How Awesome Is Scrivener

Scrivener continues to pop up here and there, like Planet Money's Adam Davidson on the Evernote Podcast. Its fans cut across a wide gamut, such as novelists, lawyers, students, professors, and reporters. And now it's even on Windows.

What makes Scrivener so amazing is that it changes long-form writing into something manageable. Instead of scrolling through endless pages of a long document, or trying to create some sort of document map or thumbnail drawer, you have the document split up as you like, and you can navigate and move effortlessly, when and where you like. It can be "chunkified," broken into chunks of material in ways that are useful (and then combined at a later point). You can zoom in and out on the material as you like, getting an eagle's eye view or a very granular view. This is precisely what long-form writing requires. Plus, it passes one of my main tests for a piece of software: IT DOESN'T CRASH.

An interesting experience for many Scrivener users is how many amazing features are under its hood. Many have commented, in blogs or podcasts, at how a "wish it could do this" became a "it does do this!" moment. The software has been extensively thought out, with powerful features that can be discovered with a quick search of the menus or the manual, but without a lot of bloat or endless icons.

I had a "it does do this!" moment not long ago, when I was wanting to search and modify the synopses of a project while in another section of the project – Scrivener can do precisely that, allowing you to edit the found synopsis from within the search panel. This means you don't navigate away from your current place; you can search, edit and add, close, and keep going. Amazing! Quick References are also terrific, they allow you to open different parts of a project in mini-windows, so that you can work on multiple sections at the same time.

So here's to Scrivener, the most powerful long-form writing tool on the planet.

Mac Messages Beta Application: Privacy Issues

The Messages App, available as a beta download, is pretty nifty: it automagically syncs your Mac texting to other iOS persons with your iPhone and/or iPad. This re-introduces a kind of instant messaging back to the computer, which is something I haven't done in a long time. Somewhere along the way, email and then texting killed instant messaging. I rarely use instant messaging unless the person is in another country, or I'm offering someone some technological help.

A larger question for me is, what about privacy? If you're like me, you use texting for the informal and direct communcation with friends. Email has long been the purview of official correspondence or conducting business. Work and business so invaded email that many people use it infrequently these days; it became something like checking the mail for bills and statements, rather than an actual communication with a friend.

Texting is more personal and is, therefore, something I don't want to just show up on my screen on my laptop. What if something is read by the wrong person, or misunderstood? What if a joke between friends is read by someone who doesn't know it's a joke? Texting becomes different if it's popping up in various places, instead of going from one phone to another, which is how we tend to imagine texting: it's quick, easy, direct, and secure.

One could quit the Messages application, but that sort of kills its usefulness, as it's supposed to be right there and in sync, if it's to be really useful. There's a weird trade-off here, as the directness and invisibility of texting is now something more ubiquitous and visible.

The Messages application and iCloud sync changes the tone of texting – the text goes from your iOS device to Apple's servers and then your computer screen. Be aware of this, if you use Messages, and don't leave the application just running in the foreground for all to see.

Outlines for Class Lectures

After reading Advice for New Faculty Members by Robert Boice, I've tried to shift to an outline for class lectures. Outlines have several advantages over a traditional, discursive manuscript. They:

• Are easier to scan the page as you are speaking
• Are easier to skip and rearrange material as you go
• Reduce the tendency to simply read the lecture
• Allow an easier interaction with the students, as points can be fleshed out and transitioned in response to student responses

An outline is not as useful if it is a new class or new material. Outlines really presume a mastery of the material, where you can simply write a topic such as "Anselm's ontological argument" and then launch right into it for 15 minutes. If you need more details as to what the ontological argument is, or are concerned you will get it right in your description, the outline tends to become more discursive  and written out, which defeats its purpose.

I've been using OmniOutliner, which is a Mac application that has a unique niche among the applications out there. It is sort of a cross between Word and Excel. It's not a high-powered fancy spreadsheet application like Excel, but it can do many of the basic functions of Excel (add, sort, and so on), and it gives terrific fine controls in terms of layout, if you want to use them. It is also super easy to use and outline with, so that it almost becomes a word processor/outliner as well.

You could use Microsoft Word for this as well, but Word is slower and more prone to crash, and you would need a separate iPad application to open the files. OmniOutliner NEVER CRASHES. Neither does Scrivener or Pages. One of my main rules of thumb is, is this software gloriously stable? Or must I save constantly and carefully close files when away, so that there isn't a crash and loss of data? This is the problem with Word – I don't and can't trust it completely. I have to lock the doors often, so to speak, to insure my changes don't disappear. Other applications such as OmniOutliner and Scrivener are rock solid, and this is what I prefer.

