So Scrivener. how good is this piece of software? It’s as good as this long (picture yourself holding your two fore fingers apart at arms length), compared to most other writing software being this long, (picture yourself holding on one hand, your thumb and forefinger apart). Got that? Do I exaggerate ? Well it’s subjective of course, but for my uses, not really. I referred to it in a previous post, where I described it as “an excellent writing program which excels when used to manage a document of more than one chapter. …  It is therefore good for rearranging ideas, creating multiple drafts, as the user has complete control. This however barely scratches the surface as there are numerous meta-data tools, research organiser and display tools, page views, outline views, character trackers and more”. It’s true. I’m still getting to grips with it as I’ve still to use many of it’s functions fully. I’m just starting. However one plus is it is incredibly intuitive to pick up. If you’re doing some writing and need to do “some other related task” as the next logical step, well with Scrivener you likely can, and get with it the result you are looking for. I’m not going into this in huge technical detail, refer to the Scrivener website for tutorial videos, and a useful forum. However, here are some of the things I like so far:

• The Cork-board view. Similar to the faces view in iphoto. Sort of. Well the cork-board bit in the background, ok? I don’t do it justice, it is far smarter. Think of it as creating a series of index cards. You can place the Index cards on the board containing scenes for the plot of a book you are beginning to plan and (hopefully) write. Each card, a scene. If you don’t like the order, just move it drag and drop style. Need something else, just add it in. A digital version of the Index card planning system. Imagine advertising voice “no more losing those crucial index cards” – or the order for that matter if you drop them. But there is more. The info added on the card works as a plot summary so you can enter into the card itself by just changing the view and do the writing for this chapter or section, or whatever lump of text it is that you wish to use it for. If you subsequently move the card, the writing goes with it.
• Metadata & the outline view. As well as the summary data mentioned above, you can enter metadata for e.g. character, location, or a field of your design. This can all be tracked via the intuitive outliner which also shows the outline of your cards from the point above. Or you can use it to drive the above. Select from the outline certain documents and bring them into the cork-board mode excluding unselected ones. Basically arrange it how you want, and include, exclude, and track whatever you want. – Plus you can add comments.
• Full screen mode – Hide the outline, corkboard, etc, by going into fullscreen mode. Customise the look of the screen to the clutter free design you feel comfortable writing in.
• Revision mode – Assign versions or revisions to each card and use the version tracker to compare changes. Want to view only the cards assigned to e.g. “Draft 3″ ? Well you can.
• Research display – Bring research into scrivener. Just press the spacebar on the document name to open it in a floating window which you can drag around, copy from, etc, as you wish. You can even split screen the editor to have the document you are writing on one side and the research document on the other.
• Compile, Export and printing- Good export functions allow you to compile which cards you wish into one document (various document types to choose from) e.g. to export to Microsoft word so regular PC plebs can read it. Various options at the point of export allow some amendments to formatting on the export. Same thing applies to printing.

This is the general things for why I like this application so much already. A generous demo period is available, so you can give the thing a run out. I already had paid for this when I noticed the large list of testimonials from published writers. I’m starting to sound like I have a professional interest in selling this app. I declare now, that I don’t. It’s good, I like it, if you like writing, I’ll be surprised if you don’t like it as well.

More on this as I progress with projects.

By Admin : @ http://www.adventureinwriting.net/

In my previous post I referred to a database I have recently acquired (and obviously, using) called DEVONthink.

devonthinkpro icon

It’s a fabulous piece of software which as I previously mentioned “has various tools for adding, editing, and managing the data it captures”. As a database it’s primary function is to store various types of data, mainly written but it could be other if used correctly with metadata. It can store files directly in the database as a copy or it can index files outside of the database so they can be included in documents an important point I shall refer to later. I’m not however, going to make this a tech document describing all the functions, you can refer to the DEVONthink website for that. Therein are various tutorials and videos that can be used to learn what it does. They are useful as this application does not have an intuitive design. There is a somewhat of a learning curve, but well worth it if you proceed, and if of course, it suits your needs. Here I shall talk a few points of how I use it, and will use it in the future (including the primary reason I bought it).

This is what I use it for:

• To organise a whole bunch of documents I have. The database encourages a structure for similar related files to aid it’s Artificial Intelligence. When importing or indexing it is useful not not just dump the files in but to keep it relatively tidy as you go, i.e keep the structure somewhat “relational”. Obviously that meant I had a file tidy up (and clear out) to begin with when setting it up. I now have a tidy structure for all the documents I have.
• To bring together some research or reading materials. Not exactly the same as the above. The Pro version of the database has a good piece of Optical Character Recognition software (OCR) well actually, using a licensed version of the ABBYY Finereader software. It’s a great tool to scan in documents as PDFs including the text layer, which makes them searchable. Once in the database it is easy to merge or rearrange pages mainly using a drag and drop style interface. I’ve used it to bring in documents that were previously only print documents rather than electronic, and were therefore not easily searchable. The OCR does all the difficult text conversion stuff.
• Email back up. There is full integration with Mac mail so it is useful as an email archiving database. All emails including the content are searchable within the database, and emails can be replied to without going back to mail. I used this for archiving, and to tidy up the emails. I had rubbish going years back. Not any more.
• Store Web pages. Save a link or for a site which isn’t too large, save it locally to your database. Again fully searchable.
• Basic RTF editor. Not amazing but a useful tool for making notes. Useful when picking a few things from articles in the database and putting them together.
• Drag and drop desktop function. A document can be dragged straight in and dumped in the database inbox for you to file later. Actually I don’t use that too often but it is useful for when I do.
• Integration with DEVONagent. DEVONagent is an intelligent web search application, or as they call it “research assistant” with various specialised search functions. Clever AI and presentation improves on the mass of links you get from google. I suppose it is a good research aid. I got it on one of those one day deals. It is not useful (to me) for everyday browsing (although I suppose it could be) but is useful when I’m looking for something specific or something related to something specific. That is to say it can pick up on things also common in the search which might not have been the exact thing you had begun to search for. Sometimes useless but occasionally the clever link you were hoping for. Which leads me to the following.

All the above is very useful (and well put together). The OCR alone is great and would normally cost something similar for a piece of software doing this alone. However the main reason I got the database was for this:

• Intelligent searching using AI. As the index in the database increases in size, i.e. there is more to search in, normally this would make searching through a bunch of documents a bit of a drag. DEVONthink uses searches on documents for any terms you put into the search, but does more than that. It will examine similar words, thus helping where a word may have been spelt incorrectly in a document. It will look at words around the searched words to see what else it thinks may be related. Thus if you search for one thing, then the text is examined in all documents that contain the search words. Any “common” words which also appear in other documents, make these documents appear in your search. Don’t worry though you don’t end up with a jumbled search, this is all intelligently organised so you can get exactly what you are after or related documents. Doesn’t sound like much? Well the thing is the related documents may bring back something unexpected. It can give you an unexpected direction or connection. It gives the “oh, I hadn’t thought of that” moment. It stimulates the mind and creativity. Therefore as the database expands, lets say, with your research for a project , thus the potential directions you can go in increase, but with intelligent searching, you don’t lose them, you can actually find them. Even the ones you didn’t know existed, (The DEVONagent search above works in a similar manner). This is a valuable tool for anyone writing something using some research or notes, e.g. a book, an academic paper, or even something like storing code for IT or web projects.

A rather generous demo period is available here: http://www.devon-technologies.com/download/index.html

Download it and give it a go.

By Admin : @ http://www.adventureinwriting.net/