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kshsj777
April 26th, 2008, 07:40 PM
Sorry if this thread doesn't belong here, but this was the best place I could figure to put it.

I've been searching for a linux program similar to Scrivener for Mac, WriteWayPro, NewNovelist, yWriter etc for Windows. Most of these don't work, except for yWriter, which is pretty good, but still doesn't run quite smoothly.

I was wondering if there was a similar program for linux, or if not, ask that someone develop one. I think that would help writers like me to have an easier time switching to linux. I love almost everything else in ubuntu. This is my only major complaint, and if this was solved, Windows would be bye-bye.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

Morbett
April 30th, 2008, 01:38 AM
Yeah, I would definitely love to see something like Scrivener for Linux.

kshsj777
May 11th, 2008, 08:31 PM
Since I haven't found any linux alternatives, I will have to either dual boot, or make a virtual copy of Win XP to run within linux. Sadly, this means, I still have to pay for the license, and go through the extra work of setting things up.

There's got to be more linux users who are writers too!

nick09
May 11th, 2008, 08:48 PM
Since I haven't found any linux alternatives, I will have to either dual boot, or make a virtual copy of Win XP to run within linux. Sadly, this means, I still have to pay for the license, and go through the extra work of setting things up.

There's got to be more linux users who are writers too!

You could run the windows programs in Wine.

But check the Wine app Database (http://appdb.winehq.org/) for application compatibility in Wine.

kshsj777
May 11th, 2008, 09:04 PM
I have tried wine and either the writer's programs don't work at all, or they don't work very well. I can't deal with all the distractions the programs have when they aren't displaying things correctly or shut down because of some weird error. That's why I wanted a program written specifically for the linux OS, so that it would work.

madjr
May 12th, 2008, 12:34 AM
Sorry if this thread doesn't belong here, but this was the best place I could figure to put it.

I've been searching for a linux program similar to Scrivener for Mac, WriteWayPro, NewNovelist, yWriter etc for Windows. Most of these don't work, except for yWriter, which is pretty good, but still doesn't run quite smoothly.

I was wondering if there was a similar program for linux, or if not, ask that someone develop one. I think that would help writers like me to have an easier time switching to linux. I love almost everything else in ubuntu. This is my only major complaint, and if this was solved, Windows would be bye-bye.

Thanks in advance for your responses.

i don't think you searched hard enough i just typed in google: "Scrivener alternative linux"

but that's ok we here to help and this what i found




I live in Linux, and Scrivener may someday be available for us( someone posted on /. that this is being worked-on ),so for-now, we’ve little alternative.

However…Writer’s Cafe has one killer-app for us Linuxers( because we have no ability to remain in our gloriously configurable OS while running Mac sw ) . . . it’s Story Lines app is the bees knees, compared with anything else I’ve seen in linux-native software.

( I’m NOT running Wine on any machine I need to trust - win-viruses can run in it too, trashing user’s stuff! )

http://www.writerscafe.co.uk/

They’ve a limited demo, try it your own self.


also, we have Linux app finder

http://linuxappfinder.com/alternatives?search_text=yWriter


here's an article:
http://www.linux.com/feature/121741

if you found this useful the little star thingie is a thanks button :D

note: writerscafe program is not totally free (but the demo is very functional and not time limited)

also you could try a newer version of Wine maybe yWriter works better. http://www.winehq.org/

also, they're looking for people to report bugs on the programs they use so they can get fixed by version 1.0

SunnyRabbiera
May 12th, 2008, 12:52 AM
actually I think there is one thing that comes close to this:
basket
I use it every so often to help my writing

kshsj777
May 12th, 2008, 02:29 AM
Thank you for your suggestions, but I have already tried those. I've searched for a linux alternative to Scrivener. Writer's Cafe doesn't have a built in word processor to organize things by chapter and scene.

I've tried both yWriter3 and yWriter4, but when the programs load, they started blinking for about twenty seconds and all the gray area is either black or weird mixture of colors. Then it goes to normal, but as I try to use the program, random stuff happens and it takes forever to get it to save, and sometimes the program just quits on me for no good reason.

I've also tried demos of Power Writer, WriteItNow, Liquid Story Binder and some other ones I can't think of. They all are buggy. Things don't display properly or the program blinks a lot. I can't get any work done when program doesn't work properly.

Baskets is too simple of a program for my needs.

I'm glad you're all trying to help, and I really appreciate it, but I've already tried a million things, not that there isn't something I haven't tried. If you think of something else, please post, there might be something I haven't thought of.

madjr
May 12th, 2008, 10:18 PM
did u try scribus?

anyway, like i said earlier try upgrading to the newer wine version from the official website (maybe it has improved). The one in the Ubuntu repos is not the latest.

and remember to post those bugs u see in the wine site.

Bugs may never get fixed if not reported.

the good thing about the wine devs is that they fix all the reported bugs ASAP.

Barrucadu
May 12th, 2008, 10:46 PM
This may be a really, really, stupid question but... What's wrong with writing in OpenOffice?

Onyros
May 12th, 2008, 11:08 PM
Better yet: what's wrong with writing in PyRoom (http://pyroom.org/)?

