratatouille — or at least it’s not Kev’s incredibly popular and beloved Ratatouille. And unfortunately, those ingredients aren’t readily available in Australia. So in order to make Ratatouille for Australia, Leon first needed to source the ingredients. In some cases this meant taking the tomatoes that were available in Oz and selectively breeding them to create an appropriate strain for the dish. In some cases, Leon had to do extreme research at a scientific level of genetic modification to completely reinvent a courgette that would grow in the Australian climate. And trust me, you don’t want to get Leon started on the subject of aubergines!
Of course, this was just one of many challenges. You see, while the UK is a relatively homogeneous climate and so Kev’s Ratatouille for UK ‘just works’ for all UK areas, Australia is incredibly diverse with climates ranging from the modern metropolis of Sydney, the salt plains surrounding Perth and the baked outback of the Northern Territories, and not much but that common brand of Australia that connects them. Creating a version of Ratatouille for Australia that works in all those settings, with ingredients that can be made to work in those local climates, and without creating potentially harmful or toxic reactions was incredibly difficult.
So somewhat unsurprisingly for those in the know, Ratatouille for Australia took a long time to get right, because the one thing that Kev and Leon not only knew but insisted on was that they weren’t prepared to sell Ratatouille for Australia to a single person until they were satisfied that it was absolutely ready.
Through all of this, no one was more keen to see the Ratatouille for Australia finished and available than Kev and Leon, not even the great many people in Australia who were keen to buy it!
The good news was, while all this was going on, Kev and Leon had actually already produced a version of Ratatouille for Australia that, while not based on the latest version of Kev’s Ratatouille for UK, was still a safe, delicious and incredibly satisfying version of Ratatouille for Australia that was an excellent version of the recipe that made Kev and his Ratatouille famous in the first place. So, really, while everyone was super excited for when the latest version would be available in Oz, people were all super happy and nice and understanding.
Because it was in everyone’s interest for OzRat3 to be properly cooked before it was served.
Yeah, I was wondering whether that parable was going to have K&L serve an incompletely prepared rendition gratis for nearly three years, let alone an improperly cooked one.
Safer to say that this show is taking an exceptionally long time in previews before it is deemed ready for Broadway or West End. Worth the wait, and well worth a few rough edges for those unwilling to wait.
Edit: Call it just the West End run in previews. Great seats now for those prepared to take an extended visit to The Apple!
Cheers - Jerome
That was The Mother Of All Demos, by Doug Engelbart, in 1968. He demo’d virtual conferencing, window systems using a mouse, real time collaborative editing, revision control, dynamic linking, all manner of things which then slowly got re-invented by others. Including Alto.
So the moral of Mr. Pigfender’s story is, You kids shut up and eat your vegetables.
Oh, very good! 
My thoughts. Sorry for my english, not my native language.
I use only the stable version of Scrivener (1.9.16), so I can’t evaluate the beta version per se, but looking at the changelogs I see always dozens and dozens of corrections and this is not reassuring for me cause I had the impression some bugs are recurring ones or new bugs are introduced fixing others.
Could be wrong, of course, it’s just an impression, but the frequent answer I read - even by L&L staff not only by other users like you - to “check changelog and evaluate by yourself” instead to clarify which parts of the beta version still need polishing and which are ok, let me think there wasn’t by no one a precise idea about the real stage of the software or the reliability of the code.
I had the same impression - that scrivener code wasn’t clean - when the 1.9 version got several hotfixs to fix the Paddle issue. Despite the hotfixes, I personally struggled months with the “license bug” on one of my two devices, with my support ticket opened and closed more times and I “solved” definitely the issue when I was forced to reinstall (with all issues related) windows 10 stuck in a loading loop at startup after a Scrivener crash (my best idea is the installation of the major updates of windows 10 regularly conflicts with Paddle license server on some devices) and this experience is something should never happen to a customer.
In short, even considering the first RC was 1 year ago, I would be surprised the new version was released soon (within the end of this year). And, once released, I would never jump, personally, to use version 3 after the experience I had with Paddle bug.
I wouldn’t be misunderstood, I love Scrivener, I use the 1.9 version - that luckily fits my needs - almost every day. I wish all the best to the new version. Just no confident the development will end soon.
