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Q&A Is there a need for better software for writers?

IDE-like tools exist for writers. Scrivener is a powerful general-purpose tool (also with questions here). Madcap Flare, aimed at technical writers, has good support for updating links, defining "s...

posted 5y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  edited 3y ago by Monica Cellio‭

Answer
#4: Post edited by user avatar Monica Cellio‭ · 2021-03-29T03:08:51Z (over 3 years ago)
updated link
  • IDE-like tools exist for writers. Scrivener is a powerful general-purpose tool (also with [questions here](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/scrivener)). Madcap Flare, aimed at technical writers, has good support for updating links, defining "snippets" (xinclude blocks, essentially), variables, conditionalization, advanced build options, and more. Arbortext Epic is another tool in that vein. There are XML editors like Oxygen and Notepad++ that you are probably already familiar with as a programmer. That's just a sampling.
  • Many writers prefer to just _write_ and find that too much tooling gets in the way. Some of them use tools for _planning_ separate from _writing_. Maybe fiction doesn't need to be refactored as often as code (though it does need to be refactored sometimes, and doing that in an editor using search is a pain). There are a lot of different kinds of writing and writers, and generalizations like "writers don't (or do) X" don't always stand up to scrutiny. Some do, some don't, some would if they didn't cost so much, and some do _sometimes_, depending on the task at hand.
  • (Psst. Some software developers still use emacs or vim...)
  • IDE-like tools exist for writers. Scrivener is a powerful general-purpose tool (also with [questions here](https://writing.codidact.com/categories/1/tags/228)). Madcap Flare, aimed at technical writers, has good support for updating links, defining "snippets" (xinclude blocks, essentially), variables, conditionalization, advanced build options, and more. Arbortext Epic is another tool in that vein. There are XML editors like Oxygen and Notepad++ that you are probably already familiar with as a programmer. That's just a sampling.
  • Many writers prefer to just _write_ and find that too much tooling gets in the way. Some of them use tools for _planning_ separate from _writing_. Maybe fiction doesn't need to be refactored as often as code (though it does need to be refactored sometimes, and doing that in an editor using search is a pain). There are a lot of different kinds of writing and writers, and generalizations like "writers don't (or do) X" don't always stand up to scrutiny. Some do, some don't, some would if they didn't cost so much, and some do _sometimes_, depending on the task at hand.
  • (Psst. Some software developers still use emacs or vim...)
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T11:51:10Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45037
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T11:51:10Z (about 5 years ago)
IDE-like tools exist for writers. Scrivener is a powerful general-purpose tool (also with [questions here](https://writing.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/scrivener)). Madcap Flare, aimed at technical writers, has good support for updating links, defining "snippets" (xinclude blocks, essentially), variables, conditionalization, advanced build options, and more. Arbortext Epic is another tool in that vein. There are XML editors like Oxygen and Notepad++ that you are probably already familiar with as a programmer. That's just a sampling.

Many writers prefer to just _write_ and find that too much tooling gets in the way. Some of them use tools for _planning_ separate from _writing_. Maybe fiction doesn't need to be refactored as often as code (though it does need to be refactored sometimes, and doing that in an editor using search is a pain). There are a lot of different kinds of writing and writers, and generalizations like "writers don't (or do) X" don't always stand up to scrutiny. Some do, some don't, some would if they didn't cost so much, and some do _sometimes_, depending on the task at hand.

(Psst. Some software developers still use emacs or vim...)

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-05-08T01:46:54Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 49