Do you work with Twine online or via the program, and why?

Hi, everyone -

I’m just starting out with Twine, and I’m curious, for those who are more experienced (basically everyone), do you prefer working with Twine online in your browser or through the downloaded program? Or both, depending on the situation? What are the pros and cons?

Thanks!
~Doug

Hi Doug,

I don’t see any advantage to working with Twine online. All of your files are stored in you browser data whether you are online or local. Both versions work the same.

You can view this article in Twine’s documentation here: twinery.org/wiki/twine2:where_yo … _are_saved

v/r
fos1

That’s not correct. The downloadable Twine app stores your files in ~/Documents/Twine (for MacOS, somewhere similar on Windows).

Which is why I use the downloadable one. I can rsync the Twine stories I’m working on between several machines and have easy backups.

I also use the offline version so that files are stored locally and outside the browser data store. That way I can back them up and, in my case, keep the stories under version control.

(Early versions of Twine 2 did save data to the browser when using the offline version.)

Twine is in active development. The above link is to the current documentation on the Twine website. I was pointing out one of the reasons that I prefer the local version and I see no advantage with the online version. The documentation does specify that you should archive your story source, always a good practice.

fos1

Hmm… the link fos1 shared got me nervous, so I checked. I’m working with Twine program version 2.2.1, and I found my story files (on a Mac) in the exact location that zarf noted. So it sounds like the documentation needs to be updated.

Archiving does seem like a good habit to get into regardless. I’m also thinking of using “Publish to File” at the end of each writing session to drop the current version into Dropbox, so I can work on it from whatever computer I’m on.

Thanks, all!

There are three different releases of Twine 2:

  1. An NW.js-based release—the executable one—which stores your files within your local filesystem.
  2. The online browser-based release, which stores your files within your browser’s Web Storage cache.
  3. An offline/local browser-based release, which stores your files within your browser’s Web Storage cache.

The latter release type is not linked to at the main Twinery.org page, but can be found at its repo.

Neither, I work in plain text and use Twee2 to produce output. Tweego would also work. I find a regular text editor more convenient to write in than the Twine UI, plus I get automatic backups.

Same here. Since my screen reader and Twine don’t get along well, I use Tweego exclusively. (I also have Twee 2 installed, but I prefer TweeGo.)

Offline, formerly always in Twine 1 but now sometimes in a text editor and compiling in TweeGo.

As far as I can tell, the only reason to use Twine online is if you’re just trying it out and want to do so without downloading anything. I’d never want to use the online version for a serious project.

In principle, at least, the web version would let you do development on a mobile device (e.g. iPad) if the browser lets you save to the file system, which some do.

I’ve used the online Twine editor to plan out stuff that’s accessible on any computer.