Scrivener for Linux?

Hello, Mac Addicts have I got a deal for you! It’s secure, completely customizable, has lots of programs available… Did I mention free? Yeah, I’m once again hawking the Linux OS. Uh oh, I see you’ve decided that you love your Mac specific programs and are reaching for the back button. Hold on a second because I was once a Mac addict like you.

I do a lot of writing (both here and in my professional life) and the one program I really missed (and I mean “missed” as in got down on my knees and begged the manufacturer to use Cocotron for the next version so I could run it on my Linux) was Scrivener. Just so you know, Scrivener is a very addictive program. Once you use it, it’s really hard to go back to using a “real” word processor because Scrivener is clutter free, organization as you write. Word and Open Office just don’t cut it after that. Did you notice I said was? Yes, I have completely replaced Scrivener and I am very happy with my solution.

After trying every “writing” software trial available for Linux and Windows and still not finding something I liked, I sat back and really thought about how I used Scrivener. What was it about this one program that made it work for me? It came down to three things.

1. The pages were all organized under nodes. Children and grandchildren were grouped under a parent.
2. There was a full screen view that completely eliminated the clutter of the desktop and tool bars. For someone like me, this feature doubled my productivity. Loosing it was almost a deal breaker.
3. Each node was saved in a separate rich text file, meaning if the program crashed or a file was corrupted you still had the bulk of your work. (Writer’s Cafe is a beautiful, well-thought out program except for this one thing.)

After defining it, I realized Scrivner is a desktop wiki with a decent WYSIWYG editor. Please spare me the arguments about how clean wiki syntax is and how easy it is to learn. I will not learn another language just to take notes. End of discussion. (See Wikipedia’s Personal Wiki entry for more information on desktop wikis.) I tried different wikis to no avail and then I tried Zim.

This little jewel was a perfect fit and soon I migrated all my notes for all my different projects into Zim, which saves data as text files with a little wiki markup that you can easily edit with any text editor in a pinch. Zim runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Unfortunately, installing it under Mac isn’t for the faint hearted, so backup your system first and have a little fun.) Zim just works. It does everything I did with Scrivener except write in a full screen view. Since I write most of my outlines in a notebook first and then type them up, I don’t have a problem with using paper while I write or minimizing a screen on occasion so I can go back to Zim. Thus, I have multiple choices for my full screen view.

LyX and OpenOffice both have full screen views. Lotus Symphony has gorgeous tabs and gets the formatting out of my way. I personally love both LyX and Lotus Symphony. (I’m not quite an OpenSource fan girl. I will use and recommend products that aren’t free and aren’t open source. However, they must be well thought out and run on my Ubuntu 8.04 desktop. WINE is permitted.) LyX lets you open up two documents side by side, which is useful if you’re relying on an outline. Lotus Symphony and LyX both use tabs for swapping between documents, making them more user-friendly than OpenOffice. Still, these are all full-blown word processors and I prefer to write now and worry about formatting later. (Of the three, LyX is the only one that renders equations properly. It’s LATEX type setting is hard to beat.)

After experimenting with multiple clones of Write Room, I found TextRoom. Text Room is only full-screen text editor I found that allows rich text. It’s archaically simple and does everything I need without distracting me. (In theory, you can install this on a Mac, but I haven’t tried it and there aren’t Mac specific instructions.)

Scrivener Replacement

Zim + TextRoom = One Happy Writer Enjoy!

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