December 17, 2017

MultiMarkdown Composer Is My Markdown Based Text Editor

Composer Icon

Product: MultiMarkdown Composer v4
Price: Free, Standard Edition: $14.99, Pro Edition $29.99

In the crowded field of Markdown based text editors, MultiMarkdown Composer (Composer) is a differentiated beast. For one, it is based on MultiMarkdown or MMD. MMD is a superset of the Markdown syntax, originally created by John Gruber. It adds multiple syntax features (tables, footnotes, and citations, to name a few). In addition, it outputs to various formats including HTML, PDF (by way of LaTeX), OPML, or OpenDocument (specifically, Flat OpenDocument or ‘.fodt’, which can in turn be converted into RTF, Microsoft Word, or virtually any other word-processing format). The original Markdown only outputs to HTML.

iA Writer is another product which supports MMD, with a few tweaks.

Secondly, Composer is designed for more than the individual document creation that most of the minimalistic Markdown based writing applications specialize in. This is an application which lends itself to the production of long form documents with images, tables, footnotes and citations if you so wish. It includes math support, automatic cross-referencing, glossary entries(LaTeX), and document metadata when you need it.

Conceptually, Composer is a Markdown based text-editor for writers who want to go beyond the constraints of the Markdown designed by Gruber.

If you look at the market of text editors, the two main categories were:

1. Full featured text editors like BBEdit, Sublime Text 3, TextMate, and Atom. These products through extensions and plugins have the ability to handle every flavor of Markdown that you can throw at it. These are capable but complicated beasts.
2. Minimalistic Markdown based text editors like iA Writer and Byword. These products support a subset of the functions of a text editor. Geared for writing Markdown, they concentrate on providing an optimized environment for writing in Markdown syntax with keyboard commands and syntax support being the focus.

We have a new category populated by MultiMarkdown Composer. With keybindings, macros and completions, Composer is in the middle of the two categories. Not as feature rich as the archetypical text editor, but not as feature deficient as the minimalistic text editor. With a detailed system of preferences, support for MathJax and CriticMarkup, text completions, and keybindings, Composer is positioned between the two extremes. The only competitor who might challenge Composer is Typora when the later comes out of beta. However, the wait for that seems interminable.

Changes in the Workflow

Readers of the blog know that my workflow consisted of writing and editing in iA Writer and managing files in Sublime Text 3. There have been two changes to the workflow. I have given up on managing my text files through a text editor. Don't need that. The Finder does a good job of that. So, iA Writer became the mainstay of my writing. It is a great Markdown based text editor. But Composer is better at certain things and has now joined the workflow. I now write in Composer and the final edit is done in iA Writer.

Composer provides the following advantages over iA Writer:

1. Composer deals with multiple open files. Thanks to its support of the system tabs feature, I can have multiple documents open in tabs in a single window. Reduces clutter and makes it possible to have multiple documents easily accessible.
2. Composer is more extendible than iA Writer. In fact, iA Writer by design is not extendible at all.
3. Composer supports CriticMarkup.
4. Composer supports Table of Contents (TOC) in its sidebar. This makes navigation simpler for large documents. Makes it possible to change the order of sections in documents by dragging and dropping sections into the desired order.
5. Typewriter scrolling can be set for the spot you desire. iA Writer doesn't let you customize this.
6. Text expansions make it possible to write with less effort.
7. Composer keybindings let you make changes to existing keyboard commands and add your own keyboard commands.
8. Theme support makes available other options beyond dark and white.

What are the advantages of iA Writer over Composer?

1. One program. You can both write and edit here. Living in one program has certain advantages.
2. Narrower focus. Which means a shorter learning curve.
3. Editing component. Grammar check helps people like me write a tad better.
4. Less options necessarily means less tweaking.
5. Swiping to access the directory structure and preview is even easier than keyboard commands.

So, I switched the writing function to Composer. I have been writing in it for about a month now and I must say that I am falling in love with the application. It feels like an application designed by a writer of Markdown. And it is. Fletcher Penny the developer is also the man behind MultiMarkdown. He designed the markup language with inspiration from Gruber and he wrote the application MultiMarkdown Composer to write in it. There are little touches across the program which make it easy to write in Markdown and it is a pleasure to live in.

What Makes Composer Special?

What does MultiMarkdown Composer version 4 bring to the genre of Markdown based text editors that make it special?

Live Preview

You get to see the output of the file you are working on in real time. For those of you who are new to Markdown, this will show you exactly how your finished output will look. You can use custom CSS for the preview. Additionally you can turn off the MultiMarkdown Composer preview and use Marked 2 for previewing your document.