There is an iPad version of OmniOutliner that I will probably get at some point; right now, I simply export the outlines as plain text into my dropbox, and then I use the PlainText iPad app to read the outline on the iPad in class. This works just fine.

I formerly used Scrivener to lay out an entire class using folders and such, but OmniOutliner provides a simpler, cleaner outlining ability than Scrivener (Scrivener is terrific, but not optimized for outlining as OmniOutliner is). As a tech nerd, I had to try something different, and so I did.

Productivity Apps: OmniFocus and Things

This is a long and nerdy post. I apologize.

Recent years have seen a blossoming of productivity applications, as well as the popular Getting Things Done approach, pioneered by David Allen.
At its heart, GTD is a method of keeping lists. It's not that different from what my mother-in-law did: she kept careful lists for her family camping trips, so she wouldn't forget something when they were 20 miles from a grocery store (think toilet paper).

What separates GTD is a greater clarity in your tasks (that is, you should create tasks that are clear and actionable), a series of different lists, projects, and contexts in which items are placed, and a careful review of all those tasks on a regular basis. (There's lots of information in Allen's book and on the internet, if you care to read up on GTD.)

With computers, GTD has moved to our various devices, and there's an astonishing number of very powerful applications out there to manage your lists. Although you can get by with pencil and paper, computers keep the lists cleaner, protected (they are backed up and in multiple places), and can automatically sort and hide tasks as needed. The dreadful bit of GTD before personal computers would be the endless re-copying of the lists. The dreadful bit of computerized tasks is the easy ability to fiddle and click, instead of actually getting things done (yes, this is highly ironic).

The debate on Macs is between Things and OmniFocus. Like a decent number of people, I was a Things user until just recently, when I switched to OmniFocus. Both are terrific programs, with pros and cons to each. Both have iOS applications that synchronize with your data. Both can kick to-dos down the road to a future date, which is one of the killer features of a GTD application; that is, you can tell the program, I don't want to see or think about this until 2 months from now, and instantly it is gone until the 2 months have elapsed. Both have quick entry panels for the Mac, so you can enter a task on the fly without switching into the application, and both can put projects on hold. On the cost side, neither application is particularly cheap, with Things being slightly cheaper (Remember the Milk is online, cute, and free, but lacks the power of these other apps).

Things

Things is easier to start with, prettier, and very user-friendly. One grasps its essentials fairly easily. It has a powerful system of tags, and a good system of keyboard shortcuts. The iOS apps work well, especially the iPhone app. The Today (that is, your highest priority) list is terrific, and you can quickly make things appear on the Today list, or take them off. Its downsides, however, become obvious with time: there is lots of flipping and scrolling through lists, and there is the need to synchronize your iOS devices on your local network via wifi (as well as wait for the sync to complete). Worse, after launching Things on your iPhone, you will have to wait for the sync to complete before doing anything, then enter whatever it is you wanted to enter, and then relaunch it to sync with your computer. This gets real old (they are working on a sync with their server, but it is taking forever to launch). The application is not updated very often, as you can see from their blog posts; the iPad version had a bug that lingered for months. This was one of the final reasons for my switching, as I tired of waiting for them to fix things or catch up to OmniFocus. The iPad app has page turn animations that get tiresome, and there is a lot of tabbing in and out of things on it and the iPhone; for example, you have to click on the task and then click edit to rename it, and then click again to save, instead of simply click and renaming it directly. If you include with a task an attachment or link to an email, you can't later delete or move that file or email, or the link is broken and unavailable to Things.

OmniFocus

OmniFocus is a workhouse, and powerful beyond belief. It has even better keyboard controls than Things, lots of flexibility in terms of its appearance and handling of your tasks, and a really powerful quick entry panel. It's easier and faster to schedule things into the future than Things is, and you can even schedule things according to a certain time (such as 2 pm). Projects can be dropped, which means the data is still in your system but it is gone from your lists. Projects can be made into templates, so they can be duplicated. You can have folders and containers, and tasks can become subtasks. The sync is terrific, as there is a free sync with their servers, so your data is synced, anytime anywhere (although the sync can be frustratingly slow, and sometimes it crashes). The iOS apps are great, with home buttons to get out of something you've tabbed deeply into, and the totally, completely amazing Forecast view. There is also a quick entry button so that you can enter a task on an iOS device while it is still syncing with the servers (although this does crash on me, from time to time), and even a map/GPS feature so that tasks can be keyed to GPS locations. The Omni Group is quick to update, fix, and innovate, which has led many people to abandon Things.

