Spinning Beachball

A few months ago I was fortunate enough to have fired some questions on Keith, the brilliant mind behind the independent software publisher Literature and Latte. As the title of this post mentions, Keith is essentially know for his excellent work with Scrivener. Oh, and also by his ever-presence on the forums of L&L where he seems to spend 25 hours a day.

Scrivener is a jack-of-all-trades in what relates the writing activity (aka word processing). Actual and proper writing it should be emphasized. It integrates on a single program outlining, storyboarding, research materials and actual writing. It’s simple, plain obvious and a bliss for anyone who has a lot of writing to do, as long as you don’t need to use .doc files, albeit it is possible to export the files to other convenient formats.

Personally, I’ve integrated Scrivener on my workflow as the first drafting app where the chapters of my Ph.D. thesis start to gain form. Afterwards the text is exported to .rft and imported into Mellel where it gets the final makeover, proper chapter headings and footnoting.

Well, but moving on to the really important stuff, the interview. Here it is without further ado:

1. Right, getting started…Could you please give us a small intro about yourself? What did you do before developing Scrivener and what do you currently do in addition to typing away code for the app?

Actually, I’m a teacher. I teach a class of Year 5 children (10 year-olds) in an inner city London primary school. Before that, I’ve worked for the NHS (Britain’s health service), in numerous temporary jobs which involved crunching numbers into computers for no good purpose, and I’ve spent a little too much time in education doing things like an MA and (never-quite-finished) PhD in medieval literature. And all along, of course, I’ve dreamed of writing that Great Novel…

2.As far as I know, you’re not a “born developer” and hadn’t developed an app before Scrivener. What made you take the step of developing your own writing app and, afterwards, sell it to the public? On a selfish note, I’m glad you did it!

Thanks! Honestly, I developed it purely because it was THE app that I wanted to use. I used to look at anything that might help me with my writing - mostly as a form of procrastination.

So, you know, I have a shelf full of books about writing, and back when I used a PC I bought some Sol Stein writing software that came on floppy disk, and I tried out NewNovelist. NewNovelist was a little too restrictive for me - I don’t know how it works now, but back when I tried it, it forced you to follow the Christopher Vogler 12-step interpretation of Joseph Campbell’s “hero’s journey” for structuring your novel. I don’t really like software that tries to tell you how to write. But what I really did like was the way there was a list of files on the left, and your text on the right - sort of Windows Explorer mixed with Word as I saw it then. I really thought it would be brilliant if you could have that but set up the structure however you wanted. And - imagine if you could look at two documents at the same time! Or even - a picture alongside your text. Or, associate a synopsis with each document so you could get an overview of the work as a whole… And so on. I figured someone else must have thought of something like this already anyway and set out to find such software, as I knew it would fit how I worked - I had hundreds of Word documents scattered around my hard drive because I tend to think and write in fragments. RoughDraft came close, but nothing really did what I wanted. So, I started writing down and designing my dream app on paper, even though I thought I’d never be able to develop it, really. I started looking into writing such a program on Windows - I’d dabbled with a bit of C - and soon saw that writing anything like this was way beyond anything I could do. (I think maybe developing for Windows has got easier over the past few years from what I’ve heard, but I don’t know.)

Anyway, then, I switched to a Mac. I wanted a cheap laptop that was light and compact, and the iBook beat all the Windows laptops I looked at, and I also figured that - given that I knew nothing about the Mac - buying a Mac laptop would stop me from tinkering with the hardware and programming side of things and force me to get on with writing. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I started my search afresh and found that there was already much better software for the Mac that did the sort of thing I wanted. Top of the bunch in my view at the time was Ulysses - which I still think is brilliant - but I’m a rich text person and so it didn’t quite fit what I wanted exactly. Then - and I couldn’t believe it - I found out that Apple give away their development platform (Xcode) for free (Microsoft sell Visual Studio, the Windows equivalent, for something like £1,000). So I started messing with it… and I found that Cocoa was fairly intuitive. So I bought a couple of books on Cocoa (Steve Kochan’s Programming in Objective C and Aaron Hillegass’s Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X), and they were actually readable - the first programming books I’ve ever actually managed to get through. And suddenly I realised that I really could write the program I wanted for myself. So… I set out to do it. I still can’t quite believe I’ve actually done it, to be honest.

