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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

#241

Post by falcolas »

nix23 wrote: post #210
falcolas wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ever see a framer’s axe? It’s one part axe, one part hammer. It’s perfect for framers - they love it. It’s one tool which lets them chop, modify, remove nails, hammer in nails, whatever they need to do, without having to carry 4-5 different tools.

The idea that a specialized tool is always better than a multi-tasking tool is simply not true. One must only look at the popularity and utility of leatherman multi-tools to see this to be true.

Even in programming circles, one needs only to look at how many options there are for ‘ls’ to see that “one tool for one purpose” is not always the best thing.

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

#242

Post by thotsBgone »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #190
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an author and an software engineer. I can see why Markdown could be slightly better for a writer - but not much better - and honestly it seems like a step down for an editor. Primarily, all a writer does is write plain text. Probably less than 1% of sentences are anything other than plain text. There's not a lot of headings or titles. There's not a lot of italics or bold text. What else is there? What am I missin…

You just sold everyone on markdown. This is the whole point. All the crap MS Word adds to support formatting and visual styles is in the way. With markdown you focus on the actual text. Exactly what an author should want to. What exactly does MS Word add over markdown which matters to an author? I am talking about the writing experience. You could always export to docx.

MS Word does add word processing. E.g. your straight quotes will be contextually converted to the correct left/right quote, your hyphens can become em-dashes, etc.

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

#243

Post by [deleted] »

michaericalribo wrote: post #213
aeroevan wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I don't use Word so I can't say! But if you cared about the history, why wouldn't you always turn them on by default? "Full history" in git is also an opt-in model for maintaining a history...

[deleted]

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

#244

Post by eslaught »

michaericalribo wrote: post #198
eslaught wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will find out the answer to this question hopefully later this year. :-) But anyway, I do use Markdown and I have submitted to contests etc. that require Word formatted files. For the most part it's an nonissue. I can use Pandoc to export to Word, provide the reference file with the correct format, and boom, I'm done. None of the judges of my works so far have ever had any issues opening my files. I agree the publi…

I agree, and I draft my own fiction in emacs. The cost is lower to use my preferred editor, then do the post-hoc formatting adjustments once in Word. For a novelist, though, the editing process is quite iterative: make changes, send them to your editor, they send it back with comments and inline track changes and so on. Don't get me wrong, I'm an advocate for using tools you're most comfortable with...whatever gets y…

Unrelated, but what do you write? (Feel free to contact me on Keybase if you prefer, username is in profile.)

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

#245

Post by rtpg »

lhorie wrote: post #168
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…

> markdown is a superior way to write Is it though? I don't have any experience with book authoring but I would expect stuff like Geronimo Stilton to be hard to produce with markdown: it is peppered with creative text highlighting (e.g. words written in a custom cheese-pattern font) and this is common in primary school geared books. Even decidedly grown-up books like GEB might have illustrations and diagrams, and it'…

Even ignoring diagrams, etc, there's a reason that like word processing applications are killer apps for personal computing. WYSIWYG is a pretty convincing abstraction!

And yeah, you have the invisible format issue but at least you can make tables and resize them with your mouse.

Markdown's value add comes from having really good implementations to transform it into rich text, and being "unambiguous" (it's not really in a lot of cases but there aren't many great alternatives with widespread implementation).

But like... Word is pretty magical overall.

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

#246

Post by nix23 »

falcolas wrote: post #241
nix23 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Ever see a framer’s axe? It’s one part axe, one part hammer. It’s perfect for framers - they love it. It’s one tool which lets them chop, modify, remove nails, hammer in nails, whatever they need to do, without having to carry 4-5 different tools. The idea that a specialized tool is always better than a multi-tasking tool is simply not true. One must only look at the popularity and utility of leatherman multi-tools t…

>The idea that a specialized tool is always better than a multi-tasking tool is simply not true.

It is hence the name specialized, but if you have to live with a all-round tool then that whats you have.

>one needs only to look at how many options there are for ‘ls’ to see that “one tool for one purpose” is not always the best thing.

The gnu or the bsd one ;)

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

#247

Post by fernly »

ajarmst wrote: post #170

I don't get it. Why "markdown-like". Do people writing novels have some need that is unmet by an existing flavour of markdown? Because I have to say that the last thing that ecosystem needs is yet another flavour. I thought the entire point to markdown was that you didn't need a special editor . Which of course has done nothing to reduce their mushrooms-in-a-damp-cellar proliferation.

Apparently they _removed_ some features of markdown, while adding some special comment forms to designate inline meta-data like a synopsis.

https://novelwriter.readthedocs.io/en/stable/int_interface.h...

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

#248

Post by dbspin »

youngtaff wrote: post #220
TeaDrunk wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is now significantly more steps than downloading Scrivener.

Unless it's got better Scrivener is pretty awful though - bought it for my first book and gave up, both books I've written were written with other tools

Interesting, I've written two novels and over a dozen radio drama series in Scrivener. Currently using it to finish first draft on a spec film script. It's pretty fantastic. Interested to hear why it didn't work for you - especially if the alternative is word.

Cross platform support (including iPad), saving direct to dropbox, full screen distraction free mode, easy sorting of chapters / scenes, rapid offline export to PDF (unlike say Celtex). Scrivener just blows everything else I've used to write out of the water.

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

#249

Post by wyclif »

michaericalribo wrote: post #218
wyclif wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I write books in Vim. The way I work is that I do it all in plaintext until the final edit. Only after that do I add formatting (could be .docx or Markdown or whatever the editor expects).

What happens when your editor requests changes? How are those edits communicated to you, and how do you integrate them back into plaintext? (Serious question—a big pain point for me is the choice between using my preferred tool to start, then switching to a bad tool later; or, using a bad tool the entire time)

All edits in plaintext on both sides until the final draft. Yes, I know this isn't the standard way of doing things but it isn't so much because I'm a Vim cultist or anything. It's only because I can yank, insert, and navigate the text so much faster than with something like Pages, MS Word, or Scrivener.

Another way that seems to work well for some writers and editors is a shared Google Doc.

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

#250

Post by FalconSensei »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #135
lhenk wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This can be accomplished by exporting to PDF

I guess their editor can just cut and paste to Word if he really wants to make corrections.

> their editor can just cut and paste to Word if he really wants to make corrections

Is it sarcasm? I mean... make corrections/changes is what an editor does.

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