I’d love to be a proper writer but I’m just starting out. After a year or so creating fanfic for fan generated quests in a sandboxy space sim, I’m looking towards creating ‘proper’ stories. I’ve looked at what writing software is available and finally settled on and bought Scrivener (to replace yWriter) and am looking at Scapple (to replace Freemind).
I’ve enjoyed this thread, It has reminded me of the developing dialogue in many other threads covering a lot of different types of software.
These are just my thoughts … The developers have created particular pieces of software that behaves in unique ways. It doesn’t do everything some users want so they suggest changing it so that it becomes more like other existing software, even though that would require lots of effort on behalf of the developer.
Just because one developer produces two programmes I don’t intuitively understand why that means they have to be completely integrated or even integrable (is that a word?). Scapple is what Scapple is, which is why I’m looking at trying it. If the suggested changes are made, then Scapple would no longer be Scapple.
Given that I would be able to drag and drop bits of info that I need at any given time between the programs I’ve got a work around for the problem of using both programmes together easily - I’ve got two monitors (monitors are cheap!) so can have four programmes open side by side.
So my request is that the developers put their efforts into completing Scrivener V3 for Windows first, given that Scapple’s role is to support Scrivener rather than vice versa
For what it is worth, I have had this idea as well. In my world, I need less “extra” work and need the apps to take care of things. E.g. I use the Aeontimeline as my project management/calendar only because each “event” can automatically be connected directly to a scrivener page. Aeontimeline is just a view of what I am doing in Scrivener, it isn’t an app I have to maintain or “work hard in” (except for auto accepting changes that I hope they fix soon). I don’t want another app contained in Scrivener, but I do need the Scapple functionality for brainstorming and visioning that needs space and connections. Without this flexible brainstorming space, Scrivener is still incomplete.
But, instead of recreating scapple, I think allowing for a more flexible corkboard view (reduce cards to just title - they have color already), add non-hierarchical functionality (allowing access to stacks of cards in same view ) and allowing note to note visual connections (maybe just use tags (maybe bookmarks - but only if they are less cumbersome to create, I still think tags offer more flexibity the types of connections etc.) to create links that could make them even more useful outside of this view) that would keep us in a scrivener focused world while allowing us to move things around more creatively (we need a revert button though ;>). And it wouldn’t require us to “recreate” our content (and every change in a Scapple-Scrivener.
I’m just dipping my toe into the depths of Scrivener and Scapple, so I am finding features in both programs that are bringing them closer together.
The Project Bookmark feature that shows a preview of a Scapple board is great for linking out of Scrivener, while being able to link from Scapple to individual Scrivener items is fantastic also.
In an ideal situation though, I would love to see slightly more integration, with the option to open a Scapple board in a pane within Scrivener, instead of just seeing a preview.
This way any Scapple links to Scrivener items I created could open in a split pane alongside Scapple, just as though I were working between a corkboard or outliner and an editor.
Also, I could then envisage being able to drag items from the binder onto Scapple items to create links, just as happens within Scapple now.
I don’t think I would need more integration than the linking ability which is already available at present (apart from the added drag and drop features I mentioned).
Somebody asked how working on Scapple from within Scrivener is different from opening it as a link in a Bookmark?
I think the ability to have Scapple within Scrivener split panes would be exactly the same argument for why there is the ability to split between the Outliner or Corkboard and Editors in Scrivener at present.
I think there’s a huge difference between linking back and forth between separate program windows, and having the ability to click on links within Scapple and have them open a Scrivener item in a pane alongside.
I love the two programs, and think they both fulfil their own specific uses remarkably well, offering solutions to two different parts of the same writing process. Now that I am learning about linking Scrivener and Scapple items together, it would seem elegant to have the option of being able to work on Scapple from within Scrivener.
There is, in Scapple, no assumption that individual nodes correspond to scenes, chapters, or any other structural element. In my boards, at least, they usually don’t. My Scapple boards are much more granular than I would want in a Scrivener project, getting down to the paragraph or even sentence level.
So the problem with all proposed schemes in which Scapple is “just another view” like the Outliner or Corkboard is that, to make that approach work, you necessarily have to impose connectivity between the Scapple board and Scrivener’s Binder. I can’t speak for Keith, but doing that would make Scapple less appealing to me, not more.
