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ILYS goes pro.
Dec. 1st, 2014 12:55 pmSo, the "pro" version of the writing productivity applet ILYS has gone live at ilys.com, now that NaNo month is over. If you scroll down you can find the free beta version still up at classic.ilys.com. I'm test driving the upgrade right now and I have to say, I have mixed feelings about it.
The first new feature to jump out is the "ninja mode". Classic ILYS shows you the most recent character you typed. Ninja style ILYS doesn't show you anything happening in response to key strokes except when the word counter goes up. I suppose this might be disconcerting if you've never used it before, as there's a lack of feedback telling you that anything is happening. I wasn't sure how I would like it, but as a touch-typist, I don't rely on visual cues for writing anyway. I found I actually make fewer typos in ninja style than I do watching the letters appear on screen, possibly because I type best when I'm typing right out of my head, and following the letter on the screen is slightly distracting. I think I'll be sticking with ninja mode.
Another change I'm still mixed about is that they've disabled backspace. In classic ILYS, you could hit backspace to delete the most recent character you've typed, but only that character. While this seems at odds with the "no editing" approach of ILYS, the fact is that as a touch-typist I can usually feel when I make a mistake, and hitting backspace to correct it is pretty much muscle memory for me. I don't consider fixing typos like that to be editing and I've never thought of doing so as taking me out of the writer headspace. It's just part of typing. It's possible that I'll get used to not hitting backspace as I go and my writing productivity will increase as I no longer sweat it, but for now, the fact that I get an error buzzer every time I do is more distracting than fixing the typos would be.
The big change that I think is supposed to be the selling point is the ability to save multiple stories/sessions and come back to them later. Now, this is a great feature, but one that as it exists right now feels really incomplete to me in comparison to the "continue your last session" feature that Classic ILYS already offered. That's still there, but as in Classic, it only applies to your last active session. Once you officially save a session in the new ILYS, you can no longer open it up and continue it directly. You are still limited to one "live" session/project at a time, which is not at all what I was expecting.
If you want to "continue" a saved session, you have to start a new one and then save it *to* your previous session at the end. This appends your new work to the old. If you try to open a previous session, it just gives you a read-only output of the text as a whole. You can't open it up in the editor. You can't even paste it into ILYS input screen, which is something that classic let you do with text.
Now, I get that ILYS is for writing and not editing. I wouldn't be doing final polishing and editing in their minimal plain text editor anyway. That's not what it's meant for. But as someone who frequently writes stories in not-quite-sequential blocks of text, the inability to open up a project as a whole in write mode and copy and paste paragraphs within it is going to hamper how much use I get out of the "pro" version.
The only silver lining here is that the save story interface seems incomplete right now. I mean, there's no way I can see to rename or delete a saved session, either. I call this a silver lining because it means there's a chance the stuff I'm looking for will be added. Still, it seems like an odd choice to me to roll out the paid platform with key features. I guess it might come down to timing. They attracted a large userbase during NaNo, and now they're hoping to hook as many of those potential customers while everybody is still in write-write-write mode
The first new feature to jump out is the "ninja mode". Classic ILYS shows you the most recent character you typed. Ninja style ILYS doesn't show you anything happening in response to key strokes except when the word counter goes up. I suppose this might be disconcerting if you've never used it before, as there's a lack of feedback telling you that anything is happening. I wasn't sure how I would like it, but as a touch-typist, I don't rely on visual cues for writing anyway. I found I actually make fewer typos in ninja style than I do watching the letters appear on screen, possibly because I type best when I'm typing right out of my head, and following the letter on the screen is slightly distracting. I think I'll be sticking with ninja mode.
Another change I'm still mixed about is that they've disabled backspace. In classic ILYS, you could hit backspace to delete the most recent character you've typed, but only that character. While this seems at odds with the "no editing" approach of ILYS, the fact is that as a touch-typist I can usually feel when I make a mistake, and hitting backspace to correct it is pretty much muscle memory for me. I don't consider fixing typos like that to be editing and I've never thought of doing so as taking me out of the writer headspace. It's just part of typing. It's possible that I'll get used to not hitting backspace as I go and my writing productivity will increase as I no longer sweat it, but for now, the fact that I get an error buzzer every time I do is more distracting than fixing the typos would be.
The big change that I think is supposed to be the selling point is the ability to save multiple stories/sessions and come back to them later. Now, this is a great feature, but one that as it exists right now feels really incomplete to me in comparison to the "continue your last session" feature that Classic ILYS already offered. That's still there, but as in Classic, it only applies to your last active session. Once you officially save a session in the new ILYS, you can no longer open it up and continue it directly. You are still limited to one "live" session/project at a time, which is not at all what I was expecting.
If you want to "continue" a saved session, you have to start a new one and then save it *to* your previous session at the end. This appends your new work to the old. If you try to open a previous session, it just gives you a read-only output of the text as a whole. You can't open it up in the editor. You can't even paste it into ILYS input screen, which is something that classic let you do with text.
Now, I get that ILYS is for writing and not editing. I wouldn't be doing final polishing and editing in their minimal plain text editor anyway. That's not what it's meant for. But as someone who frequently writes stories in not-quite-sequential blocks of text, the inability to open up a project as a whole in write mode and copy and paste paragraphs within it is going to hamper how much use I get out of the "pro" version.
The only silver lining here is that the save story interface seems incomplete right now. I mean, there's no way I can see to rename or delete a saved session, either. I call this a silver lining because it means there's a chance the stuff I'm looking for will be added. Still, it seems like an odd choice to me to roll out the paid platform with key features. I guess it might come down to timing. They attracted a large userbase during NaNo, and now they're hoping to hook as many of those potential customers while everybody is still in write-write-write mode
