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NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

novelwriter.io

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Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#201

Post by michaericalribo »

eslaught wrote: post #182
michaericalribo wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha! This is a really interesting perspective—I think you're saying, "it's all plain text, so there's no advantage to using Markdown instead of docx". I think others have an opposite view, but on the same grounds. The argument seems to be: it's all plain text, so docx is overkill, so markdown is more technically efficient! There's some benefit to using the tool I know best (emacs, for me), so it's nice to use a "nativ…

The benefit is the rest of the pure text toolchain. Like being able to use Git. I can confirm, for example, how long a typo has existed in my book by looking at the Git history. Maybe that's a bit academic, but you get the point. I have the complete history of everything I've ever written. Another example: because formatting is reified in Markdown, I can grep for it. Did I misuse italics? With one command I can find…

Well, to be fair, MS Word maintains a full history of every edit that was made.

And, find-and-replace for specific formatting is supported out-of-the-box.

Finally, cmd-i / cmd-u / cmd-b are pretty easy default bindings, and setting up shortcuts for more intricate, specific styles is straightforward in Word.

I share your preference for using an efficient tool—I'm a die-hard md+git practitioner. But the "most people I know" argument is not a good basis for rejecting real, rich features in software that works well for other people.

I am also curious: why do you care about semantic correctness? It's OK if that's just your preference, but it's not something that moves the needle for me....I'm not sure why I should care!

(edit to add: my comment sounds glib and a little sharper that I intended. That wasn't my intent!)

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#203

Post by aeroevan »

michaericalribo wrote: post #201
eslaught wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The benefit is the rest of the pure text toolchain. Like being able to use Git. I can confirm, for example, how long a typo has existed in my book by looking at the Git history. Maybe that's a bit academic, but you get the point. I have the complete history of everything I've ever written. Another example: because formatting is reified in Markdown, I can grep for it. Did I misuse italics? With one command I can find…

Well, to be fair, MS Word maintains a full history of every edit that was made. And, find-and-replace for specific formatting is supported out-of-the-box. Finally, cmd-i / cmd-u / cmd-b are pretty easy default bindings, and setting up shortcuts for more intricate, specific styles is straightforward in Word. I share your preference for using an efficient tool—I'm a die-hard md+git practitioner. But the "most people I…

> MS Word maintains a full history of every edit that was made

This is only true while track changes is on, correct? Like can I see the state of a docx as I was writing it last month/year?

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#204

Post by chipotle_coyote »

nix23 wrote: post #169
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A Song of Ice and Fire was not written with Word. When startups haven't even started up yet but are worrying about how they can scale to billion-dollar unicorn level, a common refrain on Hacker News has been "you are not Google." Allow me to give you the fiction writers' equivalent: you are not George R.R. Martin.

The output is md....dont you think you can convert that too let's say docx? You don't even have to be Google todo that. And if you want to let it proof read by George R.R. Martin you can even convert it to WordStar....magic eh? Pandoc can do that...your MS Word too?

You're missing the point that people are trying to make here.

Yes, it's possible to convert Markdown to a Word file, with a variety of tools. You can use Pandoc to do this if you are the sort of person who is comfortable using tools like Pandoc. I can do that, along with all sorts of other things, because I am that sort of nerd.

However, most fiction writers and editors are not that sort of nerd. Most people don't want to use Markdown in the first place. Of the people who do want to use Markdown, not all of them are that sort of nerd, either. They want an "Export to > DOCX" command in their editor, not "save the Markdown file, open your terminal app, change to your documents directory, and type "pandoc -o my-novel.docx my-novel.md". (And that's assuming they're not doing something like, well, what NovelWriter does, saving individual chapters and perhaps even individual scenes as independent files.)

Look, I love Pandoc. It's great. But it's not a tool for everyone. If someone is trying to embrace the plain text lifestyle with a tool like NovelWriter but pointing out not being able to export to a Word file is a problem for them, asking "are you comfortable with Unix command line tools" and then telling them about Pandoc if they say yes might be a great idea -- but starting out with "obviously you hate the Unix way", maybe not so much.

> you can even convert it to WordStar....magic eh? Pandoc can do that.

