One of the important features of WriteFlow is its ability to connect to servers to download bibliographical information. At the moment we are integrating the Yaz framework to be able to connect easily to a lot of different servers. Users of WriteFlow will be able to connect to any bibliographical server providing a supported gateway by just entering the corresponding login information.
Still, we have to overcome some problems because the information many of those servers deliver is not as clean and correct as we would like it to be, and furthermore the ways those servers provide fulltext pdfs are not always identical, which makes it hard to offer a smooth user experience.
But those of you who used WriteFlow already will know that it’s a rocky start, so no surprises here.
The second big topic we are working on are versions and chapters. Unfortunately, there are still some ways to cause major hiccups when you play around with the WriteFlow Element System. It proved to be much more difficult than we initially expected, because we have to deal with a lot of special cases and as nobody has every tried to do what we did with WriteFlow, we had (and still have) to reinvent a lot of very basic stuff.
What you see in the current version of WriteFlow is a compromise between functionality and usability which frankly does not make as totally happy (even apart from those annoying bugs). There are a lot of examples where we opted for a solution which was at first easier to implement to reduce complexity, but which in return raised complexity for our users.
So, that is what we are doing right now: We want to reduce complexity, go back to our initial goal of a rather simple word processor where all the magic only comes in when you want it.
This will take some time, but we would like to thank those of you who follow the development closely and especially those of you who decided to support us by already buying a license. We will continue to update WriteFlow regularly throughout the process because we really appreciate the feedback we get from you.
We just published the new update which brings great new functionality, i.e. fulltext search in PDFs and Webarchives.
We also continued our work on the chapters and headline system. It’s still not perfect and we have to deal with some more special cases and tricky bugs, but everything is moving in the right direction.
If you’ve just downloaded WriteFlow you can enjoy the new features immediately, but if you have already some PDFs and Webarchives in your old WriteFlow database, you’ll have to rebuild the search index to include those files in the WriteFlow Search.
Before you do so, we strongly advise you to zip the whole “WriteFlow”-folder, which you find inside your “documents”-folder. This is a precautionary measure, but it gives you the possibility to come back to the old state in case of anything goes wrong.
Just rightclick on the “WriteFlow”-folder in your “Documents”-folder and create a WriteFlow.zip archive.
So, to recreate the search index, just open the Preferences (you can use the Command Tool to do so), go to the “Advanced”-Panel and click on the “Recreate Search Index”-button. Depending on the size of your database and the speed of your Mac, this might take a minute or two.
Please let us know if you encounter any problems and include your e-mail in the Feedback Reports, we often want to recontact you to get some further information.
I hope you enjoy WriteFlow as much as we do!
Georg
We’ve just published a very important update which improves liability and usability a great deal. Our work is far from finished, but we are happy about this important step forward.
New database, do not interrupt migration during restart
[feature:] Inspector for opitonal dataview added
[feature:] "New element type" in Command Tool
[feature:] "New element type" in Inspector
[feature:] Sente-Endnote.xml Importer added
[bug:] Numerous chapter bugs fixed
[bug:] Numerous headline bugs fixed
[bug:] Headlines formatting bug fixed
[bug:] Command Tool text field debugged
[bug:] Multiselection of elements debugged
[bug:] Quickview and edit view debugged
[bug:] minor fixes all around
[bug:] URL import bug fixed
Some think that we published WriteFlow too soon because it is not yet as stable as it should be. Just to explain: We worked for two and a half years on this program before we went public and we just felt that it was time to receive more feedback.
WriteFlow is in many ways the attempt to push word processing beyond established paradigms, we needed feedback as soon as possible to know what is feasible and what isn’t.
We hope you appreciate following WriteFlow while it improves over time. Thank you!
We slowly add new features and work on fixing bugs. One thing I’d like to show to you is the possibility to work with quotes which you’ve already entered. Now you can just select them and use the “copy to” command to send them to the document and the chapter where you need them.
Furthermore, with a double click on a quote in list view you can open it in an extra window and change it easily.
We also included the possibility to see all the notes you added to a document at once. You can just switch from the footnotes-window to the notes-window with a single click.
If you feel that one issue is more pressing than another, please let us know!
Just because it came up recently: If you want to try out WriteFlow, please make sure to do so with the latest version, which is, by today, version 0.906 beta. Please use the “Check for Updates…” command in the menu. If you have questions or propositions, I strongly encourage you to use the new forum. I do answer a lot of questions individually right now (which I enjoy and you should not hesitate to ask anything), but it would be nice to have some of those exchanges publicly available.
To answer publicly a recurring question: If WriteFlow beta does not yet meet your needs we will hand out extensions of the trial period so you can give it another shot when you come back later. Just write an e-mail an tell us what keeps you from committing.
More than two years ago we decided to create a flexible and powerful software that would integrate all the steps necessary to write an academic text. We thought of four stages oft the process in which such a program would have to excel: collecting source material, organizing ideas, the actual writing, and publishing the result.
Our next big step will be to implement the possibility to reciprocally link all of the elements with each other, to make one huge associative web that pictures your own thoughts and ideas and helps you to follow the traces of your research through time. The animated film we published a few months ago might help you to understand what we are going for.
We are proud to say that after two years of work we have reached an important milestone. The first public beta version that we offer for a free 30-day-trial today is still a far cry from what we envision for the future, but it is a solid base to build on. Expect exciting new features shortly!
By the way, while WriteFlow is still beta, we would like to offer a 10 Euro discount on the normal sales price. Just enter this coupon code: 033903.