> 2. After trying out a million "distraction free" writers, I am still on MS Office. It's really worth it for me. I can't stand writing in Libre, or OO, or Ohm, or Monkey (whatever it's called). Scrivener may be the only exception but I usually just port my stuff there.
Just curious: Have you tried AbiWord? Arguably it shares a lot of the good parts of its interface with MS word -- If you have I'd love to hear what you (dis)like about it (and how Word is better or just as bad). No affiliation with AbiWord - just curious.
Personally I write too little at present, but when I do write, I write in vim, either in plain text or in some variation of ReStructuredText. I very much prefer to keep writing and formatting separate, starting with an outline of headings+notes, and expanding section by section. I've never attempted anything beyond essay-length, though.
However, what I WOULD love to see is a previous copy on the right of the screen and a text editor on the left.
We built a Word AddIn that lets you to do side-by-side diffs in Word (but you can't edit in this view yet). Would be interested in your thoughts.
Re:Show HN: A Github for writers?
by andrewflnr on Saturday October 26, 2013 @07:05PM
(#6619819)
Have you looked at Draft (draftin.com)? It has the side-by-side revisions you mentioned (all your revisions ever, in fact). I'm not sure about the other features you mentioned.
The site looks intriguing but yeah, I agree with your points:
1. I do write in revisions. Smaller changes don't matter as much when it comes to the end product. However, what I WOULD love to see is a previous copy on the right of the screen and a text editor on the left. I tend to do my revisions that way so that I can look at what I wrote, copy/paste what's fine, and rewrite what needs to be rewritten while still looking at the original. 2. After trying out a million "distraction free" writers, I am still on MS Office. It's really worth it for me. I can't stand writing in Libre, or OO, or Ohm, or Monkey (whatever it's called). Scrivener may be the only exception but I usually just port my stuff there. 3. Exactly
Here are the things I do like:
1. chapter by chapter separation of concerns. I like that. Even if it's in the form of text files, it's great. 2. one-click publishing. I really appreciate that. It's a pain to go from Word to a properly formatted PUB file. Having a tool that does this for you from the get-go is awesome. I've spent way too much time reformatting Word to be accepted by Smashwords in the past. 3. Comments. I enjoy this as well. If I had someone to help me out with my book, this would be a great feature. If I was to hire someone to help me out with editing and critiquing my work, I'd use this tool. Definitely would.
With that said, I would abuse the hell out of this for blog writing.