No, in fact it cannot. :)

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#205

Post by caconym_ »

chank wrote: post #17

Outside of the more technically inclined; Does anyone who is a long-form (novel) writer actually use markdown? Outside of blogging, which it was invented for and makes total sense for syntax conversion of free formed text to html is there any real use for it? Obviously you don't have to use it if you don't want to, but it sort of feels odd to me that all these developers making writing/notes apps that neglect rich te…

I wrote the first draft of my first novel in Vim using Markdown. I've since switched to Scrivener, mostly for the general convenience it offers and especially the mobile apps and syncing, but there is a lot about that old workflow that I miss. It's really convenient to have everything in a single buffer optimized for keyboard-only navigation, and with Pandoc there aren't really any concerns around exporting to .docx.

I absolutely hate WYSIWYG editing when I'm writing fiction, because it's totally unnecessary and only serves to muddy the waters when it's time to export the text, e.g. if some of the devices I was editing on were set to use smart quotes and some weren't. The text of a typical novel doesn't have much going on besides chapters, sections, and paragraphs, so Markdown really has everything you need, and for fancier formatting (like the side-by-side verse paragraphs in Stand on Zanzibar, just to name one example off the top of my head) I get the feeling that Scrivener isn't really flexible enough. There are better tools, like Vellum, and I think traditional rich text editing exists in a sort of uncomfortable middle ground where it offers just enough functionality to get in the way.

But obviously installing and using a command-line utility like Pandoc is not something the typical author can really be expected to do, so they're stuck using the standard industry-favorite tools that do it all from a GUI.

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#207

Post by sigzero »

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #88

This has no word export option (unless I missed it) which makes it infeasible for a lot of writers. Like it or not, docx is the format a lot of folks in mainstream publishing expect. Context: My partner is a published author and I've pitched stuff like this at her on multiple occasions as an alternative to Scrivener. In addition to her laughing at my insistence that markdown is a superior way to write, she cites the…

Use pandoc to export or transform it (if you can).

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#208

Post by wishinghand »

falcolas wrote: post #96
dangoor wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm close to 60,000 words into my latest novel and I'm writing in Ulysses using Markdown. Novels, in particular, rarely need more than headings and occasional italics or boldface.

Funnily enough, a lot of the work I've interacted with has been in the Lit RPG genre - which needs a lot more, since they're often including tables of "character data", not to mention "system" fonts. It's surprisingly challenging to typeset and make it broadly readable across devices.

I’m just getting into making RPGs and I was using Joplin. Switched to Zettlr for the linking and file folder == a project paradigm. What are you using? I was hoping to use the PHP based command line tool Ibis to convert to PDF but in order to auto-generate a table of contents I’d need to have way too much white space after each section. Ideally I could change the output formatting with a CSS file.

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#209

Post by nix23 »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #204
nix23 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The output is md....dont you think you can convert that too let's say docx? You don't even have to be Google todo that. And if you want to let it proof read by George R.R. Martin you can even convert it to WordStar....magic eh? Pandoc can do that...your MS Word too?

You're missing the point that people are trying to make here. Yes, it's possible to convert Markdown to a Word file, with a variety of tools. You can use Pandoc to do this if you are the sort of person who is comfortable using tools like Pandoc. I can do that, along with all sorts of other things, because I am that sort of nerd. However, most fiction writers and editors are not that sort of nerd. Most people don't wa…

First, your probably right and i may/really have missed the point.

Second...it really cant.

Shame on me, and sorry for my tone.

Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels

#210

Post by nix23 »

falcolas wrote: post #185
nix23 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you obvious don't know what unix philosophy is, it's a md writer..that's it, you want to convert it..take a converter like pandoc. If you really think every writing program should have it's own converters..well then you end up with less interchangeable stuff. One tool for Writing another one for conversion..is that so complicated?

For a layman, err, editor? Absolutely. It's a completely different workflow than what they're used to. The Unix philosophy has nothing to do with this, since we're not talking about programming, we're talking about writing.

>since we're not talking about programming

Has nothing todo with programming, a real hammer is better as the backside of an axe. A Specialized Knife is better then a Swiss-Pocket Knife. One tool for one job but make that job perfect.

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