Not sure exactly what Mark A. meant by color confirmations, but I think he meant that actions which modify the color of a note can be used alongside other actions to confirm things are working as one expects - this in addition to using color for direct brainstorming, notifications, et al. In other words, we can experiment with Tinderbox, using simple actions, as well as use them for real stuff.
As for Scrivener, I love it. I use it regularly and especially like its easy integration of media/pictures (I'm looking at you, Eastgate
, how much longer do we have to wait?) and its ebook compilation features.
I could probably do 90% of what I do in Tinderbox with Scrivener. Since I am not an idolatrous fan-boy, I ponder occasionally, but deeply, whether I should switch over to Scrivener for my main work.
However, I would say that to take advantage of Scrivener's power requires a surprisingly steep learning curve, even though, or maybe because, its UI is extraordinarily rich. We who are so charmingly termed 'end-users' have been sold a bill-gates of goods by the industry. Even Apple's desktop metaphor, now incredibly long-in-the-tooth, remains crashingly far from easy. It was never intuitive. Steve Jobs saw this as early as the 1980s: hence, his own meandering journey towards the iPhone/Pad, the industry's second interesting, but still crappy UI.
Thus, with
both products, Scrivener as well as TbX, it makes sense to begin writing, keep writing, learn features as they are needed for writing and, then, finally, to write some more.
(Wasn't this true when pencils were introduced? Nothing beats using our tools to ... write.)
Personally, I keep returning to the rich, but relatively minimalistic design philosophy of Tinderbox as
less intrusive and, so, better-suited to support my (actual) writing.
Granted, TbX seems a heck of a lot of money wasted if we just use its end user features, but who says so? Those features include the most usable brainstorming tool anywhere (maps), an effective sequencing view (timelines) and the simplest 'smart' collection implementation I have ever found (aliases of notes forming collections, whether dragged by hand or collected by simple agents). I could go on.
Finally, and this pertains to the remaining 10% of the feature set, I concur with the discreet, yet oft-repeated, claim that TbX rewards our slowly-growing user expertise with unexpected insights into our ideas. I have not experienced this with any other software product over the past three decades.
How can I quantify the hours spent mastering TbX with the emergence and subsequent expression to others of my most original, personal discoveries? I believe these are termed ideas? I can't, because ideas worthy of their dictionary definition surprise us less often than we fancy. When they do, we find them - to ape a famous credit-card ad - priceless.
No doubt, TbX offers a rough feel, compared to products like Scrivener, even in the former's deep maturity after a decade of development. But this is, for good or ill, rather intentional or so I continue to imagine. Eastgate knows how to manufacture a slick interface as the latter are judged in the marketplace. Teen-age programming beginners know how. Instead, Eastgate steers by a design principle that matches their goal for us: don't foreclose unforeseeable, productive usage by premature product design decisions.
This isn't a zero-sum goal. TbX's interface and ease-of-use improves with every major release. The key phrase above is "foreclose ... by premature ...").
I believe, frankly, that it takes years, somewhere between two and, erm, ten (and counting) to master TbX. But I do not see this investment as stolen from my writing. Actually, I regret not spending more hours simply exploring TbX for fun, intuiting it would work wonders for my 'real work'. I think of Tbx more like playing the piano than not: practicing a Beethoven sonata is different than performing it for others, but not radically different.
In this sense, using TbX actions, once I became comfortable with its amply large end-user canvas, is like practicing musical scales or playing several difficult lines in a musical piece repeatedly until they are mastered. In one sense, those scales distracted me from performing the piece for others. Or did they not rather make that possible?
Do I want an instrument 'like' a piano but tricked up, if awesomely, with a gaggle of buttons, sliders and other (even useful) doodads to make a crazy-cool electronic keyboard (cf Scrivener)? Well, yes! I do! Oooh. Shiny cool! Gots to have me some!
Or do I want ... merely .... a piano?
Well, I want both the whizzy keyboard and my virtual Steinway. I use both. But I find something uniquely satisfying about my TbX-piano. It seems to intrude, rudely (!) into my music (writing) at times, but only because it seduces me into opening the case and fiddling with the strings. That's my bad, isn't it? Then, I discover the fiddling allowed me to produce tones (content) I could not have achieved with any other software tool.
Naturally, everyone's mileage will vary.
(Long-time TbX forum users may chuckle at this post. About once-a-year, I repeat nearly the same arguments, altered slightly by insights gained since the previous rave. Is that such a bad thing, or itself a reinforcement of this year's rave, at least? So, back in twelve months more or less, I'm guessing.)
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