I think this is a good point. I don’t think it’s fair to ask average users to track progress based on the posts in the beta thread. Most users probably don’t frequent the forums. Those that do can see that work is ongoing, but not what progress is being made. There’s a difference. I have no doubt that WinScriv3 will be released, but I have no idea how many bugs are left to squash and what features are left to implement. Nor am I saying I should know that kind of internal information, I’m just pointing out that the average user will look at the blog posts relative to WinScriv3 and see that the beta is nearly 3 years in progress, it’s more than a year since the release date of August 2019 was missed and 10 months since any public comment was made. I’ve followed the few development updates here on the forum closely, am aware of how much work is going into the Windows version and of what the difficulties facing Lee and Tiho were/are. Most users won’t have done that, and would probably be reassured by some kind of formal, public comment on development.
We aren’t asking users to track bugs. That’s our job! We’re just suggesting that the beta updates are one way to observe ongoing progress, as evidence that Windows Scrivener 3 has emphatically not been “scrapped.”
Katherine
MacBook Pro’s from 2011 have comparable clock speeds to modern MacBooks most of the time. Most current laptops will run “bursts” of high clock rates for short periods of time. For steady workloads the clock speed is lower and only 10-30% faster than the CPUs of 2011 even when under load. This is to save power and keep heat down. Modern GPU’s are much faster, however. For MacBooks, Faster (AMD) GPUs are only found on the 15" or larger models.
Faster SSD speeds are usually only noticeable during boot or disk intensive operations such as video editing. Scrivener should run quickly on modern hardware and on 2011 hardware unless you have a large project with lots of graphics.
In other words, for 90% of people a 2011 MacBook Pro with SSD runs almost as fast as a 2020 MacBook Pro.
If your MacBook is running slow this usually indicates a hardware problem.
When MacOS boots, it checks the battery. If the OS thinks there is a flaw in the battery then the OS will slow the CPU down to prevent possible damage, or at least that’s what Apple claims. There is a “hack” to get around this particular problem when it is caused by an unrecognized third party battery.
Replacing the thermal paste and a fresh install of MacOS will often make an older MacBook run faster and smoother.
The Intel Power Gadget is a great free tool to see what your CPU is doing. If it is consistently below your rated clock speed, then you have a problem.
2011 13" MBP CPU is 2.3-2.7GHz dual core
2020 13" MBP CPU is 1.4- 3.9 GHz quad core (base 2019 model was dual core)
There are many reasons to buy a new MBP, but faster CPU isn’t one of them. Better screen and more cores for smoother multi-tasking are at the top of my list. OTOH, I have an old dual core 2015 MBP and I don’t notice it being much slower than my 2019 8 core model most of the time.
The latest versions of MacOS will not run on older hardware and that may be a problem for some users. Windows 10, OTOH often runs flawlessly with older MacBooks as does Linux so repurposing your old MBP as a Windows machine is a pretty good idea. With older MacBooks you should use MBR booting to keep access to the audio hardware.
I just started a doctoral program and Scrivener (whatever version it is) is perfect for this kind of project. I have only been working on my dissertation for a month and I already had documents all over the place: in different folders on the PC, printed copies lying around, notebooks with my thoughts on the project. Now I have everything in one place.
I doubt the veracity of posts that say people are “jumping ship.” Scrivener is amazing. For example, I just discovered the snapshot tool, which lets me save versions of chapters. In fact, that’s how I found this blog. I wanted to know how I will save the many iterations of drafts of chapters and sections of the dissertation.
:mrgreen:
Cool story. Did you write that in Scrivener for Windows 3 beta?
No but I do use the Windows 3 beta on my MacBook Pro running Windows. No need to upgrade your MBP to run it in bootcamp.
Ok, I’ve tried to follow all the convoluted stuff in this thread, so I don’t know if this information will be useful or not. After all, this is the Scrivener for Windows forum, right?
Scrivener and speed.
I am running Scrivener 3 Beta (32-bit, of course)… on a Toshiba NB305.
This is a ten-year-old netbook, which, for people who don’t remember netbooks, were designed more around small size than actual speed/power. It has a single-core 1.6GHz processor, and mine is fully upgraded to a whole 2GB of 800MHz DDR2 RAM.
It is running Windows 10 Home.
I can’t even get a web browser to operate on this machine. I’m being serious. And every time it needs to restart for a Windows upgrade, I’m afraid it’s going to lock up forever.
But it runs Scrivener 3.0 beta just fine. Once it loads the program, which takes a while.
I’m finally considering replacing it because the last couple of boot-ups have featured a crazy distorted version of the Blue Screen of Death, and I’m more than a little worried that, after years of heavy usage (and one battery replacement), its hardware is finally on its way out. But at this point, I am confident that I could buy anything Windows at any price - or run any Windows VM at any ridiculous slow-down…
…and still use Scrivener 3 Beta on it.