It's brilliant. Organization should be done inside one's mind :P

Yeah, I know Scrivener's completely different, with a whole lot of different features, aimed at the script pros and everything BUT, in terms of writing, pure writing environment, PyRoom is perfect.

BTW, if organization is the problem, then there's always something like Zim. Zim's another great (yet simple) piece of software.

But, once again, PyRoom is the typewriter of text editors :)

bonzoid
May 19th, 2008, 08:26 PM
The author of yWriter has instruction on how to get ywriter running on Ubuntu using wine.

http://halspacejock.blogspot.com/2008/02/software-update.html

kshsj777
May 25th, 2008, 01:17 AM
Well I must be missing something, since yWriter does NOT work without a hitch in Ubuntu for me.

As for the question of why OOWriter isn't good enough, it's because it's too annoying to keep scrolling through a 200 page document. Even if I put each chapter as its own file, I have to have a dozen documents open at once and I have to keep copying and pasting stuff to move things around. I also would have to rename files and renumber chapters whenever I decided to add chapters or shift things around.

With WriteWayPro, which is similar to yWriter and Scrivener and similar programs, I have a sort of tree diagram on the left of the screen, organized into chapters and scenes. So each book gets one file, and I can simply drag scenes back and forth between chapters, and add as many scenes and chapters as I want.

In addition, I can keep all of the my notes with my chapters, yet I can hide them when I don't want to see them. I also can export the entire novel into rtf format ready to submit to publishers and available to share with anyone who has a word processor (although they'll have to deal with the 200 page document.)

It's so much easier to keep track of things and it saves me a lot of time and effort if things just work. I'm a very organized person (although you should see my room; it's a mess!) and when it comes to writing, I NEED organization.

As to the program Zim, I will try it out, and see what it's like.

Until someone comes up with a Linux novel writing program on par with WriteWayPro and the others, I plan on converting my Win XP to a virtual machine and running it from inside Linux. Hopefully WriteWayPro will work and everything will be just fine.

But I'm still not giving up hope. Linux is getting there!!!

pt123
May 25th, 2008, 01:51 AM
This may be a really, really, stupid question but... What's wrong with writing in OpenOffice?

Just look at the screenshots and you will see how different it is:
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/screens1.html
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/screens2.html
http://www.literatureandlatte.com/screens3.html

This is my first time seeing it. It looks bloody amazing. I can understand why someone who is a serious writer would get a mac just to use this application.

Fair price too.

I am blown away. Thank god I am no writer.

You see why Mac's apps. are so beautiful compared to Windows.

kshsj777
May 25th, 2008, 02:00 AM
That is awesome!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't take a close look at the screen shots before. But that outline is exactly the type of thing I need. It even seems to have more features than WriteWayPro.

I wish I could have it on Linux or that I could win several thousand dollars so I could afford to buy a Macbook.

Sigh.

If Apple ever comes out with an UMPC around $500...

madjr
May 25th, 2008, 05:04 AM
this was asked again a while ago

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=805736

the best answer was:


One of these may fit what you are looking for.

celtx (http://www.celtx.com/overview.html)
scripped (http://www.scripped.com/)
zhura (http://www.zhura.com/)

yWriter (http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter.html) works under Wine
http://www.writerscafe.org/

kshsj777
May 25th, 2008, 05:25 PM
Those all look like good apps, (I have celtx to write my screenplays) but they are mostly for screenwriting, and not for novels.

pt123
May 26th, 2008, 04:10 AM
Celtx looks impressive.

Knacker
March 2nd, 2009, 02:51 AM
there is still nothing for linux (or windows) that comes even close to comparing to scrivener. it is miles and miles superior than the alternatives in terms of features (and i'm not talking about sheer quantity of features which is just annoying, but smart integration of necessary features), but above all in terms of usability. it is one of those rare apps that just immediately and almost effortlessly improves your productivity. i know three people who have switched to mac just to have access to this.
if someone ported this or wrote some kind of clone, i would absolutely pay to use it and, i'm sure, others would too.
suggest alternatives away, but, having continually looked for and tested for a viable alternative...i'm certain that for authors, and for dissertation or book writers, there is nothing out there that is even close to matching this software.

50words
March 2nd, 2009, 04:38 AM
Those novel writing apps are slick, but I think you could get basically the same effect using a tabbed text editor (with one tab for each chapter) and Evernote, with tags for each chapter, theme, etc.

You might even use a tiling window manager to reduce distractions and make the most of your screen real estate.

I'm not saying this would be equivalent or better, just different. Seems to me it might have some advantages, as well.

Knacker
March 2nd, 2009, 04:30 PM
The tabbed editor is essentially what I do...and it does work. But that functionality is basically already present with any word processor -- switching between documents.

The 'slickness' i think is important. I hate mac-slick, but in this case, i think it has a function. When you're writing a 200+ page document, you find yourself working with a pretty messy collection of stuff pretty fast. Sometimes, one of hte most discouraging things is how hard it is to find order, 'cleanness' in your project. The 'slickness' that everyone dismisses as mere aesthetics helps to make your writing seem more ordered, more attractive, more clean than it is with less 'slick' UI's. It makes cleaning the writing itself up look like a lt less work. I think this is essential to making a program like this work. Again, I hate the aestheticization of computing that mac has brought about, but I wonder sometimes if linux people are too quick to dismiss appearance: 'prettiness' (of a certain kind) can sometimes dramatically improve your productivity.

