While I tell people to try Scrivener I also like to point them to the alternatives and the links page is a great source for that but it is now missing Storyist which, in some ways, is the closest app to Scrivener for the Mac.
I dunno if this is why, but have you seen the tour for it? Storyist doesn’t seem to have anything that Scrivener 2.0 won’t be able to do, but it models itself as this big unique thing. 
Interesting! But Keith lists the others whatever they are like with his comments. No worries. I looked at Storyist 2.0 briefly and can’t say I was impressed either and that was compared with Scrivener 1.x. Scrivener 2.0 is going to be light years ahead of it, I think.
If I were Keith, I’d be furious with the developers of Storyist. It’s not merely a competitor in the writing software arena, it’s a direct rip-off of Scrivener’s design. That’s how I felt when I first discovered it a month or two ago and poked around on the site.
Brings to mind how Microsoft got it’s hands on a beta of Mac OS so it could supposedly port it’s word-processor to the new platform. What they were really doing was reverse-engineering the OS to create Windows. (Not that Apple didn’t do the same thing to Xerox…)
It shows a complete lack of original thought, except for the idea that he/they could make money off of Keith’s hard-earned design and programming work. And he charges more for the imitation product to boot! The fact that the L&L forms, blog, and other public entities keep silent on the matter rather than calling this other developer out only shows me how much class and restraint the team have. If (and let me emphasize that IF… I can’t speak on L&L’s behalf)… if the only act of defiance is to remove a link that was previously on the page (I take it that you saw it here before?), then I say it’s a well deserved slight against someone who couldn’t come up with their own compelling design.
ROFL!!! 
Xerox gave away X-windows. There was no reverse engineering. Same with the mouse, optical storage (basis of CD/DVD), ethernet, and several other very critical components to modern compute systems.
sigh
As it’s impolite to laugh and run, I’d just like to ask, where did you read this? I’ve come across a lot of myths concerning Windows in my time, but this is a new one.
Right, this, however, is an interesting point. The thing is that this style of app (binder on the left, work area in the middle, properties and meta-data on the right) is pretty much the MacOSX standard, and that’s a good thing because it means folk can move from one app to another and hit the ground running. I really don’t have a problem with this approach as long as the apps bring something new to the table rather than being just a clone.
Storymill (still on the list, but the URL seems to be pointing to a missing page) brings the timeline.
Ulysses brings semantic editing and the fantastic full screen mode (which inspired Keith and many others) and the notion of ‘compiling’ works from separate documents which is also implemented in Scrivener.
Scrivener brings MMD, Script Mode, automatic chapter headers…you get the idea.
Storyist brings a full-on styles system, allowing changes made to the style to ripple through your entire piece (I don’t think anyone else has that).
So there you have it: every app brings something. Though they are all based on more or less the same UI layout (as most document-based Mac apps are), they all bring something new to the writer.
I could have just said, ‘Why can’t we all just get along?’
Remember kids: when you pull an anecdote out of your ass, you shouldn’t assume it’s a diamond and show everyone.
As for the Scriv/Storyist comparison… It’s not just that there are “standard” design elements in writing software these days. Storyist just looks like the product of a checklist of “what does Scrivener do/look like?” That they added something that isn’t in Scrivener doesn’t justify the aping of the design.
We’re going to have to agree to disagree on that one.
I don’t see what the developers of Storyist have done that is wrong. I’m not saying they didn’t take a few ideas from Scrivener (integrated cork board and outliner), but they’ve focused their application on novel writing and screenplays and have added plenty of features that set them apart from Scrivener. Someone is always going to be first with an idea, but if people didn’t run with those ideas and adapt them to new systems we’d all still be using VisiCalc as our spreadsheet.
Wow! Sorry guys. Didn’t realise what I’d be starting. All I wanted to know why Storyist wasn’t on the list of links when I’m pretty sure it used to be.
It was on the links page, yes. However, when it was first put on (sometime between March 3rd 2007 and March 6th 2007) it was at v1.0 with many fewer features than now. As time went on and it became more like Scrivener I can fully imagine that it seemed inappropriate to keep it linked.
Looking at the screenshots it is apparent that the corkboard is virtually a direct copy of Scriveners, even down to the little pins and everything. This combined with the fact that much of the rest of it seems directly lifted from Scriv would certainly rankle with me if I’d written Scriv even if they’ve implemented a few things not in Scriv over it.
Taking scriv as a model and adding to it, is not the same as innovating IMHO 
Anyway, I bought Scriv not just because it’s great, but because it has an indisputably innovative creator behind it. I can’t wait to see what we’ve got coming down the line.
“Long Live Scriv”, say I.
Eddy
sits down with cup of coffee and L&L forum
shifts uncomfortably
What the heck…?"
goes digging for the problem
“Huh? A diamond? Where’d this come from? Hey, look everybody… a jewel of an anecdote!”
~~~~~
Isn’t pulling stuff out of your ass what online forums are for? Dating back to listserv days, that’s what the majority of posts have been.
The trick is taking such anecdotes to your internal jeweler and having them appraised for their worth and value.