Scrivener in the cloud

Scrivener Wish List
1

I’d love to have Scrivener like Evernote–in the cloud & syncing with the computer. Of course, the syncing would happen with every saving so you are essentially backing up into the cloud like Google cloud does fir word. :smiley:

2

Hi,

There are no plans for anything like this - it’s a different business model, and not one we are interested in at the moment, sorry.

Thanks for the suggestion, though!

All the best,
Keith

3

That’s a shame, Keith. Scrivener compatibility would actually make Apple’s “Documents in the Cloud” feature useful to me when roving with my laptop. It’s sad that we won’t get to see this functionality any time soon, as it would’ve been very useful :frowning: That is, of course, provided that Apple would let third-party apps take advantage of iCloud, anyway. Nonetheless, it is disappointing that “Documents in the Cloud” won’t be coming to Scrivener. Oh well, I suppose . . . can’t have everything, I guess. :confused:

–Andy

4

You can put your documents in the cloud, so long as it’s not iCloud (Apple’s 3rd party developer support in this area is sketchy at best). Dropbox is commonly used for this, though you have to take extra care not to let it mess up your project (in the manual, look up “Scrivener everywhere”.)

5

Andy: I’m on holiday at the moment and just checking in briefly, so forgive the brevity: please search the forum for “ICloud” for a full answer, but basically: (1) iCloud is only available to apps that are Sold via the Mac App Store, so it could only be used by some of our users; (2) iCloud is not currently compatible with package-based formats such as Scrivener’s or with the way Scrivener saves.

6

Thats a pity, iCloud support would be good.

7

Hi Keith,

I really hope that Literature & Latte reconsiders its stance on supporting a cloud effort, here’s why:

I use a Macbook Air at home which has Scrivener installed, a PC laptop running Windows 7 at work, I own and iPad and iPhone. I don’t always have my Macbook Air with me when inspiration strikes and having the ability to pop in to my account and jot something down (or a few pages) from wherever and whichever device is most convenient, would make Scrivener an essential tool for me and I think many writers.

I think Literature & Latte may be under estimating the demand for a cloud service. Consider the fact that at the time of this writing there have been 444 views since this thread started on Jul 23, 2012. That and Gartner says worldwide software-as-a-service revenue will reach $14.5 billion in 2012 (gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1963815); which is a massive 17.9 percent increase from 2011 or in money talk an increase of $2,595,500,000.00 :open_mouth:.

I should also note that as a user I would be willing to pay for the software for each device I need to use (not a common practice for SaaS but I understand that you’re not a huge company) and for the cloud hard drive space as a subscription if everything synced up properly. One of the big benefits of subscriptions is that businesses move from bursts of revenue to recurring revenue. The big benefit for a user is that you can access your work anywhere.

I urge you and your team to read this post (news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-574180 … -is-smart/) from CNET about Adobe’s transition to a subscription based model to see the advantages it has for both the business and its users. I think that this example is very applicable to Scrivener since they are both software products and are used by the creative industry. Please also note the trouble that Adobe is facing because they have built up the habit of a one time cost with the occasional upgrade. If Literature & Latte waits to long to adopt this model then you will face the same reaction.

I love Scrivener and would love to see it become the #1 writing software in the world but without embracing the new models of Software as a Service (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service) I just don’t see that happening.

To the everyone else reading this post please add your voice to this conversation. Would you be willing to pay for a subscription if you could access your work anywhere? If not what if it was optional and you would only pay if you used it?

Oh and if everything I said above was over your head here’s a simple infographic that explains the difference between traditional software vs software as a service (SaaS). bill4time.com/blog/wp-conten … -Chart.jpg

Thanks,
TS

8

I don’t understand all the fuss.

Dropbox = 2 gb free, which is a LOT of text storage.
Box = 5 gb free, which you may boost to 10 or even 50, free.
Box has just released Box Synch, which makes it easy to upload/synchronize.

These let you upload from one machine, download to another, and reverse the process.
It’s far easier and cheaper to use established cloud services.
Than to badger Keith for more and better bells and whistles.

PS: Always ZIP your Scriv projects before transferring them.
PPS: I love it when a first-time poster tells me something might be over my head. :unamused:

9

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. You list a bunch of devices you have, and then lament that you can’t reach your Scrivener project when inspiration strikes, yet Scrivener as an app is or will be available on all of those platforms (Currently Mac & Windows, soon iOS devices, maybe someday even Android). As noted earlier, you can save your projects to Dropbox or other similar services. Everything that you (seem?) to be asking for is there or in the works without Lit & Lat having to provide a web service themselves. And most Dropbox like services are free, excellent, and concentrated on that service, instead of it being a tacked-on addition to a business that has been entirely focused on application development.

With all due respect to the Lit & Lat team (and they are due a good deal of it), I would not trust my data to a service that they cobbled together and supported with such a small team. I was even leery of doing so with the sync server provided by the OmniGroup, for use with OmniFocus; and they have a lot more resources than Lit & Lat.

10

If you scan down, you’ll see that there are a similar number of views in a similar amount of time for a thread about Dragon Naturally Speaking integration, another about plagiarism, another about our icons, and so on… But most importantly, we don’t work on the basis of a voting system - we build the software we want to use, taking feedback on board.

You can do this using Dropbox and suchlike, too.

Wait, based on that sort of comparison, then I must be as eligible as Brad Pitt, because we’re both white and have wives with the initial “J”. :slight_smile: I really don’t think you can compare a cottage-industry outfit like L&L to a behemoth like Adobe. And even if you could, a subscription-based service isn’t something I’d be interested in. I never sign up for subscription-based software services, so why would I turn my business into something I wouldn’t use myself?