That was a longer answer than you wanted, eh?

3. Certainly it was much longer than anticipated! For how long have you been developing Scrivener?

Hmm… I really don’t know. About three or four years, now, I guess. Four, I think.

4. I’ve never considered developing an app as my knowledge of programming languages is about as good as my command of German, but can picture it as something akin to having a demanding mistress…or living with your mother in law! What changed in your life after starting selling Scrivener? Did you take the plunge as a full time indie developer or had to keep a parallel profession?

As I say, I’m still a teacher by day. What changed is just the amount of time I spend at my computer. I teach during the day, then I get home and answer support e-mails. Then I spend time with my kids, then I do planning for school, then I spend time developing Scrivener and answering more e-mails/forum posts. Weekends are pretty much a division between these things, too. Saturday - programming, support and kids; Sunday - school planning, and whatever support and programming I can fit in (fortunately weekends tend to bring less support e-mails, for some reason). Support is very demanding - Scrivener took off far more than I could ever have imagined - but how much development I do on Scrivener is pretty much up to me. I tend to make it fairly clear that there are no promises about Scrivener being updated regularly beyond bug fixes. But despite the fact that I say this, I tend to add a lot to Scrivener, because from user suggestions and using it myself, I’m always seeing ways it can get better.

5. I understand if you want to skip this one. Can a guy support his family as an indie developer selling a single piece of software?

Hmm… It depends… Do you mean with Scrivener, or in general? Honestly, if I didn’t like teaching so much, I could go full time developer if I wanted and support my family that way. But Scrivener has done very well and been lucky enough to get lots of good reviews. Given that I’m only just at the end of the first year of sales, and that this is my first application, I have no idea of whether this first year is just a blip and that everything will taper off shortly, or whether I can expect things to continue as they are… I also have no way of knowing how reviews will go in the future and so on. But I do know other indie developers who support their families using one or two pieces of software, so it can be done.

6. If you could describe Scrivener in a single sentence, what would you say?

I’d probably say, “Try it”. I think the tagline says it all, though: “Outline. Edit. Storyboard. Write.” But that’s four words; it’s not, technically, a sentence.

7. Pressing on with design: the UI and graphics part of Scrivener are nothing short of amazing. Everything seems well thought off and developed by an accomplished artist. Did you create it all by yourself or asked for some outside help to handle the graphical work?

Hmm. It’s a mixture, really. The UI is all me - I spent a lot of time looking at other apps, especially Apple apps, that would give me a clue on how to go about doing things that hadn’t really been done before exactly. So, with the corkboard I looked at iSale and iPhoto, for the split view I looked at Xcode, for the inspector I looked at Ulysses, for the binder I looked at Mori, and so forth. Basically, I knew what I wanted it to do, and then I tried to look at the best applications out there to see how they handled certain aspects of design. I also went through the Apple human interface guidelines and tried to make sure I kept everything inline with them. Some of the icons in the toolbar are from a free set very generously donated to the Mac community by a guy called Matt Ball. Some users have contributed (thank you!). Some I created myself. Others are generic Apple icons that are used in many apps. It’s not like I can really afford a professional graphic designer, so I’ve generally just got by; I can use PhotoShop, but it probably takes me about ten times as long to create a decent icon as it would a proper designer.

