I know the subject of Scrivener on the iPhone has been well and truly thrashed out on the forums, but I just wanted to suggest something I would find useful . . .
I don’t want to write a novel (or any other long writing project) on the iPhone. I don’t even want to write chunks of it there. However, I do appreciate the ability to write notes/ideas/thoughts in WriteRoom on the iPhone when I am out and later send these into Scrivener on my Mac.
But I don’t actually do a lot of text writing when I am out. What I tend to do more is plot planning. I find a 30-40 minute train or Tube journey gives me valuable uninterrupted time to work on a plot outline. I do this using an outliner app on my iPhone (I use SplashNotes, because I like its sync with my Mac, but there are several other outliner apps available).
When I get home I can send my pieces of outline to my Mac and then manually transfer them into Scrivener. But I would love it if I could transfer the outlines straight into Scrivener. I am not suggesting Keith should waste time making an outliner app for the iPhone - not when there are so many already available. I am just wondering if, having come to a useful arrangement with WritersRoom, if there is any chance of coming to a similar tie-in with the developer of an outliner app, so we could send outlines into Scrivener?
Such an arrangement, combined with the WritersRoom one, would for me (at least!) provide as much of Scrivener as I want on the iPhone. (And, naturally, it would not replace the full-blown Scrivener; instead, making it even more useful and valuable.)
If it happened, it would be a way to provide extra functionality for Scrivener’s iPhone users, without Keith getting bogged down in masses of extra coding; and the developers of the outliner would get hordes of Scrivener users downloading their app!
I am sure there are numerous reasons why this could not, and would not, work (don’t all shout at once). But I just thought I’d float the idea . . .
I’m absolutely open to working with iPhone developers who want to tie in with Scrivener. It’s just a matter of finding iPhone developers who might be interested, and the technical issues of how an outline could go back and forth between Scrivener and an iPhone app.
All the best,
Keith
I’m fairly certain that you can do almost what you want already. Scrivener now imports OPML. Carbonfin for the iPhone exports to Outline Online which will then export OPML. This is not dissimilar to the Scrivener/Writeroom arrangement. Worth experimenting with, anyhoo. Don’t know about SplashNotes.
KB: Thanks for the reply, when I am sure you have plenty of other things on your plate. Looking forward to Scrivener 2 - it sounds (from the tantalising clues in the forums) like it will be brilliant.
H: Thanks for the tip. I will investigate CarbonFin.
BigTram: as a hopeless tinkerer, trying desperately to reform, I’d like to hear how you go with CarbonFin and Outline Online. That way I get to tinker vicariously and imagine how useful it would be if I did the tinkering myself. I actually found myself reaching for the mouse to click on iTunes to go to the app store but luckily I caught myself in time.
My thesis will be written this year. Outline or no. Breakdown or multiples. It. Will. Be. Written!
Nom: I have had a quick play with the CarbonFin option and can tell you that it works. After a fashion . . .
You can create outlines in CarbonFin on the iPhone (not my favourite interface - I still prefer SplashNotes, but it doesn’t export in OPML. But this is a personal thing, and I am sure many people will get along fine with CarbonFin).
You have to create an online account with CarbonFin (can be done from the iPhone) and then synchronise your iPhone outlines to the CarbonFin server.
Then, when you return to your desktop machine, login to CarbonFin’s Outliner Online service, where you should find your outlines.
Click on the chosen outline and hit the OPML option that appears. Your outline will be downloaded to your desktop machine in OPML format.
Now you can import it into Scrivener. Carbon Fin’s exported files appear as .opml.txt files. I found that you need to change this to .opml (just change the file name). Then drag it to the binder in Scrivener and it should appear as an outline.
I have noticed that some coding transfers across with the text (e.g. with certain punctuation marks), so it might need a bit of tidying up.
Obviously there is no sync between the two systems. So, if you do further work on an outline in Scrivener, and want to be able to access that on your iPhone, you need to export it as an OPML file, import it into Carbon Fin’s Outliner Online and then synchronise with your iPhone.
It’s not an ideal, or particularly elegant, solution. But it IS a solution.