yWriter is great for people Starting out
- Thread starter Kallisto
- Start date
Do the two have to be mutually exclusive? Being on the water can be highly inspirational...
Hadn't heard of it, but will investigate. I am currently mourning the loss of Word on my "new" laptop (turns out that my licence was a fixed number of installs, so removing it from the old laptop still won't allow me to register it, and I am not paying a subscription for the rest of my life for upgrades I don't want), and I am not really gelling with Libre office "Writer". The functionality is there, but I struggle to find it with --to me-- a non-intuitive interface.
yWriter can be found at spacejock.com. Neat project. It's another case of a writer creating what he wanted to write with, I think before the dawn of Scrivener.
yWriter is fine for your prewriting and first draft. It's not a replacement for a word processor like Word. You'll still need a word processor.
Have you considered using Open Office? I highly recommend it for people who no longer have a license for Word and don't jive with LibreOffice. Is it as good as Word? No. But I explain it to people like this, "Yes, Microsoft word is better than Open Office, but it's not $60 better."
Personally, I went with LibreOffice in my 20's and never looked back. I actually do not like Word because it has far too many unwanted features. I just need a regular word processor for Pete's sake! But I also had Open Office and generally enjoyed that too. And because it's open source, I just modify it to do what I need it to do.
Scrivener and yWriter are great. On the other hand, the navigation pane in a word processor answers some of the need for Scrivener's Binder.
Mellel has a couple of features on the roadmap that I'll find very helpful.
Their Outline (navigator) pane will gain a focus feature, so you can look at one heading (auto-title, as Mellel-speak would have it) and its descendants. Click on Chapter One, see nothing but Chapter One.
A related announced feature is selective output. You could have a Research "chapter" that did not appear in printed or exported output.
I'm looking forward to both of those features.
Of course, Mellel may be an acquired taste. I like it, somewhat the same way I like my right arm. It's my voice these days.
Mellel has a couple of features on the roadmap that I'll find very helpful.
Their Outline (navigator) pane will gain a focus feature, so you can look at one heading (auto-title, as Mellel-speak would have it) and its descendants. Click on Chapter One, see nothing but Chapter One.
A related announced feature is selective output. You could have a Research "chapter" that did not appear in printed or exported output.
I'm looking forward to both of those features.
Of course, Mellel may be an acquired taste. I like it, somewhat the same way I like my right arm. It's my voice these days.
