{"id":528,"date":"2018-03-05T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2018-03-05T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/?p=528"},"modified":"2018-03-04T14:03:07","modified_gmt":"2018-03-04T19:03:07","slug":"getting-organized-in-2018-non-word-software-for-writing-projects-scrivener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/blog\/2018\/03\/05\/getting-organized-in-2018-non-word-software-for-writing-projects-scrivener\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting organized in 2018 – non-Word software for writing projects (Scrivener)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Getting organized in 2018 – links to the series<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"Last week I described Ulysses<\/a>, which provides a simple interface for ASCII text files combined with Markdown<\/a> for publishing in a variety of formats, including WordPress<\/a> blogs. This week I\u2019m going to describe a different kind of tool. It\u2019s one I use much less frequently than Ulysses, and it\u2019s one I could do without, but it\u2019s one I also find handy for certain types of writing projects –Scrivener<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Scrivener is more like a traditional word processor than Ulysses. You select fonts and font sizes, insert tables and bulleted lists, use italic<\/em> and bold<\/strong> in a way that\u2019s more familiar than the underscore and asterisk approach Markup uses.1<\/a><\/sup> It allows you to set margins, and most of the other things you\u2019re used to doing in a traditional word processor. Unlike Ulysses (or Emacs + LaTeX) and like Word, Scrivener doesn\u2019t separate markup from presentation.<\/p>\n

\"\"What Scrivener does that a traditional word processor doesn\u2019t do is to provide a single environment in which (nearly) everything you need for a writing project can live. Take a look at the screenshot above to see an example of a project that\u2019s in a very<\/strong><\/em> early stage. The National Science Foundation released a \u201cDear Colleague\u201d letter describing an opportunity for \u201cInternational Research Coordination Networks comprised of U.S. and South African Researchers.\u201d I\u2019ve been in contact with several U.S. and South African colleagues about putting a proposal together, and I\u2019m using Scrivener to keep all of the information I collect accessible. That\u2019s the items under the \u201cResearch\u201d tab on the left.<\/p>\n

The \u201cDraft\u201d tab above that is where I\u2019ll start writing notes when we start serious work on the joint proposal. I\u2019ll have different documents corresponding to notes about the research plan, the management plan, the evaluation plan, and other sections of the proposal. We\u2019ll probably use Google Docs to write the initial draft of the proposal so that each of us can work on it when it\u2019s convenient while ensuring that all of us also have the latest version of the proposal in front of us. So how does Scrivener help?<\/p>\n

\"\"Take a look at the second snapshot of the interface above. The split screen interface is very handy. I don\u2019t have to boot up Firefox<\/a> or open another application to look at any of the documents or resources I\u2019ve collected. I can look at them while I\u2019m writing, and since I don\u2019t leave Scrivener, I\u2019m less likely to be distracted by something that pops up when I open Firefox or to see that e-mail that just came in that\u2019s begging for attention. Using Scrivener helps me keep my focus where it should be when I\u2019m using it – on writing.<\/p>\n

\"\"And if I really just need to write and I don\u2019t need to look at any of the resources I\u2019ve gathered, I can put myself into composition mode (illustrated above) and work with even fewer distractions.<\/p>\n

In the IRCN project illustrated here, I will probably copy blocks of text from the \u201cDraft\u201d section into a shared Google Doc. When I\u2019m working on a project by myself, I\u2019m liable to start it in Scrivener, get the whole document into good shape, export the result to DOCX, and clean up the formatting in Word.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really need<\/strong><\/em> Scrivener, but it makes avoiding distraction easier. If I\u2019m working on a project by myself, I tend to use Scrivener – unless it\u2019s a project that involves a lot of math when I\u2019ll use Emacs and LaTeX. Scrivener supports a Markdown -> LaTeX export, but I haven\u2019t explored that yet because I find it easier to work directly in LaTeX. I use Scrivener when I anticipate a final export to Word for formatting clean up or when I expect to share a draft with others for comments and suggestions.<\/p>\n

Like Ulysses Scrivener is available on Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Unlike Ulysses, there is also a version for Windoze. When I last tried the Windoze version 3-4 years ago, it was much more primitive than the Mac version. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s changed, and I don\u2019t recall if there\u2019s a version for Android, but it is at least a little less tied to the Mac ecosystem than Ulysses.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Of course, Ulysses lets me use Command-I to start and end italic and Command-B to start and end bold, so the difference isn\u2019t that great. ↩<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Getting organized in 2018 – links to the series Last week I described Ulysses, which provides a simple interface for ASCII text files combined with Markdown for publishing in a… Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darwin.eeb.uconn.edu\/uncommon-ground\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}