As I said previously, Scapple requires its own specialised set of menus - the entire menu at the top of the screen is Scapple To have Scapple built into Scrivener, you’d need all of those menu items added to Scrivener’s menu, just for that one view. That’s very different from the cork board and outliner, which are just views upon folders within the binder and use the same commands. Scapple is a completely separate application.
I’m starting this topic again.
I use Scrivener 3 on the Mac. I also use Papyrus for Mac. There you can find the “clipboard”, the counterpart of Scapple, similar to Scrivener. This clipboard is integrated in Papyrus and is used very often by the users:
the clipboard
the search database
the figures database
Database for places, weapons etc.
are features, which offer an enormous help to the writer. This is where Scrivener should start to hold against it. A beginning would be the integration of Scapple into Scrivener.
I don’t believe that Scapple will lose many users as a stand-alone program. Let’s be honest: if I have to create a complicated or extensive and nested mind map, I won’t reach for Scapple - you should be that honest.
But Scapple would be optimal as a help for research or visualizations.
[quote=“greifenklau”]
I’m starting this topic again.
I use Scrivener 3 on the Mac. I also use Papyrus for Mac. There you can find the “clipboard”, the counterpart of Scapple, similar to Scrivener. This clipboard is integrated in Papyrus and is used very often by the users:
the clipboard
the search database
the figures database
Database for places, weapons etc.
are features, which offer an enormous help to the writer. This is where Scrivener should start to hold against it. A beginning would be the integration of Scapple into Scrivener.
I don’t believe that Scapple will lose many users as a stand-alone program. Let’s be honest: if I have to create a complicated or extensive and nested mind map, I won’t reach for Scapple - you should be that honest.
But Scapple would be optimal as a help for research or visualizations.
I’m probably not following what you mean, but the point of Scapple is that it is not a tool for making these kinds of things. There are already good tools for that, if this is what you need. You might even be able to start with Scapple and end with one of them, if that is how you prefer to do things. We are quite honest about that, everywhere. It is a simple freeform text editing tool for quickly capturing thoughts, no making complex diagrams.
As it has been said in this thread before, and in the knowledge base, and in many other threads: we have no plans to combine these two completely different programs together into one.
Scrivener and Scapple are two different applications, and should remain that way in my opinion. Although very adaptable, Scrivener has a methodology behind it whereas Scapple is intentionally freeform. I often start in Scapple and move to Scrivener when things have been roughed out in the former, or go back to Scapple when I need a bit more freewheeling before heading back to Scrivener again.
Harping on requests I have made earlier or chimed in when others have made them, there are two changes that would make Scapple a 10/10 for me.
The first is stacks that have drag-and-drop reordering rather than the pretty fiddly way that it works at the moment.
The second is background shapes that can be named – like how connections can be named now. And for Scrivener to pull those background shape names into itself when you drag them into it. At the moment, dragging a background shape with notes directly into Scrivener calls the resultant folder with the notes it contains as docs “Group [and “Group 1”,” Group 2" etc if more than one shape dragged at the time]. Dragging or importing an OPML exported from Scapple into Scrivener ends up with “Shape, Shape 1” etc – names generated by Scapple itself in the OPML. I love that you can get a layered hierarchy from the flat Scapple file into Scrivener, but when you have a lot of background shapes it would be perfect if you could get them in with folder names that you nominate.
[If I’m aiming for the stars, also when exporting to OPML and using the “create notes field”, I’d like an option where the resultant export had the “text” attribute as the 1st line and the " _note" attribute had the 1st line stripped out of it – much like the way there’s that option in drag-and-drop direct from Scapple boards to Scrivener. Oh, and curved connections – but I realise how tough that one could be as KB has explained.]
This shouldn’t have any effect at all (like the freeform corkboard)! This is the whole point! The diagram is a thinking and planning tool that should allow a different view on the story than the view that already exists. For example, one could create a diagram of the event order (and even parallel events), while the outline represents the sujet - the told order of events. Or something entirely different.
If the elements in scrapple are objects (in terms of object-oriented programming), providing a link between the two data structures is as simple as implementing a pointer to the parent element in the outline.
There is software that is far more complex than Scrivener that was able to integrate other software (e.g., Studio One and Notion).
Unfortunately not. The data is redundant and not updated when I edit one or the other - which would be necessary during the writing process. Plotting, rearranging, rewriting, … all this happens at once.
