I'm going to suggest that "novelWriter" find a new icon.
I haven't literally laughed out loud at an HN comment in ages.
Wow.
novelWriter – open-source plain text editor designed for writing novels
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Re: novelWriter – open-source plain text editor designed for writing novels
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
Long time emacs user. I have been enjoying vscodium with some Emacs and markdown plugins for almost all writing and note taking. Been using PyCharm for Python dev. Just felt I didn’t have time to fiddle with my lisp code and Emacs setup the last few years. I still hop in for org mode once in a while, otherwise, I have moved on. VS code is kind of this generations Emacs. I think it does most things better for most peo…
Vscode/vscodium may be nice for a lot of tasks, and probably preferable for many users overall, but I think there will always be a certain mindset of developer/writer/person who prefers the Emacs approach. When I tried Emacs after Vscode I was blown away by the ability to write my own customizations that can affect every level of how it operates (and I'm not part of a generation that learned Emacs by default).
I do agree, ultimately it comes down to a few factors: inclination and time being chief among them. Does tinkering in Emacs actually save me time or is it something I am doing because I like doing it. There is a non-trivial cost to living in the Emacs ecosystem.
That’s why I caveated things. I have used Emacs a long, long time and I still do, but I have simplified my setup and backed off of it for many editing chores.
I don’t think the utility is there for someone to spend the man hours customizing an editing environment for say Python dev when something like Pycharm exists, for example. Even vscode with a few extensions is very powerful and reaching IDE levels of capability.
Emacs and living in its lisp machine is amazing and Zen and something I leveraged when I enjoyed the whole process. These days I simply don’t have time :)
Re: novelWriter – open-source plain text editor designed for writing novels
#93My open-source plain text editor, KeenWrite, is strikingly similar: https://github.com/DaveJarvis/keenwrite/blob/master/docs/scr... I've taken a slightly different approach for novel outlines. Rather than use the `@` syntax, KeenWrite includes support for pandoc's ::: div syntax, which is quite flexible. Here's a screenshot showing an exported PDF generated from a Markdown document: https://i.ibb.co/gTytTs1/novel-out…
That looks like a really nice tool. I really like the "bunch of markdown/reStructuredText/Org-mode files" approach both KeenWrite and NovelWriter use. Are you using the variables just for outlines or also for the novels themselves? It seems like it would be more complex to do in the middle of a scene or line of dialogue because there's multiple ways to refer to things. It's an interesting problem to think about, thou…
The variables are for use in the novels themselves. Mostly for aspects that won't change often: names, places, invented nouns, nick-names, character tics, vehicle velocities, dates (relative or otherwise), and so on. One of my favourite uses of R and variables is this piece of dialogue:
> Plus, we'll be about `r#cms(round.up(travel.time( v$location$protagonist$latitude$value, v$location$protagonist$longitude$value, v$location$proximal$latitude$value, v$location$proximal$longitude$value, v$location$proximal$travel$speed$value )))` minutes to the `r#x( v$location$proximal$name$short )` by `r#x( v$location$proximal$travel$mode )`
The preview panel shows:
> Plus, we'll be about thirty-five minutes to the redwoods by maglev.
This allows me to change the locations' latitude and longitude and not have to remember where that particular blurb was written: the travel time will be recomputed and the resulting number rewritten according to the Chicago Manual of Style (cms) rules. (What's more, the travel time is first computed by a REST call to a map API to get the distance by vehicle; failing that, it performs a Haversine distance calculation.)
Re: novelWriter – open-source plain text editor designed for writing novels
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's amazing what people will do to avoid reading a novel
I think it's amazing people read novels. Even if I had infinite time I'm not sure I would. Not that I'm against them! A great novel is a beautiful thing, and I'm glad someone is out there to enjoy them.
I might. But for now, I found that I prefer to read biographies. They just seems to give me more joy.
Re: novelWriter – open-source plain text editor designed for writing novels
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you ever written anything longer than about a couple dozen pages in Google Docs? Its performance is straight-up atrocious. Granted, the Docs team recently started rolling out a new canvas-based version of the app that should be faster and more efficient, but honestly I'm not really holding my breath.
Yeah I have experienced the crankiness - just wondered if there are other things too?
If you're speaking of writing a novel, that alone is a complete dealbreaker all by itself.
By ~40 pages in, it already takes multiple seconds for letters to appear when you type them. I don't even want to imagine writing a 300+ page book in there.
Re: novelWriter – open-source plain text editor designed for writing novels
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
That should tell you something about the general usability and friendliness of emacs.
general usability? emacs is as usable as you make it. friendliness? emacs doesn't need friends, it needs power users.
> general usability? emacs is as usable as you make it.
Lol, I have to remember this line... "yeah, this house has no bathroom, but you can build one yourself that it's as good as it gets!"
Re: novelWriter – open-source plain text editor designed for writing novels
#97I'm going to suggest that "novelWriter" find a new icon.
Giggled like a schoolboy, what an unfortunate design.
Re: novelWriter – open-source plain text editor designed for writing novels
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it's amazing people read novels. Even if I had infinite time I'm not sure I would. Not that I'm against them! A great novel is a beautiful thing, and I'm glad someone is out there to enjoy them.
I might. But for now, I found that I prefer to read biographies. They just seems to give me more joy.
Great point. I love biography. The myriad details that don't matter at all to me if someone made them up are absolutely fascinating when they're (more likely) real.
Re: novelWriter – open-source plain text editor designed for writing novels
#99I don't suppose anyone knows of something like this, but for a thesis? I have trouble keeping clarity and pulling disparate sections together. Though there is a chance that this is procrastination talking....
Maybe Citavi? Used for keeping track of your citations and sources.
Re: novelWriter – open-source plain text editor designed for writing novels
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
general usability? emacs is as usable as you make it. friendliness? emacs doesn't need friends, it needs power users.
> general usability? emacs is as usable as you make it. Lol, I have to remember this line... "yeah, this house has no bathroom, but you can build one yourself that it's as good as it gets!"
It’s not a correct analogy though. In case of Emacs the house has a bathroom for you, a sauna for your whole family, separate bathrooms for your cat and your dog and at least one bathroom for an extraterrestrial entity that breathes helium. And yeah, in case you’re not satisfied with that amount of bathrooms you can build up your own after some training.