We shall see. :slight_smile:

I see what you did there. :slight_smile: It’s the old “if you don’t implement my suggestion you will surely fail/if you do implement my suggestion you will make bi$$ions” switcheroo - I’ve heard this one before!

But if you do, please bear in mind that Scrivener is not software-by-committee and we don’t implement anything based on votes. Also bear in mind that there won’t be a cloud-based version of Scrivener in the foreseeable future, or in any future I am planning for at the moment.

11

Actually, it’s far more likely that you are overestimating the demand for it – it’s a well known psychological phenomenon called the false consensus effect. See this article:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False-consensus_effect

In any case, it’s not only a question of business model – this is an old subject that has been discussed in these forums more than once, and Keith has previously pointed out that there are very significant (perhaps insurmountable) technical problems, at least as far as the format of Scrivener for Mac projects are concerned. I assume that it would require a radical redesign for cloud working to be truly reliable – though I’m no techie, and I’m straying into areas where I shouldn’t.

I can only add that I don’t see the point, either. It all works fine as it is, as far as I’m concerned. No software is perfect, and I feel it is best to exploit what the software offers, and work round whatever is missing. But then I started on an Amstrad 8250 writing in Locoscript, so this is bloody miraculous to me!

Cheers, Martin.

12

I have to agree with Kieth on this one. There is really no reason for iCloud or any type of cloud support for Scrivener.

The type of writing Scrivener was created for is not meant to be written across many devices.

Just like the people requesting Scrivener for iPhone or Android phones… why?

Are you really going to sit at work on your lunch break and write a novel on your iPhone? Seriously, it would be better to use a simple note app to record some ideas and then add them to your project when you get to your computer…

I personally, love using the Pages iPhone app to work on sections of a Scrivener project while on the go. It’s basically like MS Word for iPhone…

Anyways, yeah, I think people are losing focus of what Scrivener is for. I love Scrivener for what it is, the writing assembly center where all of your separate sections are put together to finalize the project.

13

Keith, the “Time for Another” thread has over 10,000 views and 1,500 posts. I think this proves that you need to restrict the Editor in Scrivener to only three words per document.

Think of the money!

14

iCloud does not support Windows, so it’s not a viable option for this situation no matter what Scrivener does.

Dropbox and Google Drive support all of those platforms already, as do any number of other competing services, without any changes to Scrivener’s code whatsoever.

So exactly what is Scrivener’s business opportunity here again? What value would “Scrivener in the Cloud” add that is not already provided by general purpose services? And how much would Literature and Latte have to charge to justify the enormous additional support and server infrastructure that would be required.

Personally, I think it’s ridiculous that every online service on the planet wants to host their own data cloud – even though most of them are using Amazon’s servers anyway. I’d much rather have all my “cloud stuff” in one place, as an extension of my local drive, rather than having to wander all over the internet to find my stuff.

Katherine

15

I don’t know if this is the case of many users, but right now I use three diferent computers, a tablet and a smartphone. I don’t know when I got so surrounded by computers, but it’s just the way it is nowadays.

I store all my projects on dropbox (with local backups). I originally started using Scrivener to write a novel, but I ended up using it for almost everything, from magazine articles to essays to a knowledge base for my day job… I even tried to edit a math textbook on it last year. So I would like to be able to at least read my projects in as many devices as possible as seamlessly as possible. I might not want to write 2,000 words on my iPhone, but plotting and outlining on it would ne nice. And it would be even nicer to know those changes will be there in any of my computers (a Mac, a Windows PC and a Linux PC) the next time I open the same project. But I know this is way easier said than done.

16

Scrivener is available for Mac, Windows and an on-going Beta for Linux. The file format is compatible on all platforms (requires version 2 for Mac).

Dropbox is available for Mac, Windows, and Linux.

Read the Scrivener Manual (under Help), section titled “Scrivener Everywhere” to learn how to safely keep a live project healthy while editing it in your dropbox folder.

Time to wait for Lit & Lat to get around to providing their own “cloud” service: 0 days. Cost to you: 0 Lucre (unless you need more space than is provided for free by dropbox). Impact on speed of new features added to Scrivener: none.

In addition to all the above, you can do an “external folder sync” to dropbox so that mobile apps can edit a select set of documents and have those changes re-imported back to your Mac Scrivener project (not implemented yet in Win/Linux). So you really CAN have it everywhere, to some degree. When the iOS version comes out, even more options will be available to you, but I bet it’ll still be dependent on Dropbox, Sugarsync, or some other cloud service that syncs with files on your hard drive.

So pine no more! You can get to any of your projects that you like, from many different devices! Just don’t open them on more than one device at a time.

17

And on the iPhone and presumably Android smart phones …

Mark

18

As for Scrivener as SAAS…I believe Celtx allows authors to maintain their source document in the cloud in just such a model. So, there’s already one vendor in that niche. My general observation is in any given economic niche (industry, genre, etc.) there tends to be one Alpha company, a Beta company, and a host of also-runs. Scrivener is in its niche and in the top two of it.

That Scrivener works with Dropbox (something I’ve yet to try on my WIP, but since I have Scrivener on Linux and Mac plan to), there’s no need for them to vertically integrate the cloud experience.

Besides, if there’s only-one-thing ™ I would like to change about Scrivener, it would be its use of RTF as the default file type in favor of Markdown (which at the interface can look RTF-y) or LaTeX (ditto).