Timeline for Is there a need for better software for writers?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| May 10, 2019 at 14:11 | comment | added | Monica Cellio | @Pavel well, since you mention it... while I do use Flare at work for other reasons, for some work tasks and all personal tasks, I type my XML or HTML or Markdown straight into emacs because decades of use and muscle memory make that way faster than any GUI. (And really, you only use 10-20 XML/HTML tags commonly, right? Easy to remember!) | |
| May 10, 2019 at 10:26 | comment | added | Pavel | @RoddyoftheFrozenPeas All we need now is a writer who uses emacs and this SE will finally be complete! :) | |
| May 9, 2019 at 12:01 | comment | added | Raphael Schmitz | I read in one of the questions here that before we even get to tools to use, there's already a split between people who just sit down and write and people who "construct" their stories. There is more potential tool usage for the latter. | |
| May 8, 2019 at 20:00 | comment | added | Kevin | @MonicaCellio I'm a hobbyist screenwriter, and there is definitely a lot of software to help with writing in the correct format. After I tried to write using just a text editor, one of the first things my writing group had me do was buy a screenwriting program! | |
| May 8, 2019 at 16:55 | comment | added | Kirk | "Many writers prefer to just write and find that too much tooling gets in the way." - As a user of scrivener I'd agree. I wrote an entire book in google docs. I also partially through writing most of a book in scrivener. Scrivener is a great way to organize things, but with its files stuck on your computer it's not very portable. Google docs was a great way to write anywhere at anytime, but "compiling" the work at the end of the day sucked. If there's a space for development, there would be an elegant solution like opening up notepad with no frills that still has the power of compilation. | |
| May 8, 2019 at 14:58 | vote | accept | mauleros | ||
| May 8, 2019 at 11:28 | comment | added | user17926 | @RoddyoftheFrozenPeas you're doing those the wrong way round. pen and paper to code, vim for novel :-P | |
| May 8, 2019 at 9:22 | comment | added | Brythan | W. Richard Stevens wrote his books as Latex files in vi (not even vim). OpenOffice has an auto-complete feature that I find not to work well, but it provides some of the functionality of an IDE's auto-complete. Microsoft Office includes version control so it can do its version of blame on documents with multiple editors (writers). | |
| May 8, 2019 at 8:36 | comment | added | Bob Tway | See also hemingwayapp.com especially if you're using grammarly in your browser (I am not affiliated with either tool). If the OP is looking for a gap in the market then I suppose there's not one tool that does everything ... | |
| May 8, 2019 at 3:37 | comment | added | Monica Cellio | @RoddyoftheFrozenPeas good point -- I've always assumed that screenwriting, for example, has specialized tools oriented around the format's special needs, but I don't have personal knowledge there. (And back when I was still a programmer I used emacs, only using an IDE to orchestrate large refactorings.) | |
| May 8, 2019 at 3:35 | comment | added | Roddy of the Frozen Peas | On a more serious note, this is a very good answer. I would also point out that other forms of writing (screenplays, graphic novels, etc.) have an even larger collection of specialized software to support the particular needs of those media (specialized formatting, asset management, etc.) | |
| May 8, 2019 at 1:46 | history | answered | Monica Cellio | CC BY-SA 4.0 |