Themes

MultiMarkdown Composer supports themes and ships with a collection of themes. You can learn how to customize or create your own themes at MultiMarkdown Composer v4 Themes.

You can also go to my github repository of Composer themes, to download the initial work in progress on an iA Writer Dark and Light theme. I am going to post themes in this repository as I finish working on them. Keep a lookout for those.

Math and Other Esoteric Elements

Built-in linking to MathJax or syntax highlighting javascript libraries to improve the quality of your web preview.

Smart Pairs

When you type the first part of the syntax for Markdown, the application automatically completes the pair. You can also select text and type the first character of the Markdown syntax and the application surrounds the highlighted text with your Markdown code.

Elastic Tabstops

This is difficult to explain, so, I am going to quote from the MultiMarkdown Composer website:

"Years ago, Nick Gravgaard created a project that provided better tabstop support for certain editors, and that concept is supported in MultiMarkdown Composer. Rather than assigning a fixed number of spaces to a tab character, or a fixed width, tabs represent “columns” of text. Contiguous lines of text are examined to ensure that the columns are wide enough to contain the text in each line. This allows you to easily see your text the way it is meant to be seen, regardless of whether you use a monospace or proportional font."

You can learn more about Elastic Tabstops.

Easy Line Shifting

Menu commands with assigned keyboard commands lets you move highlighted lines of text up/down/left/right.

Easy Line Shifting

Conversion Between Markdown Block Types

I don't think any of the other Markdown editors do this.

Markdown Block Type Conversions

You can take any text and easily add or remove Markdown markup. You can convert any instance of Markdown formatted text to Blockquote, or a Ordered List or an Unordered List, and so on. A convenient and useful feature.

Clean Up Imported Text

Composer has a slew of commands you can use to clean up text, as well as commands to clean up the formatting of Markdown and MultiMarkdown structures. This is another feature which I haven't seen in any other Markdown editor.

Clean Up Imported Text

Automatic Formatting

Composer helps you write by providing some formatting help. If you are writing an ordered list, Composer takes care of the numbers. If it is an unordered list, the bullets are taken care of by Composer. Have a link on the clipboard? Highlight the word you want to attach to the link and press ⌘V. Turns into a formatted Markdown link.

TOC Sidebar

Composer generates a Table of Contents (TOC) sidebar from the headings in your document. Clicking on a heading takes you to that section in your document. You can search/filter based on content of the heading. Most importantly, you can drag and drop headings in the TOC sidebar to rearrange your document. Reminds me of Scrivener and its Binder.

Preferences Galore

Composer goes against the accepted ethos of minimalistic text editors in its handling of preferences. Most of the competition strive, sometimes going to extraordinary lengths, to keep its preferences to a minimum.

ByWord Preferences

The logic being that if you give writers things to tweak, they will tweak things and not write. Composer shows a lot more respect to writers and gives you a full set of preferences to tweak and set up your text editor the way you want. It is a window into two facets:

1. Composer supports MultiMarkdown and the MultiMarkdown specification is more comprehensive than Markdown.
2. Composer is designed for the "serious" writer. And various incantations of said "serious" writer. It supports MathJax, and syntax highlighting for code on the one hand and then also supports CriticMarkup, and Table of Contents (TOC) on the other. It is a full-featured writing environment and not just a sheet to write a blog post in. The technical writer can use it to write github readme files and the non-fiction science writer can use it to write journal articles. The blogger can write in it and the novelist can write in it. The target audience is broader for Composer than its immediate competition.

Use Your Own Theme, Font and Typewriter Scrolling Point

Theme, Font, Typewriter Scrolling Point

Composer supports themes and you have the ability to control fully the user experience of writing in it. Two things I would like to point out that I am fond of. Composer lets you use your own font. I appreciate that. I like writing in DuoSpace and having that accessible to me in my text editor makes me happy.

Composer gives you the ability to specify where exactly you want the typewriter scrolling to be situated on the page. Most applications stick it in the middle. Ulysses gives you a variable spot and Composer lets you choose the exact spot you are comfortable in. Makes it a pleasure to write in.

Typewriter Scrolling Point

Smart Pairs and Title Case Capitalization

The editing preference pane shows some nice features. Smart pairs lets you type the opening character of a pair and the application completes the pair. This is something I have in Sublime Text 3 but don't have in the minimalistic Markdown editors like iA Writer or Byword. Composer also lets me apply "Title Case" capitalization to headings automatically, giving me one less thing to worry about.

Smart Pairs and Title Case Capitalization

Adopt MultiMarkdown or Stick to Original Markdown

Composer lets you choose to stick to the Original Markdown specifications when you are writing or adopt the full suite of MultiMarkdown.

