Re: [yWriter] Re: Kickstarter/yWriter Mac/iPad

[Simon Haynes]

Don't forget the 'Proofing' chapters export to RTF - I use that all the time now, instead of opening scenes with external RTF editors. I'll be keeping that one no matter what.

Regards
Simon Haynes
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Dave Shaw wrote:

> Understood. I just wanted to make it clear that I don't want to see what I
> would consider a step backward in the editor interface.
>
> There is one other group of users that would be affected by moving away from
> rtf, though. I don't have any idea how many people routinely use the external
> editor option for scenes, or how much formatting they do using it. If anyone is
> doing 'fancy stuff' this way that the yWriter scene editor doesn't support, that
> could be a barrier for them moving to a different format, depending, of course,
> on the capabilities of the new format and such editors as support it. I don't
> know how to determine whether this is a significant issue, but I think it should
> be part of the discussion.
>
> Of course, I think there have been support issues with it in the past, so Simon
> might be just as happy if it did go away. (grin)
>
> Dave Shaw
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From:Matthew Rasnake <ma...@coffeemonk.com>
> To:ywr...@googlegroups.com
> Sent: Tue, July 10, 2012 2:27:43 PM
> Subject: Re: [yWriter] Re: Kickstarter/yWriter Mac/iPad
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 10, 2012 at 1:36 PM, Michael Mefford <meff...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> yWriter needs formatting, we should care what happens inside
>
> I think moving away from RTF to some form of human-readable markup language (be
> it XML, Markdown, or what have you) doesn't necessarily mean that you'd have to
> enter obscure text-formatting by hand. The way I see it, XML or Markdown is (or
> can be) a behind-the-scenes thing (like RTF currently is), and for the
> average/normal user, there'd be zero difference in the day-to-day use of the
> app. Especially in the use case of the "old school" users mentioned previously,
> who just want a way to get their novel into a .doc format file. However, for
> those of use who live simultaneously on several different platforms (I write and
> edit on Ubuntu, Mac, my wife's iPad, and my iPhone), having a human-readable,
> simple text markup that we can edit in any of a dozen iOS apps would be a huge
> boon, and would allow me to "stay within" yWriter, instead of exporting and then
> re-importing the project.
>
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[briag...@gmail.com]

Thanks Simon, because I love that feature. I love being able to revise in
Word and then import it back into YWriter.


Denise in Manchester, NH.

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[Simon Haynes]

<briag...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Simon, because I love that feature. I love being able to revise in
> Word and then import it back into YWriter.
>
>
> Denise in Manchester, NH.
>

'Don't lose any features' is engraved on my monitor. I never want to release a program where people continue to use the old one because it was better.

RTF is a complicated mess, but it's still essential. The change I'm considering (as someone else explained) is that yWriter store the scene data in a new format behind the scenes, one which is compatible with more devices than RTF.

Don't forget - RTF has problems of its own. For example, you try including an M-dash in an RTF 2.0 file and see what happens when you reopen it. I type '--' for M-dashes automatically, but this shouldn't be necessary.

Apparently recent versions of Wordpad, Word and so on use RTF 3.0 - but the RTF control Microsoft supplies to programmers with their $1500 developer environment is still stuck at version 2.0. (Haven't checked dotnet 4.0 but I suspect that's the same.)

[Simon Haynes]

Henry Boleszny wrote:

> I know there's been an active debate to make yWriter platform-independent. Personally, I prefer it AS IT IS, despite the limitations and difficulties of editing away from my PC or laptop.
> It works. It's reliable. It's efficient. It's written by an author for authors. Simon has done a great job with yWriter since making it available to us.
> Just my point of view, from someone who tested a range of options and keeps coming back to yWriter because its the best option out there.
> Henry


Don't worry - it's just a debate on the long-term future of the software. Whatever happens yWriter5 (and 4, 3 and 2) will still exist on my site.

Personally I'd rather move yWriter to dotnet 4.0, change the major version number to 6 and hit recompile. That would take me five minutes and I'd be done with it.

Instead, I'm looking at months of work. Partly because I'd like to sort out the Mac/Linux side of things, partly because cross-platform would be great for most of my apps, and partly because I like tinkering and learning new skills. For example, in the past week I've learnt enough about GTK to write basic cross-platform software (from scratch). What I need to do know is learn the best way to convert my existing stuff.

[Simon Haynes]

Simon Haynes wrote:

>
> Personally I'd rather move yWriter to dotnet 4.0, change the major version number to 6 and hit recompile. That would take me five minutes and I'd be done with it.
>
> Instead, I'm looking at months of work. Partly because I'd like to sort out the Mac/Linux side of things, partly because cross-platform would be great for most of my apps, and partly because I like tinkering and learning new skills. For example, in the past week I've learnt enough about GTK to write basic cross-platform software (from scratch). What I need to do know is learn the best way to convert my existing stuff.
>
> Regards
> Simon Haynes

Okay, I've put about a week of effort into GTK-sharp on Mono and am getting nowhere fast. I've been converting my KDP sales analyser app, and while the code runs fine I'm hitting an issue with the UI. (On linux the main menu doesn't appear at all. On windows it takes up half the form.)

I looked at wxWidgets as well, but I don't think that's the answer.

I'm downloading QT now, even though the chances of me converting every line of code in yWriter to C++ is almost zero. (From memory I think yWriter5 contains about 150,000-200,000 lines of code.)