A few months, perhaps even a year-plus ago, there was a discussion about Scrivener. One or more folks were active beta-testers for a new lightweight version of Scrivener. I have no idea what the new product will be called … probably not Scrivener Lite!
At any rate, I’m wondering if anyone can provide updates on the development of this product. Is it still happening? A release probably in next 6 months?
This sounded like a great idea for a new product, even though I can’t remember all the details. And I know the Scrivener developer tends to work slowly/carefully.
Thanks for this link! I believe 1 or 2 folks in this community were in on the beta program … hopefully they can let us know something a bit more. I know I’m interested in the product, but just have no idea when it might release. The post @tomaly linked to did say the product should be ready by the end of 2024 … but I always take developer estimations of delivery with a big grain of salt.
Fair enough. With some searching on their forums (difficult because we don’t even know the name of the new product), Keith the developer wrote in early September 2024:
Unfortunately the release is likely to be early next year now. We’re not going to say or show anything more until it’s nearly ready for release, purely to avoid frustration for everybody.
So … perhaps sometime before June 2025. If anyone else is interested, I found Keith’s remark as part of this forum thread:
I think most users look at all the features they don’t use and consider themselves a candidate for a Scrivener Light. However everyone has a different set of features they use, and a Scrivener Light product is likely to satisfy few current users. Maybe it can be Scrivener with Training Wheels.
Frankly, I’d rather see him put some effort into making Compile straightforward and understandable. That seems to baffle everyone on their first project and doesn’t get that easier over time.
From the early discussion, I think it’s pitched to be a Ulysses competitor and definitely not “Scrivener Light” - i.e. it will use iCloud, be very similar on iPad and Mac and not have any of the compile stuff. It will be rtf-based and not markdown, but it will be interesting to see what the implications of that are (there was some mention of styled text).
I’m definitely a potential customer, but learnt a long time ago to completely ignore any timescale for anything from that developer.
“Scrivener Sibling” (or perhaps “Cousin”) was my impression from the initial description as well, and not Lite. I wasn’t in time for beta signup, unfortunately, so it’s all speculation until more news comes out.
Mentioned previously that my fingers are still crossed for this and/or Panda in 2025, although the latter developers are concentrating on bringing out a web version of Bear at the moment. Both sets of devs require a lot of patience.
