Ulysses 1.6

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21

Every good software needs somebody who protects it, who decides which path to follow, otherwise it will soon stop being a good software.

I always admired Keith’s decidedness in his responses to wishes that did make more or less sense, and I admired especially the friendly way in which he was decided (I guess only Brits have this gift), although sometimes it was me he said “no, this will not happen” to. :slight_smile: After a while - and if you are really using the software you’re discussing - you get used to a lot of things you wanted to be different in the beginning, and sometimes you understand even why it’s better they are the way they are.

But - a sad fact - there are a lot of idiots out there, and that’s what poor developers have to get used to. Which is harder, of course, than not getting one’s wishes fulfilled. As someone stated insightfully: “The internet is in the hands of people who have too much time - and they have too much time for a reason…”

22

Keith,
If that’s the case then I stand corrected, although I was ceratinly not alone in my frustration with Ullyses. This was evidenced by the type of exchanges on their forum - the sort of exchanges I have never seen on the Scrivener forum. I take the point though that some people get on with it, I just think you need to have a certain mind, one that can happily cope with the cognitive dissonance of being creative in a ‘programming’ environment. It says more about me than anything.
Trip

23

As I go through 1.6 and note the new features, I have to remark that despite their reputation, they really have listened to their users over the course of time. It took a while in some regards, but the two major requests have been “show me my italics,” and “I need folders.” Looking over the new release, I see both of these are addressed—indeed italics were addressed in the prior version. It is still a semantic editor, meaning italics are mark-up not rich text, but as a user of MMD that’s a feature and a very important one at that.

They tried to address the grouping issue with collections in 1.5, and like Apple’s retort to tabbed browsing with Safari Snap-back, it didn’t quite work out the way they wanted—but ended up creating a compelling complement to their eventually capitulation to the original demand. Safari now has tabs and Snap-back, and no other browser has that elegant combination. It would be interesting to see how Ulysses’s combination of filtered collections and groups work out. Other programs have this combination to a degree, but in a different manner.

Anyway, I think it is an excellent release, and I don’t see the arrogance in that blog post either. They’ve made a unique and brave application in a world that doesn’t by default “get” what they are trying to do. There are a lot of people that like it though, obviously, or they wouldn’t still be putting out releases. I like it. If Scrivener wasn’t out in the world, I’d be perfectly happy in Ulysses I think.

24

Ihr sind beide aus Bayern. Ich brauch nichts mehr sagen.

Runs for cover

25

I guess the question I still have is—where is the value in Ulysses? And I don’t mean this facetiously, or critically. But it’s obviously well thought-of, and it’s certainly high-priced. And I, of all people, am awfully sympathetic to their text purism—though not, I suppose, enough to get MMD running in Scrivener. But what is there in the application that justifies its cost? DEVONthink, for example, is a little old fashioned, and a little hard to maneuver, but its advocates can say that its ability to handle many GB of data, and its concordance AI, make it invaluable. So what element of Ulysses makes it invaluable itself?

EDIT: Though I should note that my playing around with it does leave me a little baffled that all those undifferentiated sidebar sub-panes could EVER become useful or friendly for me.

26

This may be because one of the common complaints about Ulysses was that it couldn’t do italics. Most fiction writers I know (myself included) use italics or want to be able to use them, if they need/chose to. Before Scrivener existed, I took a long look at Ulysses but in those days formatting of any kind was not available and in the end I realized I couldn’t do without italics.

(Note that I haven’t looked at it since Scrivener appeared, so I don’t know its current feature set.)

Edited to add: My apologies for missing AmberV’s ref to italics in her earlier post.

27

I suppose there are rabid camps in most areas of creativity, but since I’m a writer I particularly noticed them in regards to writing. Perhaps software apps are susceptible to this by association with all the how-to-write camps out there.

Some will say you can only write a novel with an outline, others will rant about never using an outline, some will write a raw first draft, others advocate reworking one scene or chapter before moving on to the next, some say a real writer has to write in longhand or on yellow pads or in expensive bound journals, while others say Word is the ticket (with Windows, of course!), or sneer at anyone who gave up the standard (early WordPerfect or - if you go back far enough - Wordstar).

Fortunately we have choices. If the rabid among us can’t envision that others work differently, then perhaps the only downfall is in the rabid one’s imagination.

28

I did use WordStar, and on an old Kaypro. Primitive, but that’s how I made my living at the time. A few years ago I discovered Ulysses, which seemed then (and still does) to be the first genuine writer’s tool on the market. Since then, Scrivener and Celtx: Scrivener because I’m comfortable organizing fiction with it; Celtx because the formatting and web services make it easy to get revisions to directors and actors. But I still keep Ulysses around, because I still like it.

And I still keep handy a supply of notebooks – top-bound, not side bound – and pens. Sometimes, you just have to get down and feel the words flowing onto the paper.

Phil

29

The answer, I think, isn’t any one aspect of the software but its overall fit and feel. I was a Ulysses user for a long time and dismissed an early version of Scrivener. I now prefer Scrivener, but I have no trouble imagining someone else looking at the two apps–not even comparing features, necessarily, just spending a few minutes in the interface–and saying, “Ulysses, now that’s really me.”

It’s very difficult to explain why you like what you like.

30

Fair enough. I guess I wanted to make sure that, after spending a few minutes on the interface, and importing my current Scriv project into it, and coming away saying ‘Ulysses, that’s not me’—that I wasn’t missing anything that would make someone say, ‘It won’t fit right away, but spend a couple hours with it and you’ll love the thing.’

