Microsoft Word
Oh. 
I’ve never experienced Word being this kind of tool, but OK, people are different. And writers even more. (For long years, Word has been the text processor for everything except novel writing for me …)
Thanks nevertheless for the clarification.
This may be due more to “how long have you been at this” than “how you use the tool”.
Oh.
I’ve never experienced Word being this kind of tool, but OK, people are different. And writers even more. (For long years, Word has been the text processor for everything except novel writing for me …)
Thanks nevertheless for the clarification.
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Version 1.01 of Word was wonderful for me, at least compared to such You Must Remember The Key Strokes efforts as Wordstar and WordPerfect. With each subsequent release, Word became ever more corporate–ever more a tool for everyone with a task to perform, and not for anyone specifically–until it became an impediment (at least for writer-writers), and not a tool at all. And then Scrivener came along in 2006, and I opened Word less and less until it finally Disappeared from my drive somewhere around 2009.
After having read through the whole thread, I understand that Scrivener is written for a well defined niche: the solitary writer. That’s a huge niche, and one that will never benefit from collaborative online software. So for me the matter is settled. Unless something fundamentally changes, Scrivener will never need to go online.
There are reasons folks want Scrivener online that have nothing to do with collaboration, such as discreetly working on a novel while at the day job.
I’m not saying I would do such a thing, of course, but some people do. 
You could always install to a flash drive, then you could just plug it into the usb port on your work computer.
Except that the program hits the registry, which leaves evidence that it was there. If you’re using a web app in a “portable” browser, this doesn’t happen.
There was some discussion on here at one point about making a portable version of scrivener for windows, but I don’t believe that’s been developed.
That’s the (a) use case for Scrivener iOS/Android. Which, delayed though they are, are still pretty much guaranteed to appear before Scrivener Cloud.
Katherine
That, and the resources available to us mean that we have to pick our projects carefully. It’s not that I’d say an online version will never happen - although there are no plans for one - but rather that it’s not something that fits in with the many things we already want to do with the team and resources we have. I’ve already had to take about three months out of this year to work on and help with various aspects of the iOS version, and the last thing I want is to neglect the versions of Scrivener to which we are already committed.
I think if your niche is actually the solitary writer, and you seem to confirm it, I don’t see any need to make the effort of coding an online version. That would only make sense if you expand your niche to cover collaborative writing.
I don’t see this as a dichotomic decision. I think there are plenty of tools that allow collaboration already in an application-independent way, and some of them can be used with Scrivener as we speak.
These tools go from file sharing and syncing (like DropBox and Cubby) to simultaneous-editing on the fly (as TeamViewer or NetMeeting derivatives).
Am I missing something?
Yes, you are missing the point. The point is “should L&L make an online version of Scrivener?” As you say, the software can currently be used for collaborative writing given that each user agree on how to use it, which it involves which documents each one is allowed to edit and which ones isn’t. So what’s the point for a small company to hire resources to make the effort of making yet another version of the software if the current one can be used for that? Yes, there are the arguments that go in the sense of convenience, but is that enough?
In my mind, a true collaborative Scrivener is not an exact copy of the Mac version. It must have an access control system that can identify and password authenticate each user as well as assign different access priviledges to each one. Not every user should have the same access to the whole project. Most of the access for most of the users would be read only, with read/write access in a need-to way. And maybe some documents would not be accessible at all to some of the users. Also a decision should be made on whether or not to allow simultaneous access to one document. How to manage the possible conflicts? How to code it? The easiest solution would be that a single user would have read/write access at a single time while the other ones would have read only access. The document would be locked once a user opens it.
It’s my opinion that such a system is currently outside the niche of L&L and thus it’s pointless to make such an effort and money investment.
I just gave a reason upthread that’s got nothing to do with collaboration. That said, I’m fine with the path that the devs are taking, as I’ve been waiting 2 years for the iOS version and would hate if that took longer because they added another item to pull their time. For me, online is a nice-to-have kind of thing. Just sayin’ though, there are non-collaboration reasons to want an online version.
Well said, you work hard at providing us with software that works well, you have a good active forum of users that care about this product and we do fun things like the Novel in a Day courtesy of 
Pigfenders hard work. Great product and a large group of committed followers, keep doing what you do best.
Thank you
Yes, the main reason I read around for wishing for an online version is being able to use other computers (computers of friend, jobs, public libraries, etc.) without leaving any trace of it. Those people would likely have Scrivener already installed on their computers, or being able to do so. They are solitary writers.
A decision like this one is always a business decision and many things should be thought about to make it. It’s up to L&L whether or not they’ll make an online version for this. If I may be blunt, I wouldn’t if L&L were my company. It seems to me that the portion of potential customers who’d not install Scrivener on their computers, but would use an online version is small; not enough to justify the investment.
From a business perspective, one also has to consider the question of how much these users would be willing to pay for ScrivenerCloud. There are lots of services that I’m willing to use for free, but “free” isn’t much of a business model.
Katherine
I can give one really good reason for an online version for a solitary author: ChromeOS. There are a surprising large number of us owners of Chromebooks that carry our Chromebooks everywhere and would love to be able to use Scrivener on them. Yes, I have a regular laptop, and I run Scriverner for Linux on it. But it’s a big and heavy laptop. The Chromebook is my “use it on airplane” computer.
Quick questions:
How do you know there are a surprising large number of Chromebook owners who would love to use Scrivener?
How many, roughly, is a ‘surprisingly large number’?
How many of them don’t have another computer (a small laptop) that cannot be used to run Scrivener on OS X, Windows or Linux?
How much would you be willing to pay (per year) for an online version of Scrivener?
I’m not convinced that the total number of Chromebook owners is “large,” much less the fraction of those owners who are potential Scrivener users.
Katherine