On the downside, OmniFocus is very granular and not easy to grasp at first, nor is it as visually appealing as Things (I have a strong feeling that 2.0 will change this, as the OmniFocus iPad app is gorgeous, and, like Apple, The Omnipresent Group will follow their iPad design leads). The Omni Group insists on using inspectors instead of a some sort of panel, and my inspector is always getting lost or in the way. Search the internet and you find people frustrated with OmniFocus' sharp learning curve. There's some early feelings of fear when you don't see the actions that you know are there (until you finally realize that you're in the wrong view, and those tasks are still in there). OmniFocus also forces you to put your actions into projects, which doesn't always make sense; if you're like me, you have lots of tasks that don't really belong in a project. Further, The Omni Group keeps their applications rather pricey, even in the days of the App Store and digital downloads that are driving prices down. Fortunately, there is a generous academic discount.

I must say that it was fairly scary to switch. I was surprised how nerve-wracking it was; that data is rather precious, and the fear of losing or missing something is surprisingly powerful. Going from a trusted system to a brand new one is stressful. After a week or so, however, I found myself relaxing and trusting OmniFocus.

Whatever you use, the goal is to be productive and stress-free, and to create as little friction between you and the plates you are currently spinning. Good luck.

Mac OS 10.7 Lion Disappoints, Mostly

After having played with the Mac OS for some weeks now, I have to say that most of the noticeable changes are disappointing or insignificant, especially the most highly touted features.

My main disappointments revolve around the full-screen mode. It sounded nice. Truth is, it fails miserably with dual screens, which is nearly a necessity for prosumer and professional usage; suddenly, you have two screens to work with, for making notes from one to the other, or monitoring your email while working on a project--whatever possibilities are needed. It's why those professional stock traders are always shown with 6 screens or more. Even Apple's own external monitor shows it as a feature.

With Lion, you lose the second screen completely, it simply goes to the slightly weird linen background. That's not helpful; I added the second monitor for a reason, you know. I can see that the full-screen mode would be nice with the small MacBook Air, or a laptop with a small screen, but I own neither and I'm not in that "focus on one thing and one thing only" mode often. It's also a bit of a paradoxical thing, as traditional computers (the "trucks" of computing, as Steve called them) are all about true multi-tasking, while iOS is not. It sounds good to go full-screen and "focus," but then why not just use your iPad for that? There's a potential confusion here, making this highly-touted feature a bit unimpressive. I'm not saying it's not useful; I'm saying it's rarely useful to me, and I doubt it's limited to only just me.

The full-screen disappoints on another level, which is it's ineffective for large screens and text editing. If you go full-screen with Pages, MarsEdit, OmniOutliner (take your pick), suddenly your eyes have to travel a loooong distance horizontally. That's why newspapers use columns, as you can scan fairly quickly, right-right-down, right-right-down. Now, with full-screen on a 15" or larger screen, it's right-right-right-right x 20-down. That's a lot of work, and makes me tired and achey. Text editors need smaller columns on full, horizontal screens, with the menus vertical along the side (as with the iPad in a horizontal or landscape position). Otherwise, it's tiresome work. Again, this might be fine on a small MacBook Air or something, but not on a 15" MacBook Pro or a larger external monitor.

Mission Control is also lackluster. It's cute and pretty and fast, but not as fast as ctrl-tab to cycle through open applications, or LaunchBar (or another application launcher). Mission Control also hides applications that have been minimized to the dock, which was always my frustration with Exposé. I want all my applications available to switching, even the ones I got out of my way. To use Mission Control effectively, you must not minimize applications, and do full-screen instead.. This, to me, breaks Mission Control.

Finally, I find the animations in Lion to be annoying. I really don't need emails flying upwards in Mail, or pages turning in iCal, or pop-up windows really popping up. Just do your job, please, and notify my if there is a problem, but don't distract me when all is well. Just make the email disappear, and then do a "dwoop" sound if the email failed. That's all I need, thanks.

All that said, Lion is speedy, handles my external monitor better, and features some nice under the hood changes to security and secure memory. FileVault, the drive encryption option, is much much better (supposedly, that is; I'm still scared of it, personally). I also found the AirDrop feature for exchanging files to be very simple and easy, even though it's not as heavily promoted or reviewed as the other new features in Lion. I also really like the new design to the Mail application, it's minimalist but still very powerful. ICal also syncs with Google Calendar much more smoothly and quickly.

So yes, Lion is well worth the $29 upgrade. Just don't be too dazzled by the new features. The real killer feature is yet to come: iCloud.