31

I certainly appreciate that the developer of an application is entitled to produce a product that meets his or her standards. No question. But reading the post from the blue-tec developer, it sounds as if he wants it both ways. He’s frustrated that customers are leaving for other applications, but defiant in his insistence sticking to his vision of Ulysses. And, while not arrogant, he does get a bit snotty: “Most ‘active’ users around want to have monthly updates, they prefer to rather update than work.” If you’re going to write things like that about your customers, don’t be surprised if they decide to change to another application.

Don’t misunderstand me, I can see how it would be frustrating to work hard on a product and have customers not appreciate the effort you put in. The emotion is totally natural. But I’m not so sure it is a good idea to announce to the world your contempt for a large sector of your customer base. Reading that post made me decide not to bother evaluating Ulysses.

32

I think Max and Marcus have a valid point. Many users get caught up in the “gotta have new” syndrome, expecting updates every month or so. It’s a symptom of the times, the sense of entitlement, the need for instant (or PDQ) gratification. And many developers aggravate the situation by coming out with trivial updates or (no evidence for this, but I’m confident it happens) holding back on features/changes in order to justify those “updates.”

If you have a good writing program – and U and S both are good, each in its own way – and you want to be a writer, or at least to be thought of as a writer, Marcus is right. You ought to be writing, not looking for the update.

Phil

33

I would bet a large sum that this is nothing but the truth. We writers are world champions in procrastination, aren’t we? And fiddling around with applications is one the most pleasurable ways to do so… :laughing:

34

Absolutely, but we don’t want to be told it by the supplier of our writing software, even if it is the truth.

35

If the French can take it ‘On the chin’,Old Sport, so can we Brits! Stiff upper lip Old Bean :wink: Stiff upper lip!

36

I’ve been using Ulysses for a long time and I still adore its look and functionality - and stability. But yes, I was also one of those who wanted to see italics and have the ability to use folders.

The one thing that buggered me most was the inability to have more than one project open. I don’t know if there are technical or philosophical reasons for this, but it kept coming in the way of my personal workflow.

I still keep an eye on Ulysses and install all updates, and a project might come along that’s more suited for this program. So I wish for a long and peaceful co-existence of the products. :slight_smile:

37

The way I understand it, the new Groups feature is meant to mitigate this problem, or eliminate it entirely in some cases. Since groups can be “focussed” you can narrow down the browser and the filter browser to only showing that one area of the project. Thus, multiple related real-world projects can be easily included into one large project without fear of clutter. Since groups can be nested, they can still be useful for large-scale organisation within a project as well.

In playing around with it, it appears groups can only contain other groups, filters, and collections. Not “floating” documents themselves. I’m not sure why that is, maybe because there is no superior way to indicate that in the document browser.

On performance, as with Scrivener, the actual mass of content within a project is of little consequence in how speedy the application will run. It’s more a matter of how much you have open at once. In Ulysses, that’s tabs; in Scrivener, that’s an Edit Scrivenings session (and I think on this score, Scrivener has the upper hand on how much can be “loaded” at once, but I’ve never really tested it completely—I also prefer the in-line approach to the tab approach, but that is subjective). So from a performance stand-point, there is little reason to shy away from dumping multiple books into a single project. It’s more a matter of whether or not such inclusions will make the interface awkward. I think the group focus, which in essence makes the interface look like only a small part of a large project is actually present, would do the trick.

Same goes for Scrivener (though the Binder will always remain “fully loaded”). There is nothing in the interface which prohibits you from having multiple books stored in it, with the one exception of the MultiMarkdown meta-data settings (you could also make a case that having labels and status universally applied would prohibit—but so long as akin projects are grouped together, that shouldn’t be a problem. This issue also applies to Ulysses). The ability to rapidly isolate any part of the draft during export makes this easy. Collapsing and expanding sections of the Binder, while the parent item will remain visible, effectively removes the distraction of the other projects.

So on this particular topic of using projects as “meta-projects”, I would give Ulysses the leading edge, as they have after all stepped into the arena of explicitly supporting huge projects. The ability to completely isolate a sub-project in the browser/binder, and just as easily export only focussed areas is quite powerful. It’s a subtle lead more in the area of refinement. I don’t think (with the exception of Binder focus) Scrivener is markedly weaker—just not quite as “tuned” to the notion as 1.6 is. The one area that does feel a little strange is in the colour labels and status labels. With the browser now adept at handling multiple projects—that interface feels a little dated and restrictive.

And all of this, of course, assumes that one can find an affinity for the somewhat bizarre mechanism of employing structure separately from the products of that structure. There are pros and cons, no doubt (intuitive multiple associations being foremost), but it is unorthodox and requires a little acclimation period. If a person simply cannot get comfortable with having containers in one list and children in another, it doesn’t matter how refined the tool is.

38

Thanks for this insightful posting, AmberV! It makes Ulysses’ approach clearer to me, but as a non-technophile person I feel more comfortable with the binder way. For my way of working it’s more fitting to have many project files in which I can arrange the stuff for every single project in the way I need it. When time permits I’ll have closer look at Ulysses 1.6, it definately derserves it.

39

And as a technophile, I pretty much share your opinion. I like having one project file per project, and while it is not often that I need two open at once—at least I can. And the more orthodox method of displaying children with their parents is, for me, more comfortable. However, the group & isolation method is an interesting concept. I can see it being very useful for journalists and similars where you write lots of short articles with a lot of supporting research and so on. Enough to need good separation, but not quite enough to have hundreds of separate project files. Especially since the meta-data will likely all be similar anyway. A series of books might also benefit, as you could very quickly jump back to an older book to reference information.

40

I like the fullscreen mode (which is different from the console mode - which is like Scrivener’s full-screen mode). The application window zooms to fill your screen obscuring the dock and menubar.