novelWriter VS CherryTree

Never buy the book, start writing the book, https://novelwriter.io/ ;)

novelwriter.io

https://novelwriter.io/ is free and open source (I haven't used it, only know about it).

novelWriter for books is like building a dungeon in D&D I might add. All it needs is a map editor ;)

Novelwriter almost hits the sweet spot, but misses some features and is written in python, which makes some features hard to implement due to the nature of the programming language.

Try this software. It may well help you to write better -> novelWriter.

Alternatively, if you want Scrivener-like and are happy with open source projects, novelWriter scratches some of the same itch and is (a) free and (b) available on Linux, Windows, and macOS: it has a similar project-oriented interface to Scrivener, can export projects in HTML, Open Document, Markdown, Plain Text, or PDF, supports tagging and metadata, and uses Markdown for authoring. It's much less hot on importing foreign files (it's really an authoring tool) but is implemented in Python, uses XML/Json for internal files/metadata/configuration, and in use feels like an early version of Scrivener 1.x (which is really what your students want, but Lit'n'Latte discontinued it about a decade ago and you can no longer buy it).

MSWord is surprising to hear. I would've thought some specific tools like Vellum. There are free and open source tools as well, like https://novelwriter.io/

I am started using CherryTree. (There is a screenshot here.)

I wonder if an extensible editor (example: Atom) could do both of those things with Markdown files. Assuming by styling you mean things like being able to highlight and custom-style some text, even in a typically text-only view of a markdown file. It wouldn't be a big surprise if that could be done...somehow. Collapsible points ought to be doable for sure.

Personally I use other methods for styling within markdown, for example emoji, tags, link formatting with brackets (for things that are not really links), etc.

I also take any list that's longer than 8-10 items and break it up by category or reorganize it so it's less visually overwhelming.

Otherwise you may find it helpful to look into more rich-editor-style notetaking solutions like cherrytree or Notecase Pro. The latter is proprietary but I used it for years and was very happy with it. Good luck in your search.

https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/

https://www.notecasepro.com/

I'm kinda surprised no one mentioned cherrytree yet.

cherrytree

I use FocusWriter. It's a lightweight, full-screen app that does more than enough for a manuscript. I used to use Google Docs with Wavemaker, which has a lot of extra functions like cards and timelines, etc. Docs slowed down a lot with a lot of open windows or really long docs, however. And with WFH the sync isn't that important to me anymore. For notes lately I've been using CheeryTree. All these are free.

CherryTree for a general note-taking database. As an Application Packager I can't remember PowerShell scripts I wrote two weeks ago, so saving my recipes in here is priceless.

How do you keep track of/document everything? I have been using Cherry Tree. It is a fancy open source note taking program that lets you keep notes in a tree like structure.