The crucial function, though, is the way scrivener allows you to compile and edit multiple pieces of a chapter/project in a way that tracks your changes intelligently and gives you exactly the right vantage over the whole - kind of editor's mind's view - makes splitting/moving/cutting so much more effective. I know other apps that do this, but none do it anywhere as well as this.

What would spread like crazy would be a minimalist app that would be pretty - in this 'clean' way - and would be focused on intuitive editing/compiling -- basically everything modeled on scrivener. Tight integration with Zotero would also make sense (and give it an advantage over scrivener maybe).

Anyway, I dream of being able to use this app...but it's mac - sigh.

MaskedMarauder
April 9th, 2009, 10:07 PM
I'm curious about Scrivener too. But not so curious that I'll buy a mac.

Are there VMWare players available for Mac applications? That might work. I get tolerable performance with running windows in VMWare.

anatolica
September 9th, 2009, 10:08 AM
...What would spread like crazy would be a minimalist app that would be pretty - in this 'clean' way - and would be focused on intuitive editing/compiling -- basically everything modeled on scrivener. Tight integration with Zotero would also make sense (and give it an advantage over scrivener maybe).

Anyway, I dream of being able to use this app...but it's mac - sigh.

I totally agree with what you said, especially on the "slickness" and the "zotero integration" .. I am obsessively trying to find an alternative to Scrivener for almost two years now, as macs are twice the usual already-high price in this part of the world, and unfortunately I know nothing about coding to develop one similar tool myself.

What I came up with this endless search for scrivener is (although not much):

1- a mash-up of songbird-zotero-celtx (and even miro): a mozilla firefox based writing/research environment with add-on capabilities (I hope to post a mash up later if I can). this is a fantasy so just don't judge me:)

2 - use LyX. I already love LyX very much, and it has an outliner feature, with a different -may be more structured, (academic) writing oriented- mentality. But it is also flexible enough to let you demote paragraphs, change document type, etc. And runs beautifully on fullscreen, too (for those looking for this very-much hyped "undestructive writing environment" mood..)

I always had the feeling that LyX already had some great strengths that could be tweaked into a more creative, "scrivener-like" mode of writing - but as said, do not have the capabilities to tweak it as such. however, a certain guy, Rob Oakes, has, and started a qt-based add-on module to LyX).. so introducing LyX Outline (http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/index.php/2009/03/04/perfect-tool):

So please see these posts and become a beta tester to help Rob Oakes, if you are like me, that is one of those who thrive for a scrivener capability (are there many of us, or am I the only one obsessive:)


Creating the Perfect Writing Tool: A Proposal (http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/index.php/2009/03/04/perfect-tool): http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/index.php/2009/03/04/perfect-tool

Lyx Outline (http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/index.php/science-and-technology/lyx-outline): http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/index.php/science-and-technology/lyx-outline

Introducing LyX-Outline 0.1 (http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/index.php/2009/05/13/lyx-outline) : http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/index.php/2009/05/13/lyx-outline


So, just to give you a hint:

http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/lyxeditormac1.png

anatolica
February 19th, 2010, 04:59 AM
Now that there is a newly proposed idea in Ubuntu brainstorm (still in sandbox but I believe it will make out quickly):

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/23719/image/1/ (http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/23719/)

So, this may be a perfect ground to discuss a creative writing app for ubuntu - and I am still confiding in LyX-Outline (http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/index.php/science-and-technology/lyx-outline). I think it will come out very nicely -expect another beta soon @ Apolitically Incorrect (http://www.oak-tree.us/blog/) blog :)

nikos_
April 8th, 2010, 05:48 AM
Hi,

How do you get to install celtx (version 2.7) on ubuntu 9.10? I tried to do this in Terminal but I get the following error message:

"
error while loading shared libraries: libjemalloc.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
"

Any idea how I can install libjemalloc.so to overcome this problem?
I cannot find libjemalloc anywhere in the synaptic packages

Nikos.

cariboo
April 8th, 2010, 05:57 AM
Just run celtx from the directory it is in. I just tried it, and it worked for me. eg:


celtx$ ./celtx

nikos_
April 9th, 2010, 04:47 AM
Thanks a million cariboo7. Indeed, the way to do it was what you described.

In ubuntu 9.10, I also created a shortcut to celtx on my top Panel (of my desktop). To do that, all you have to do is:

1. open the celtx folder and locate the celtx file
2. drag and drop the celtx file into the top Panel
this opens a window titled Create Launcher. There,
3. specify Application in Terminal
4. specify a Name (I simply put 'celtx')
5. click OK.
Done!
optional: in the Create Launcher window you can also specify an icon for your shortcut.

sandyd
April 9th, 2010, 05:24 AM
ill look into running writewaypro and the rest of the windows apps in the morning and see if I can come up w/ some wine patches that will make them run properly. @OP could you please give me a nice list of writing apps please?