Everything drmajorbob said are the biggest changes I’ve noticed. Also, the fact that I can write on my iPad with minimal issues is a great thing for me as it fits in my purse and is much more portable than a laptop for sudden bursts of insight or note taking when I’m out and about rather than using a note taking program and having to remember to add it to my project later which I’m horrible at (Fibro fog is very real). The PC version is very functional as is, but the beta version is better. I love the Mac version, but I wouldn’t have switched if I hadn’t already been switching to Mac for a different reason. Scrivener worked for me the way it was and would have continued to work in the future.
If you’re truly on the fence, I suggest trying the beta and playing around with it. First, it’s free until Scrivener 3 for PC goes live and you’ll be able to familiarize yourself with the program and help find bugs which makes the program better for everyone. Second, you’ll be able to see what works for you and what doesn’t. It can’t hurt to try, right?
The cost of Scrivener for PC is not $49. That’s the price L&L charges. In my opinion, that would be a great deal for it’s advertised capabilities.
But the cost of Scrivener is primarily in the time users invest in learning to use the tool. Even at minimum wage, you’re going to spend a lot more than $49 in the value of your time to figure out how to efficiently use it. This is not a complaint about Scrivener; that’s going to be true of any sophisticated editing tool.
The real question an interested user should ask, in my opinion, is whether Scrivener for PC is worth the time investment. And that depends somewhat on the level of support the vendor will provide in the future.
Personally, given the history with getting Scrivener 3 for Windows to a stable state, I think there is legitimate concern if the time investment will be paid off with robust support going forward. I rarely buy software for its capabilities “as is”. It always depends on some expectation of future enhancements, bug fixes, security patches, et cetera.
Having spent a number of years with Scrivener Mac and V3 beta, my ‘time investment’ is more than covered. Even just the time spent on the beta means when it is finally released I have no further ‘time investment’ needed to be productive… I’ve written two books during that beta ‘investment’. Any alternative would be a start from scratch with potentially lengthy reduced productivity period. Okay, someone coming in as a virgin user is going to have to invest time in learning, but same applies to any potential alternative.
Given the significant investment in time by the two developers, plus support from their tech support team in getting V3 to RC19, how could you possibly argue any concern for robust support going forward? ‘Ok guys, you’ve just spent 3 years plus developing V3 Win and getting it to a solid release, now go twiddle your thumbs until we find something else for you to do… oh, and you support team staff, forget about your Win 3 knowledge and only provide robust support for the Mac version…’ See how dumb that suggestion really is?
I run on the beta since 2 weeks now, I’ve just put 4 days to get used to the software, that’s nothing (and I’m the type of guy that review and customize thoroughly every option possible when I try a new software), Scrivener is not so hard to get used to compared to other kind of softwares (try Adobe Illustrator, 3D graphic softwares, game making : these take literally weeks or even months to master them).
For the time it liberates to handle projects, this software does its job. It’s a choice to make : the time you will lose learning it, you will gain it afterwards managing your projects. I used to write short stories in LibreOffice but the moment I had to manage longer stories with lore and stuff it was a no brainer for me, and I’ve tried other writing softwares, they made me lose my time.
Plus nowadays it seems like everybody’s doing web based applications. It sucks, give me a full offline software, not a browser window to write in, goddammit.
Absolutely! It’s also worth remembering you don’t have to use all its capabilities - spend weeks learning it - to get great value from it. At its most basic it’s good, but the more you pick up the better it gets.
It’s probably related to your definition of ‘robust’. The development cycle for v3, both as it was projected by L&L and as it’s played out for users, has been glacial.
So if you enjoy your ‘robust’ support moving at the pace of Siberian molasses, great. But if the concern is about ongoing development moving at a less… geologic… pace, then those concerns are probably well founded.
No one is disputing the development has been less than speedy. However, Scrivener for both Mac and Win are not the type of app the require frequent updates. Once Win 3 is (shortly) put to bed and initial bugs taken care of ‘robust support’ will likely entail the odd bug fix and from time-to-time a little tweak. It’s not like an OS such as Win 10 and MS’s urgent need to brick systems each month in the name of security updates.
So, not I don’t think those concerns are at all well founded.
