Screenwriting & Omni Inspiration

Scrivener Wish List
1

Hi KB and gang,

Very glad you are developing an iPad/iPhone version…

I’d like to put my 2 cents in.

Screenwriting!

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE offer screenwriting!

I compose every script and TV show I write in Scrivener. I consider it my weapon of choice.

There are features that, no matter what platform I use, I could not live without:
Screenplay formating
Snapshots
A Cork board with Movable Index cards with synopsis & description – that are easy to enter quickly! (I’ve come to despise Index Card because it is slow to navigate and populate)
– Or I could live with a binder only, if the synopsis were easy to access
Color coding with Labels
Statuses
Highlighting

I personally use no other features in Scrivener, beside split screen and exporting.

And, as far as syncing… I can’t emphasize enough – what I do on the iPad has to be available on the laptop, in perfect form, and in an easy way that I can re-integrate it into my project, or back to my iPad… I know this is wishing on a star, but I really hope the stuff is just there! I don’t even want to have to sync.

It feels like the iPad could handle a substantially sized text document fairly well.

Perhaps that’s the solution to limiting features… No media?

Anyhow, my second point is this : : : The Omni Group.

Check out Omni Graffle and Omni Outliner.

You’ve made a comment that no serious desktop software is really doing everything on the iPad, and I think The Omni Group is doing a fantastic job of making real, serious, almost fully functional iPad versions that bounce back and forth without any major flaws.

Yes their apps are expensive by comparison, but they are really productive as well!

I’m willing to pay $50 for something that I can’t live without.

And an iPad version of Scrivener, with all the functions I require, will be something I can’t live without :slight_smile:

Thanks for listening.

David

2

Take a look at the Omni team. omnigroup.com/company/people/

They have more people working in the company kitchen than write code for ALL the versions of scrivener. Including the iPad version.

Please don’t take offense at this, what KB and crew have already done is amazing, but what you ask is a tad unrealistic. While I have come to expect them to walk on water and rise from the dead, I think there needs to be a realistic progression of feature development when you are talking about a team as small as L&L. There is another thread hanging around (search for Fountain) that should show you KB and crew are a) keeping screen writers in mind all the time b) aggressively looking to walk on iPad water just like they have on OSX and Windows (and kind of linux (sorry garpu)).

Then again, L&L seems to be able to put surly realists and pragmatists in our place. With ease. They’ll probably reply with something like “already done”. The jerks. :slight_smile:

3

Hi David,

We very much want to included screenwriting in the iPad/iPhone version and are looking into the best way of achieving this.

It is unlikely that the iOS version will support snapshots at this stage, though, for various technical reasons and limitations of iOS. However, I’m sure we’ll have a feature whereby snapshots can be taken before and after syncing.

As for syncing, we will be working to make this as seamless as possible, but iOS is not capable of opening a Scrivener project so there will be some stuff necessary for this, and we will be trying to keep it as under-the-hood as possible.

As for Omni, yes, they are doing a great job, but that does not change the fact - and it is a fact, I’m afraid - that iOS is simply not capable of running all the features of Scrivener, or of supporting a full desktop-type program. iOS is very much stripped down compared to OS X, and I haven’t been blowing hot air in what I’ve said about this in the past. :slight_smile:

All the best,
Keith

4

Thanks, Kieth,

Glad to hear screenwriting may be included!!!

And I hear you about iOS :slight_smile: Understood.

Good luck!

David

5

Very excited about Scrivener for iPad.

Please, PLEASE, design your Screenwriting Editor to be non-modal, just like Scrivener on the Mac. Some iPad screenwriting apps like FadeIn put up a modal box for you to type in every time you change paragraphs:

This breaks the flow of the writing, and adds a lot of unnecessary keystrokes. Also, it makes it harder to get a sense of what is before and after the active paragraph.

For a good example of non-modal screenwriting on the iPad, take a look at Celtx.

Thanks for including Screenwriting in Scrivener. This will be really helpful.