8. Regarding the icon of the app (the Yin and Yang look-alike with quotation marks), what’s the history behind it? Why did you pick it? (My guess is it has a sound motive behind)

The app icon is a subject of much debate… Some users love it, some hate it. Back in the early days, Scrivener had a really ugly ringbinder icon, from a photo I’d taken of a ringbinder containing my actual writing, and then I asked users if they had ideas for an icon. One of my own ideas was having a yin-yang that would sort of stress the “S” through the middle of it for Scrivener. I’ve always been into Zen and Ch’an and Taoism and stuff like that, and I liked the idea of an icon that said “zen app” (yeah, I know, yin-yang is more Taoism, but hey). Also, the black and white suggests the black and white of the printed page. So, that was kind of the idea. Then, Amber Vaesca, one of the first users of Scrivener who now helps moderate the forums and who has just been brilliant throughout, created the icon from that idea and she added the quotation marks, made it a rectangle, and… I loved it. It stands out in the Dock, it’s distinctive… I understand why some people don’t like it, because it’s not a picture of something and it’s not really 3D or sticking out, but it’s glossy and suggests to me what Scrivener is all about - writing in an environment that is clean and gets out of your way (I hope).

9. This is a tricky one…from all the features Scrivener has, is there one you think shouldn’t have made the cut or needs some tweaking on the future?

Not exactly, not really. I’ve been fairly picky about what I put in and leave out, to the extent that I occasionally get shouted at by a user who really wants a feature that I refuse to add because I don’t think it really fits. So, I’m happy with most of the features that are in there, although some I think need some refinement. One thing I’d love to be able to provide is some way to hide footnote and annotation ranges altogether, rather than just fade them out, but the technical considerations there make it very difficult. Other things I’m not entirely happy with are things that I’m refining for the next free update - the Compile Draft sheet and Preferences panel are both just way too busy for such important features, so I want to improve those.

Other things I have considered but I’m ultimately glad I left out - I get frequent requests for a mindmap feature and a timeline feature. I have considered going down the insane route of developing such features from scratch, but the more I think about it, the more I think it’s best to leave things like this out, as they are best off in dedicated programs. Scrivener can’t be everything. No one would expect MS Word to do timelines and mindmaps, and I think I have to remind myself sometimes of Scrivener’s purpose and why I wrote it - sometimes I get too enthusiastic about a programming challenge, which is really just a way of procrastinating from writing.

10. I love tutorials and screencasts about the programs I use. Scrivener has only one and although it covers most of the basics, I think we could use some more in-depth ones covering specific points of the app, like the OmniGroup did with OmniOutliner or Redlex with Mellel. Can the users expect to see some screencasts in the future?

Yes. I’ve just bought a fantastic screencast app called ScreenFlow, which should make creating screencasts much easier. The trouble is that, as a one-man company, I prioritise developing Scrivener and answering support e-mails/forum posts, so there’s not much time left for screencasts. But I do plan on creating some more after Scrivener 1.2 is out. I want to create some fairly short ones that just cover very specific tasks.

11. Another “feature” from Literature & Latte is the awesome support you give to the app, mainly through the forums. Can you give and idea on how much time you “waste”, er…, “spend” daily in the forums?

Honestly, I’m never away from them for long. I always have the forum open on my MBPro as I work, and I check it regularly. At some point I’m going to have to say, right, I’ll check the forums at this hour every day, but for now I just check it a lot and answer as much as I can. I really like providing the support - the forums have actually been one of the best things about developing Scrivener. Some of the writing forums I have frequented in the past have been very harsh, full of “experts” who are really horrible to newcomers. On the Scrivener forums, we have a whole range of writers, from the unpublished (such as myself) to established and respected journalists, novelists and screenwriters. And everyone is really, really friendly there. So, it’s kind of a pleasure to host and support them.

12. It’s public that Scrivener 1.12 is around the corner. Want to give us any insight regarding what we can expect when it pops its head?