MultiMarkdown or Plain Old Markdown

Choose Your Syntax

You get to, in Composer, choose the nature of the syntax you want to use for bold, italic, list markers and specify the behavior of tabs. Lets you stick to the syntax you are used to and not dictate a syntax to you.

CriticMarkup Support

CriticMarkup was designed and developed by Gabe Weatherhead and Erik Hess with a lot of help.

CriticMarkup Support

CriticMarkup is a way for authors and editors to track changes to documents in plain text. As with Markdown, small groups of distinctive characters allow you to highlight insertions, deletions, substitutions and comments, all without the overhead of heavy, proprietary office suites.

Having it included in Composer makes it accessible and usable. It is a great system for tracking changes and incorporating editor comments.

Using Marked 2 and Synchronized Scrolling

Having the ability to use Marked 2 to preview the document is much appreciated. The built in preview is great but for those of us who use Marked 2, the integration with it is a favorite feature.

Marked and Synchronized Scrolling

Another feature which I am fond of is Synchronized Scrolling. Specially useful in long documents, it helps to be able to see the finished document exactly where I am editing.

Footers and Headers on Printout

You have the option of adding headers and footers when you are printing your document. Makes the final printout look professional and neat.

Footers and Headers

Auto Save and Versions Support

Composer auto-saves your documents. So, that is one less thing for you to be worried about.

Auto Save and Versions Support

Along with auto-save, Composer supports the built-in macOS feature of Versions. That gives you the ability to go back to any state of the document you prefer. This is a feature it shares with iA Writer.

Expansions

This is the kind of feature which shows the developers intention with the product. TextExpander is an application which lets you type in little snippets which get converted into stock text you have set up. It is a product which is probably the market leader in its space. It has the added advantage of being cross platform. Supported on both macOS and iOS it makes it possible for you to have the same expansions on all your devices. Composer introduces its own implementation of text expansion. It is not as full-featured as TextExpander but it lets you share expansions between devices (when MultiMarkdown Composer comes out with its iOS iteration). Another feature which is unique to Composer.

I use basic expansions from Alfred and detailed or form-filling expansions from Keyboard Maestro. I am looking forward to building my own expansions in Composer to increase my productivity when I am using it.

Text Expansions

KeyBindings

This is another feature which distinguishes Composer from the rest of the competition. Custom Key Bindings and Macros gives you the ability to string multiple actions together into one keyboard command. Through tweaking the .json files, this feature lets you change the default keyboard commands built into the application. It also lets you add your own commands which are not built into the application. To get a basic idea of what is possible in Composer, check out this github repository.

History Mode Undo

Composer goes beyond the system undo feature giving you something it calls History Mode Undo. History Mode Undo allows you to move backwards and forwards even if you typed something new in the meantime. In other words, it keeps all changes to the document until the document itself is closed. This is a great feature when you are editing your document.

History Mode Undo

Pricing

The pricing of Composer is explained here.

Basically, the free version is somewhat hobbled. The Standard version removes these constraints and the Pro version includes automatic text expansion, custom keyboard shortcuts and custom macros, the ability to share configuration files, History Mode Undo and the ability to limit depth in the TOC.

Areas of Improvement

Composer is a mature product which makes writing in MultiMarkdown a breeze. However, it still has some areas it can improve:

1. Give us a menu choice and a keyboard command for footnote. Even a completion macro will suffice. (Update: Fletcher Penny, the developer addressed this with Key Binding To Insert Footnote at End of Text. Thank you.)
2. The help files need to be updated. There are elements presented which are not there in the application any more. For instance, the Assistants Preferences.
3. Built in the grammar checking that iA Writer uses.
4. History Mode Undo needs to have an UI to be perfectly usable.

Recommendations

This is the best Markdown based text editor in the market. If you are looking for a full-featured tool to address your text editing needs and you live in Markdown, you need to consider this product.

If you are not particularly geeky and are happy to avoid excessive customization, the Standard edition should suffice. But if the idea of total customizability along with History Mode Undo strikes you as features which you want to explore the Pro edition is recommended.

The developer provided the author with a free Pro edition for efficient bug-hunting during the beta phase of this product.

Composer is recommended without reservations. It is the editor I live in.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

Writing Markdown

November 1, 2017

Be Kind. Stop with the Leather Sleeves.

Leather Sleeve for 12‑inch MacBook - Saddle Brown - Apple

Why?

Why do we need to skin animals to make sleeves for our gizmos?

You want to create a great impression? Try carrying your MacBook in a case/sleeve which is not a byproduct of the killing of another living being. Why is that difficult? Thousands of years of evolution and this is the best we can do?

The world’s best technology company and this barbaric behavior doesn’t offend them?

