Re: Version Control for Writers
On 2013-07-31 at 17:31:51 -0400, Dylan Kinnett wrote: I joined this group because I'm interested in using version control software to help writers, editors, publishers, scholars and archivists. In [...] I would be grateful for any thoughts, comments, advice, etc. that any of you might be able to provide. Non directly to the point, but one thing that could help is also moving from office documents to a format that is more vcs-friendly; I have collected a couple of links to the point at http://www.trueelena.org/computers/articles/restructuredtext_for_fiction.html#further-readings and expecially http://tadhg.com/wp/2009/07/12/moving-from-word-processors-to-restructuredtext/ from a (tech-friendly, admittely) writer who did exactly that move. One thing that I suspect could help less tech-friendly writers is to have some integration for VCSes in a writer's editor or in some text editor without the complexity of a full IDE. Maybe reText would be a good candidate. http://sourceforge.net/p/retext/home/ReText/ -- Elena ``of Valhalla'' ___ vcs-home mailing list vcs-home@lists.madduck.net http://lists.madduck.net/listinfo/vcs-home
Re: Version Control for Writers
Dylan, I appreciate your starting this discussion. I'm the lone programmer among a family of writers and have had this issue at the back of my mind for some time, without much optimism. Specifically, to your point, Elena: On Thu, Aug 01, 2013 at 09:17:23AM +0200, Elena ``of Valhalla'' wrote: On 2013-07-31 at 17:31:51 -0400, Dylan Kinnett wrote: I joined this group because I'm interested in using version control software to help writers, editors, publishers, scholars and archivists. In [...] I would be grateful for any thoughts, comments, advice, etc. that any of you might be able to provide. Non directly to the point, but one thing that could help is also moving from office documents to a format that is more vcs-friendly; [...] As much as I prefer this route myself, I venture that not all writers have this choice to make. Journalism outfits and publishing houses alike have established workflows that depend on Microsoft Word, its impoverished track-changes feature, and so on. Plain-text diffs aren't realistic in these settings. It's the usual problem: the extensible, exportable, future-proof options involve adapting domain-specific tools like Git; the mass-marketable options are closed by implementation if not by design. At this point I'd rather see a general-purpose versioning filesystem than more format- specific tools. As nondestructive image-editors become more popular I suspect we'll see interest in this direction for a lot more than just text. --- cfm. ___ vcs-home mailing list vcs-home@lists.madduck.net http://lists.madduck.net/listinfo/vcs-home
Re: Version Control for Writers
On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Cory Francis Myers c...@panix.com wrote: As much as I prefer this route myself, I venture that not all writers have this choice to make. Journalism outfits and publishing houses alike have established workflows that depend on Microsoft Word, its impoverished track-changes feature, and so on. Plain-text diffs aren't realistic in these settings. Exporting to plain text and tracking that alongside the unmergeable binary format that is doc(x) could be an option for disaster recovery. Mechanisms to hide merge conflicts in binary formats (always rebase and thus chain into one long history while tagging with dates?) would need to be hacked into it all. At this point I'd rather see a general-purpose versioning filesystem than more format- specific tools. They can not merge binary data, either. Same problem. As nondestructive image-editors become more popular I suspect we'll see interest in this direction for a lot more than just text. Agreed. Richard ___ vcs-home mailing list vcs-home@lists.madduck.net http://lists.madduck.net/listinfo/vcs-home
Re: Version Control for Writers
btw -- another interesting idea which I now remembered but which wasn't yet mentioned I believe: collaborate on google docs but keep version control outside under git: https://github.com/satra/doc2hub Cheers, On Wed, 31 Jul 2013, Dylan Kinnett wrote: Hello group, I joined this group because I'm interested in using version control software to help writers, editors, publishers, scholars and archivists. In my efforts to figure this out, I've been introduced to Git, and to Flashbake, and to Git-Annex Assistant. These powerful tools are great! Because I'm a web developer in my day job, I'm sure I'll be able to learn them quickly enough and put them to work. The trouble is, most of the people I work on writing with are not so skilled with computers. Since most of this stuff is open source, I'm looking for ways to make these tools a little more user friendly, for the average writer, editor, etc. Here is a link to a blog post where I detailed some of my early thoughts on the subject: http://nocategories.net/ephemera/writing/version-control-for-writers/ I would be grateful for any thoughts, comments, advice, etc. that any of you might be able to provide. -- Yaroslav O. Halchenko, Ph.D. http://neuro.debian.net http://www.pymvpa.org http://www.fail2ban.org Senior Research Associate, Psychological and Brain Sciences Dept. Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755 Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834 Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419 WWW: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik ___ vcs-home mailing list vcs-home@lists.madduck.net http://lists.madduck.net/listinfo/vcs-home
Re: Version Control for Writers
On Thu, Aug 1, 2013 at 5:05 PM, Yaroslav Halchenko li...@onerussian.com wrote: btw -- another interesting idea which I now remembered but which wasn't yet mentioned I believe: collaborate on google docs but keep version control outside under git: https://github.com/satra/doc2hub If you _have_ to go that route, at least use Titanpad. Optionally self-host. While Google Docs should be save, we thought the same about Google Wave (also collaborative editing), Google Talk, Google Reader, Google Voice RIchard Cheers, On Wed, 31 Jul 2013, Dylan Kinnett wrote: Hello group, I joined this group because I'm interested in using version control software to help writers, editors, publishers, scholars and archivists. In my efforts to figure this out, I've been introduced to Git, and to Flashbake, and to Git-Annex Assistant. These powerful tools are great! Because I'm a web developer in my day job, I'm sure I'll be able to learn them quickly enough and put them to work. The trouble is, most of the people I work on writing with are not so skilled with computers. Since most of this stuff is open source, I'm looking for ways to make these tools a little more user friendly, for the average writer, editor, etc. Here is a link to a blog post where I detailed some of my early thoughts on the subject: http://nocategories.net/ephemera/writing/version-control-for-writers/ I would be grateful for any thoughts, comments, advice, etc. that any of you might be able to provide. -- Yaroslav O. Halchenko, Ph.D. http://neuro.debian.net http://www.pymvpa.org http://www.fail2ban.org Senior Research Associate, Psychological and Brain Sciences Dept. Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755 Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834 Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419 WWW: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik ___ vcs-home mailing list vcs-home@lists.madduck.net http://lists.madduck.net/listinfo/vcs-home -- Richard ___ vcs-home mailing list vcs-home@lists.madduck.net http://lists.madduck.net/listinfo/vcs-home