Actually, it’s 1.5. The features have become so massive that it has to leap to 1.5! (Actually, for automatic update to work correctly, it will have to be 1.50…) Hmm, okay, well, let’s see:
- Final Draft round tripping for screenwriters (.fcf file format support).
- A page view.
- A Pages-like format bar.
- An enhanced corkboard.
- Document templates (so you can set up your own character sheets and go to Documents > New From Template > My Character Sheet, for instance, to create a document based on another document).
- Customisable binder icons.
- Refined Compile Draft sheet and preferences pane.
- Show/hide invisibles.
- Linked files (Scrivener will be able to import any file type - ones that can’t be opened in Scrivener will be displayed as a large icon that can be clicked to open the file in its native app).
- Lots of other stuff!

13. I stand corrected then. Version 1.5 and not 1.12 as previously thought. As far as it is public, you think Scrivener is more or less feature complete since version 1.0. Albeit you should be commended for *not* launching the app before it was complete and making of the users paid beta testers (hint: Apple, Apple) or leaving them craving for features that should be there from day one (hint: Apple, Apple) a piece of software has to evolve. What new features are in store for Scrivener post-1.5?

I really don’t know at this stage. I have a list of things that are marked for a possible 2.0 release, but some of them have already made it into earlier versions. I have to think that the next version is “it”, otherwise I’d go mad. So, for me, 1.2 is THE definitive Scrivener. I’m really excited about it. After that, there are bound to be bugs that don’t get picked up on in the public betas, so they’ll be my priority. Then I’ll worry about what to do next!

14. Do you think we’ll ever see a close integration of Scrivener with Bookends or Sente like these programs have with Mellel? From my selfish point of view, that would be awesome.

Bookends already has pretty decent integration. You can automatically insert citations etc. You would never want to process a Scrivener project itself, though - you are always going to want to export to RTF or DOC or whatever to process a document with one of these programs. Scrivener projects can be massive, with lots of research documents that don’t go into the final draft, so you wouldn’t want to duplicate a whole project with the citations and bibliography inserted. Scrivener is always going to be “first draft” software, and you are always going to need some other dedicated word processor to go to afterwards for work that demands finer formatting than a simple novel manuscript.

15. I love to write in Scrivener, really. The way the outline and corkboard interact with the main writing pane is simply fantastic. As it is, this makes it great for drafting papers, chapters and articles, and *probably* to blog. I mean, having the thoughts and errands for posts right on the writing app could be just what the doctor ordered! I don’t think you’ll develop the app in that direction but maybe you’re open to accept someone to develop a plugin for this?

I’m already in contact with the developer of MarsEdit, so there might be closer integration between Scrivener and MarsEdit in the future, so that you could write in Scrivener and then automatically get your stuff into MarsEdit for blogging. There’s no timescale on that, as it depends on the developer of MarsEdit who is very busy, but it would be really cool.

Also, one thing I do have marked for v 2.0, is some way of exporting a project as a set of interlinked web pages. That would be difficult given Apple’s HTML export support, but it is one of the things I’d love to look at. 2.0 only gets produced after I’ve written The Novel with a 1.x version, though, of course…

16. Let’s talk about the future further down the road. Where do you see Scrivener in three years time? What’s your long term vision for the app?

I think I’m going to take a raincheck (or whatever they call it) on this question for now, if you don’t mind. I have some vague ideas, but I don’t want to make them public right now…

17. That position is understandable, but rest assured I’ll poke you further down the road. Do you consider creating and developing another app?

Scrivener is really where it’s at for me. This is software that I wanted to use so I’m going to be sticking with just Scrivener. Except… I may have one other app in the pipeline in conjunction with someone else, but I don’t really want to say anything about that yet as it is just in the brainstorming stages.

18. Regarding Apple, do you think they’ll ever develop iWork to cover the ground currently occupied by Scrivener?

I hope not! I don’t know… Scrivener is pretty specialised. Apple know about Scrivener and they seem to like it, actually, which is really gratifying.

19. Lets think of a scenario. If Apple wanted to buy your app, like they did in the past with the SoundJam that ended up as iTunes, would you consider an offer from them?

How much do they want to pay me? Where do I sign?

20. Keeping it on with Apple. Last year you ranted on a couple of blog posts about the lack of access to the Leopard betas and swearing that you would never renew your ADC account. So, did you keep your promise or bit the bullet?

