Many thanks to AmberV for replying so exhaustively. I was going to leave it at that, but I think I ought to defend myself and my software given the unusually angry tone of the user here…
Sorry, but at which point did you think that attacking me would be conducive to a healthy conversation or exchange of ideas? And could you please point out to me exactly where I have been “derisive”? Perhaps because I recklessly extrapolated that your suggestion may not be a common need from the fact that out of the many thousands of Scrivener customers you are the first to ask for such a thing? (The two or three that asked for something similar, to whom Amber referred, were asking for this sort of thing at compile time; and indeed it has been added to the Compile Draft feature for 2.0, as I mentioned in my first reply.) I was derisive because I tried to help you because I think you might be misunderstanding how the formatting works? I have done nothing but try to offer you a solution, and I have been nothing but polite to you, despite your somewhat patronising “hmm really?” tone. “Hmm, really?” you asked. “Yes, really,” I replied. And I’m derisive!
I usually take the position that “the rudeness that hath appeared in me have I learned from my entertainment”, but I’ll try to rise above your unwarranted vitriol and cover the salient points:
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Please read the forum rules. You are entitled to an opinion on what Scrivener should or should not do, but you are not entitled to be rude or insulting. I hope this isn’t how you would treat a shopkeeper who had politely explained to you why he hadn’t got something in stock. When I was a teacher, and before that when I worked for the NHS, we had signs on the walls explaining that we would not tolerate insulting or aggressive behaviour towards staff. Unfortunately, it seems that the facelessness of the internet encourages some to forget the manners they (hopefully) show in the real world, but the same general rules that apply in other workplaces also apply here on this forum.
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See the About page. I have always stated that I built Scrivener to my specifications and that I have no intention of making it software-by-committee. Software that tries to accommodate every single whim does not, in the long run, offer a pleasing user experience to the majority. You may disagree; you are entitled to do so - please see (1), above. I taught myself how to program to write the software I wanted, and it is very gratifying that it meets the needs of others enough for them to want to buy it. If you feel so strongly, I would encourage you to do the same. That said, your claims that I am not accommodative are grossly unfair and unreasonable, based as they are solely on the the fact that I have tried to offer you solutions rather than declare that I will change the way Scrivener works to meet your own particular needs in this one instance - when, as AmberV points out, Scrivener works exactly as expected (copy rich text, you get rich text in the same format when you paste). Take a look through the forums. Browse through the Scrivener change lists. You will find hundreds of instances of my implementing user suggestions or refining features where I feel the user has seen something better than I could have. Look through the Wish List forum - half of the requests there you will see are replied, “Done for 2.0” - because I responded to previous requests. And yes, you will also find instances of me politely explaining why I feel such-and-such a feature doesn’t belong in Scrivener. Occasionally a little more forcefully when a user won’t take no for an answer, but I do evaluate each suggestion and consider whether it would fit in with Scrivener. Of course, I’m sure you will see this as an example of me derisively deflecting ideas that don’t fit my own workflow, as you seem to be of the opinion that the job of a developer is simply to implement every single user suggestion unquestioningly.
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You seem to think you are the first professional writer to have been benevolent enough to put Scrivener through its paces and that because it doesn’t do everything you want, no professional writer could seriously use it - which is something of a leap, to say the least. I hate to break it to you, but there are a number of books on the shelves out there right now that have been written in Scrivener - there are professional novelists, academics, lawyers, scriptwriters and yes, even journalists who write for major newspapers using it every day, and have no such issues. But actually, this is irrelevant. I listen and respond to all (polite) users, regardless of their published status. Being a professional doesn’t give you the right to be rude. Again, see (1) above.
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Claiming that pasting from Scrivener has “unintelligible results” is absolute and utter errant nonsense. Sorry, but it is. Scrivener’s copy and paste is handled by the OS X text engine. If you don’t like the basics of it, take it up with Apple, because they wrote the copy and paste code and Scrivener’s copy and paste works exactly as it does in most other Mac applications. Unless I have misunderstood you, what you are asking is for Scrivener to modify the copied text - because that is what you want for your particular workflow. I just tried copying some text from a document in Word that had paragraph spacing and a head indent and pasting it into a plain text editor - and got exactly the same results as with Scrivener. So really, I still don’t exactly understand your issue or why you think that Scrivener is doing anything different here than other programs. Because it’s not. (Although I should make it clear that I am not trying to duplicate all of Word’s features.) Perhaps there is something you have failed to explain properly that I am still not getting. Or perhaps I am being dense. But I am at a loss as to what the big issue is. I also don’t understand why your Scrivener documents would be “shitty looking” just because you entered the line breaks and tabs manually. They would look exactly the same as they do now, except that the line breaks and tabs would be real whitespace characters rather than just formatting:
- On one thing we do agree: I agree that my app isn’t for you, just as you are not the customer for me. I enjoy working on Scrivener and getting feedback from its users, both positive and negative, and I enjoy trying to improve it and making it the best it can be based on customer interaction, but I don’t really feel the need to put up with unnecessary rudeness in my job any more than anyone else should have to. So unless you can tone down your personal attacks on me when you require assistance or post suggestions in the future, and unless you can handle the fact that a developer may not implement every one of your wishes (not that you actually asked for anything other than help, which I tried to give), I would politely ask you to take your business elsewhere: see my links page for a list of competitors who may be more willing to put up with your insults when they refuse to turn development in the direction you set for them.
For myself, I am frankly baffled at why you so suddenly became aggressive when I was merely trying to help you find a solution and attempting to explain that Scrivener’s formatting is doing nothing magic or different from other rich text programs.
I wish you luck in finding software (and a developer - it sounds as though I am not the first you have upset) that suits you.
Regards,
Keith