Comments on: WEHT Sophocles?

By: Pat

Pat — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 14:55:37 +0000

I question the current validity of “ambiguous morality” under these circumstances. I am personally opposed to pirated software. While I do consider the price of some programs ridiculously out of reach, it doesn’t mitigate the software company’s right to ask such exorbitant licensing fees or my moral responsibility to pay it if I want that software. That’s what lead me to Sophocles in the first place. It was affordable. So, like many, I paid for a legal license to Sophocles in good faith and came to love the interface. It was so smooth and well thought out with clever extra features. I even contributed my 2 sense as part of the beta testing. So for Tim to walk away and leave us, who were honest up front and paid, completely without the ability to renew/restore the software on other machines, I find that morally reprehensible. I was able to download and install the free trial to Final Draft at the time and frankly, it didn’t hold a candle to Sophocles. Since learning of Sophocles’ demise, I’ve tried Celtx but it’s so clunky in comparison. Now my notebook HD is in its final days of existence and I’m freaking out trying to decide how to save my work. This is the price of honesty?

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:05:42 +0000

P.S. I must remember to proof before I send. Sorry for the typos–it should read:

Hello, I thought you might be interested in this article in January 21’s Chronicle of Higher Education, “Hello Worlds: Why humanities students should learn to program,” by MATTHEW KIRSCHENBAUM at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i20/20b01001.htm?utmsource=at&utmmedium=en. {I can’t help myself: as a librarian and a reader of your blog, I have to recommend writings that I think you’d find interesting. ;-)

By: Kathryn

Kathryn — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:47:19 +0000

Hello, I thought you might be interested in this article in Jnaury 21’s Chronicle of Higher Education, “Hello Worlds: Why humanities students should learn to program,” by MATTHEW KIRSCHENBAUM at http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i20/20b01001.htm?utmsource=at&utmmedium=en. {I can’t help myself, as a librarian and a reader of your blog, I have to recommend writings that I think you’d find interesting. ;-)

By: Kristan

Kristan — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:07:12 +0000

Thanks amelia and John!

By: Silvana Giacobini

Silvana Giacobini — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:40:40 +0000

OMG, John! When did you switch to Screenwriter?! Could you write about your experiences while switching? I could have sworn you said somewhere on this blog you tried it, but ultimately chose Draft! BTW, what kind of outlining software do you use?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 06:31:07 +0000

Sophocles was a pretty cool program — when I was of questionable morality, aka broke and unable to afford screenwriting software and too lazy to format a Word doc — I started using Sophocles, due to the fact it was fairly easy for a person that knew nothing about cracking software … to crack that software, so it’s fairly easy to get around the protection if you’re motivated for anyone that has been locked out — Eventually, I did pay for the software, which was a still a steal at the price, it was less than 100 bucks at the time… way cheaper than the Final Draft and the other one I can’t remember at the moment — Script-somethin…

I’m a Mac user, I’ve always been a Mac user — I used Sophocles with Virtual PC for years and came to do something I never thought I would do — love something soooo PC–

I stopped writing for a few years and kind of moved on from screenwriting software, but noticed a few weeks ago when I went looking again that Sophocles.net had disappeared — I figured that people of ‘questionable morality’ had finally driven the developer out of business, I felt bad for the two years I used it without paying my fair share.

Here’s to hoping the guy sold his software for a bundle and is has found a place under a little umbrella, on some lone beach.

By: OutOfContext

OutOfContext — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 02:26:37 +0000

@edraid–I am not morally ambiguous, well not much, but I much appreciated the link. Sophocles was my first screenwriting program-I bought it-and was forced to abandon it when a producer bought me Final Draft to use on a script he optioned. I’ve since switched computers and was frustrated when I tried to move it over and couldn’t get an activation key. Now I’ve got it and I remember why I liked it: Navigator on the side which actually takes you to the scene when you click on it and has space for synopsis and notes right in the panel. Built in Thesaurus. Quick pop up character report which includes all characters and number of scenes, lines and words they each have. Quick reports on character relations in chart and strength of relationship form–good for weak outliners like myself. Plus good import from htm formatted scripts. I exported the script I’m in the middle of on Final Draft as an htm and it imported flawlessly into Sophocles–importing anything into Final Draft usually ends in a big mess for me. Plus when you export as PDF, allows you to choose to add a sidebar outline. I believe I’m going to finish this one on Sophocles.

By: John

John — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 01:08:01 +0000

@Kristan: Yes, WEHT = What Ever Happened To

Such as, WEHT Loni Anderson?

I'm using Screenwriter, and still Final Draft for stuff that was already written in that.

By: amelia

amelia — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:31:03 +0000

@kristan. WEHT means “what ever happen to” i believe what happened was that he was using it and it was registered and fulling working. Then his computer crashed. When it was restored he was not able to use the full program.

By: Kristan

Kristan — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 18:14:51 +0000

Two questions… What is “WEHT”? And John, what program do you use to write your scripts then?

By: Edraid

Edraid — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 07:50:48 +0000

Along the lines of the ‘crack’

for those of ambiguous morality, you can get the entire program here.

http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4293989/Sophocles.2003.Scriptwriter.DateCode.2005.04.20-EMiNENCE