Ha. I kind of regret writing those blog posts. I got a lot of e-mails from people asking if I was still going to develop Scrivener given that I was so annoyed at Apple, which was never in question. But… Well, I haven’t renewed my ADC account as yet. But then it only expired last week. I do still think the way they handled the Leopard betas was completely underhand, dishonest and… Well, really poor. I have screengrabs and everything showing how they promised exclusive first access to the newest versions of Leopard betas to ADC Premier and Select members, and then they held of providing the WWDC beta to non-attendees for a month - and the old seed was buggy as all hell. So, I regret making such a big deal about it, but I stand by what I said. That said, though, since then there have been things that have really made me think Apple is VERY cool. I can’t really say why, though, which is a little frustrating! But, let’s just say that their have been other aspects of my dealings with them that has more than compensated. And then, the technical support provided by my ADC account has been superb - code-level support from Apple engineers on a couple of key features for the new Scrivener update. So, I may yet renew… Who knows.

21. Being a brit, I presume you are well aware of Apple’s pricing scheme which forgets all about currency exchange rates and the fact that the dollar is no longer the stronger currency it used to be. What are your feelings about Apple products prices in euroland and the UK? I’ll give you mine in advance and accept any criticism: I think it’s asinine and we’re subsidizing lower prices for Macs, iPods and iTunes in the US.

Argh! Don’t even get me started! It’s not just Apple, though, it’s everybody, and it’s everywhere. It frustrates the hell out of me, though. Example: A MacBook Air in the US starts at $1800; in the UK the Airs start at £1300… Given that the dollar is 2 to the pound, that is actually $2600 we’re paying for the same thing - nearly half the price again. Then you have to consider the fact that the iTunes service in the UK is nothing compared to the US one - we don’t get the TV shows and we don’t get as much non-DRM stuff. But as I say, I don’t think this is an Apple-specific issue. But it is annoying.

22. Moving on to the last bit…can you name three apps from other indie developers that you admire and/or use frequently?

I’m going to name apps I admire by developers I admire:

WriteRoom (and TaskPaper) by HogBaySoftware. Jesse Grosjean is a very cool developer. He created and then sold the brilliant Mori (formerly HogBay Notebook), and now he’s concentrating on one-task apps that do something simple very, very well. He deserves all the acclaim he has got.

Nisus Writer (and Pro). Nisus are producing a great word processor that - unlike Pages (which I really like) plays well with RTF and other standard formats. And Martin Wierschin, one of the developers, has helped me more times than I can imagine with the intricacies of the Apple text system, out of nothing more (or rather nothing less) than kindness and a willingness to help other developers.

I like Bean, too - that’s a great basic text editor/word processor that does just what many users will need.

23. And as the last question, another tricky one: do you see pulling the plug on Scrivener? And if so would you consider selling the software to another indie developer to carry on with your work?

No! Crikey! Pulling the plug? I’ve only just begun! Honestly, I can’t see this happening. I built Scrivener for me, for my writing, and it’s now my primary writing tool. So, why would I want to pull the plug? It does what I want it do and now I have to write The Great Novel in it. I do need to set up my will so that if I get hit by a bus (again - I have a nice Harry Potter-esque scar on my forehead from the last time I got hit by a bus, no kidding) the code gets made available somehow, but other than that, so long as I’m around, I hope to be keeping Scrivener alive.

24. Yikes. Already had some close encounters with buses in this country also, luckily without scarring. Any concluding thoughts or remarks you would like to add?

It’s half-past-midnight. I have no thoughts left… Other than: BUY SCRIVENER. Nah, just kidding. I would just say that if anyone out there is looking for writing software, check out Scrivener, and if it doesn’t work for you, check out my links page and hopefully you’ll find something that fits.

After such a long and juice filled interview all I say as a concluding remark is to heartily thank Keith for the time and effort he put on it. And, of course, desire him the best for Scrivener 1.5.