scrapple vs freeplane vs ywriter's Story board

[DarthNewton]

I know there was a fairly recent thread about the Ywriter Story Board
bug with the background and all cards disappearing when trying to move a
card. I am also one of those affected (both on Vista and win 7
versions). I haven't been able to test on XP as of yet. I have tried
to on a virtual machine, however it keeps complaining of missing files.
As I am doing Nano at the moment, so I don't have the time to track
down which part of the VM is having issues.

I did install Scapple (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/scapple.php)and
Freeplane (http://freeplane.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page) to
give them a spin after the discussion here.

Scapple is ok. My thoughts are it does not quite meet my needs. It
lacks on a lot of export fuctions. It also lacks in labeling ability
compared to Feeplane. It is really really basic. But hey if it meets
your needs for $15 it is not bad.

Freeplane is more complex yes, and someone said you needed to have a
central idea that branched off. Well it does start with a central idea.
But you can just name of that the book, or just "test ides" if you
wanted. However nothing has to branch out from that central point. All
you have to do is hold ctrl and double click to create a "free node"
anywhere. You can then right click and pick connect to create a
connection to connect it to other free nodes if you like. There are a
lot more labels, and I found using them easier (the large left vertical
tool bar). And you can drag these free nodes anywhere. Or even combine
them.

The biggest problem with Freeplane is while the aspect of free nodes is
mentioned, they fail to mention holding ctrl while you double click. If
it didn't have free nodes, I Scapple would be the clear winner for me.
As it is Freeplane with its addon's, free nodes, detailed labels,
ability to be as simple or complex as you like (not to mention price) is
a slam dunk as far as I am concerned.

But even though I like Freeplane, I would still much prefer to have
Ywriters Story Board working better. It is about the only thing that
Scrivner has better than Ywriter. Well ok the character name generator
is also great. But we can use a online site of for that (however if
Simon got bored and added a character name generator I wouldn't
complain). :)

[Peter Barns]

Yes I have to agree that a character name generator would be great. Especially one we could propagate with our own names. I use Free mind all the time and find it invaluable.

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[DarthNewton]

Indeed. Scrivner allows for this. But any addition would be handy.
Although I suspect if Simon were to add such a feature, it would be very
very open ended. Probably just a large rtf/txt file or something as the
database that would be easily editable.

On 11/17/2013 7:01 AM, Peter Barns wrote:
> Yes I have to agree that a character name generator would be great.
> Especially one we could propagate with our own names. I use Free mind all
> the time and find it invaluable.

*Snip*