Hi there! I’ve used Scrivener for almost a decade now, and I adore it. Thank you so much for all of your work on this program as it’s made a huge difference for my writing process.
I would love to see some changes to notetaking abilities, though. I much prefer Notion for…all non-manuscript planning, but I stick to Scrivener so everything is one place. Here are some specifics:
- Notion bullet points are fabulous. If you type a hyphen and a space, it auto converts to a round bullet
- Better control of bullets—I find myself wrestling with bullets in Scrivener frequently, but I love to use them in my planning. I struggle with consistent indentation even on the same doc, easily returning to the previous level of hierarchy (with Notion if you tab, it creates a sub-item, and if you hit enter twice, it returns to the previous higher hierarchy). It’s also difficult to actually end a bulleted list and return to typed paragraphs.
- I really struggle with tables in Scrivener. To the point that I avoid using them completely. They’re difficult to wrangle, difficult to size correctly, difficult to type in without having to majorly adjust the formatting of the text, and again, difficult to end and switch back to typed paragraphs. I doubt Scrivener would ever take the database approach that Notion has for its tables, but Notion also has a simple tables function that is much more user-friendly
- I LOVE being able to use toggle bullet points, so I can collapse all subitems and only see a header
- I love that Notion has clickable checkboxes
- I love that Notion has / commands to switch to a certain block (header vs bullets vs checkbox, etc)
I know that Scrivener is very unlikely to adopt the “blocks” format of Notion, even though I selfishly wish it was at least an option for setting up docs. It’s just so easy to display images, text, bullet points, and tables. You can drag-and-drop blocks to different places on the doc with seamless alignment.
I spend a pretty crazy amount of time trying to work with Scrivener’s formatting/indentation/paragraph breaks, etc., even after all these years. I understand wanting that level of control for the manuscript, but when it comes to note pages, I wish formatting could be simpler, like Notion, which doesn’t really allow me to screw up formatting so I never have to fiddle with it. I’m sure not everyone would feel this way, but I’d love the OPTION to create a streamlined block page that’s set up for notetaking, not manuscript formatting.
Another pipe dream, but I would love to see more integration of databases/spreadsheets/different ways to display data. I love the Outliner view, but sometimes I wish I could have a similar structure without creating 20+ sub-items to try to make it work.
In this screenshot, I created this simple note page in Notion by ONLY pressing enter, pressing / to select which block I wanted, and then typing. I waste so much time trying to work with Scrivener formats to cobble together something similar.
Databases/tables and images coexisting on the same page, with ease. I love that I can have that more robust table directly in the page rather than trying to make something work in the Outliner view.
An example of easily setting up three columns (dragging and dropping) with background colors to headings, and then toggle bulletpoints below
The ability to create dashboards with multiple elements. Spotify allows you to embed code to make those playlists visible, and it would be amazing if Scrivener could handle/display custom code like that.
I don’t know if you’ve played around in Notion at all, but if you haven’t, I’d really commend poking around. I LOVE actual drafting in Scrivener—the manuscript, the three view modes, the compiling, the custom metadata, all of it. I will never write drafts in anything OTHER than Scrivener.
But non-manuscript notetaking/planning is still a battle, and when other tools are much easier to use, it’s a struggle for me.
Jen Terpstra has excellent templates for both Scrivener and Notion. I think if you opened the Scrivener version side by side with the Notion, it would be pretty evident what’s more possible in Notion. I can’t speak for her, but I would assume she’d be willing to donate free templates to the cause if you’d like. Honestly—I’d buy them for you myself if you’re willing to take a look. 
Obviously Notion can’t come even close to the manuscript functions of Scrivener, and it’s not supposed to. But I wanted to spell out these specific points and describe some key features that make Notion easier to use for all notetaking and planning. I am happy to answer any Notion questions, expound further, or provide you directly with my personal use case that I don’t want to screenshot on the wide internet. My email is [redacted by mod] if that’s easier.
Again, I adore Scrivener. It’s absolutely wonderful. Thank you for all of your hard work on it, and I’ll continue supporting the program regardless.
