I'm plotting Hal Spacejock book 5 and working on yWriter 5 at the same time ... get fed up with one, switch to the other.
yWriter isn't anywhere near ready for public testing yet, since I'm still adding lots of missing features, but I'm very happy with what I have so far. I've spent enough time in VB2008 to really get to like it, barring a few issues which I've mostly been able to get around by tweaking the settings. (Ctrl+Shift F2 is still a mess, and don't talk to me about the search / search & replace system. Yuk.)
The more I see the more I like this new programming language, which is saying something because I've found every Microsoft version of Visual Basic completely unusable since the excellent VB6, released in 1998.
Back to yWriter 5: I've just added the code for drag/dropping chapters and scenes on the main screen, and it's working nicely. Last time around I tidied up the editor window, leaving only the essentials on the main page (text window, title, description, chapter/scene dropdowns & viewpoint char selector) and putting everything else on a couple of tabs (one for viewpoint character info and a drag/drop list of other characters in the scene, the other for the nitty-gritty details like notes, length of time for the scene, locations, items, etc)
It's a long, painstaking process converting a huge app like yWriter from one language to another, and one of the biggest problems is that I really can't do anything to yWriter 4 while yw5 is in progress. Otherwise I have to add every change to BOTH versions simultaneously, and of course the code is all different and changes are inevitably spread over a whole load of source files.
Part of me knows that I should be writing Hal Spacejock 5 instead of fiddling with the new version of yWriter, but procrastination is part of my character. Anyway, I want to write Hal 5 in yWriter 5, just like I've matched every Hal book to date with a new version of the software. It keeps things fresh & exciting!
4 comments:
Hi...
I'm not the most computer savvy person in the world so I'm hoping you can answer a question for me.
I'm interested in downloading and using your yWriter 5 program, but when I click on the download button I get a message that "this file may harm your computer". I'm using Google Chrome as my browser and Vista OS. What are the risks, if I may ask, in dl'ing it? I wouldn't be quite so hesitant, but several months ago I downloaded the Storybook software and it seems to have just disappeared, I have no idea what it may have done to my computer (if anything). I'm very, very cautious about downloading ANYTHING, almost to the point of paranoia, but I really do want to try out yWriter.
If you could respond in a comment I would be extremely grateful, or if you prefer to send an e-mail, I'm at jackory69@yahoo.com
Thank you.
If you're downloading via spacejock.com it'll be fine.
It's possible the warning is popping up for two reasons. One, because the file is an EXE (executable binary file), which means it can run on your computer. A data file (e.g. TXT) can only be viewed and can't harm your PC in any way.
The second reason is because I don't use a security certificate to confirm my site. E.g. if you visit ebay.com or paypal.com they're usually verified sites which show up in green or have some other notification to demonstrate they are legit. However, they're multi-million/billion dollar enterprises while I'm just one guy giving away free software, so I don't see why I should spend hundreds of dollars a year to prove I am who I say I am. If people don't trust me that's their right.
PS I'm not attacking you for being cautious. It's just that I'm giving stuff away, not selling it to earn a living, so if someone wants to be extra careful and not download my stuff, that's fine.
Not at all...it's not you, I'm paranoid about all free offers and I'm unfortunately a misanthropic sort of person. Thanks for your response...
jac
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