We need to do better.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

Rant Leather

October 30, 2017

Juicing Up the iMac With an SSD

Product Category: OWC SSD Upgrade Kits for 27-Inch iMac 2011
Product: OWC DIY Kit for 2011 iMac’s factory HDD: 1.0TB… at MacSales.com

I work on an old iMac (27 inch, mid 2011). Few years ago, I upgraded the memory to 16 gigs. It is a great machine and has been chugging along without any problems. I love the big screen. It is probably the best Mac I have used. I am aware of the age of the machine and have been a little anxious, expecting something to fail soon enough.

It did. DiskWarrior 5 started giving me a warning. The gist of the message was that the hard drive was running hot and I should be careful. I started looking for a replacement drive for the machine. Internal hard drives are cheap nowadays and I was starting the initial research when Chris, my co-host of the blog, entered the conversation with a terse, “Get an SSD.”

Chris is a mild, soft-spoken, gentle soul who manages to see both sides of every argument. Bugs me no end. This was a lot more emphatic than I have seen Chris in a while. I pointed out to him that the two options were not price competitive, I could get a lot more drive for a lot less money. He was oblivious to all arguments. “Get an SSD.” He proclaimed again. He is a new father. I reasoned that the child must be keeping him awake and sleep deprivation might be the underlying cause behind his taciturn response. I picked up the phone and called him. Before I could get too many words out, he growled, “Get an SSD. Goodbye.” He hung up.

Must be sleep deprivation on a massive scale, I thought. But I listened to him and started researching my options on an internal SSD. I don’t know much about the technology. But I had heard good things about Other World Computing. So, I looked at their offerings. I was surprised at the ease of navigating to what I was looking for. They had an offering specifically designed for my machine and they had videos to show me how to get the drive swap done. The reviews were good and I couldn’t find any user comments which were severely critical.

I got a 1TB SSD with their installation kit and it cost me about $400.

The package arrived and Chris showed up as requested. He is more efficient with hardware than I am. The package had a couple of suction cups, a couple of screwdrivers, and a bracket for the SSD. He took the front screen of the iMac out and then unscrewed a bunch of screws. The magnets in the iMac made this a delicate task, but everything went smoothly. Chris is a lot more patient than I am. He removed the actual display and then unhooked the hard drive and put in the new SSD and the additional bracket into the space that held the hard drive. He connected the thingies which needed to be connected and the job was done. My iMac looked the same, but it had a brand spanking new SSD as its main drive now.

I rebooted off an external system drive (Thank you, SuperDuper!), and proceeded to install High Sierra on the internal drive. I migrated stuff from the external drive and the whole process took about six hours. Most of the time was spent on the migration. I had about 500 gigs of stuff to move and the bootable external hard drive was on an USB 2 connection.

The Experience

On the iMac, restarting was a pain. I have a bunch of programs which launch automatically on restart and the process used to take a long time. Nearly ten minutes. That meant any required restart usually was accompanied by a trip to the coffee machine for a refill. Frankly, I hated restarting. When application installs made me go through a restart, I was always quite unhappy at the intrusion.

It restarts now in about 30 seconds. The first time I was aware of it, I was looking at the screen waiting for it to finish, before I realized that it was ready to go. The indicator is always Alfred. I have a ton of snippets which are in Alfred and it takes the longest to launch. I knew I was ready when the butler icon of Alfred showed up in the menu-bar. It is now practically instantaneous. You have no idea how much pleasure that gives me.

List of things that launch automatically on restart:

1. 1Password.
2. Cardhop.
3. Box.
4. Dropbox.
5. Little Snitch 4.
6. Short Menu.
7. f.lux.
8. VPN Unlimited.
9. Tomates Time Management.
10. Noizio.
11. Keyboard Maestro.
12. Hazel.
13. Alfred.
14. DEVONthink Sorter.

Launching apps is instant. I issue a keyboard command, through Alfred, and the app is ready to go. Some apps required more time before and those are the ones which are the most improved. Sublime Text was always quick, but BBEdit 12 was not. It is now. Ulysses? Instant. OmniOutliner? Instant. Curio? Instant. You get the idea.

Most of the new machines from Apple come with SSDs or Fusion Drives. They are fast. Older iMacs have regular hard drives. If your machine is something you want to keep and are willing to spend some money to upgrade the machine, the SSD is a great upgrade. It will feel like a new machine.

I don’t do things which are processor intensive. I write. I read. I browse the web. I watch the occasional YouTube video. I write a lot. These are not processor intensive tasks. I don’t need a new machine. In fact, I would be happy to get three more years of use out of this one. I am hoping that the SSD is going to make that possible.

If you are looking for an SSD upgrade check out the MacSales folks. I am happy with the kit they sold me. The videos made the scary task of opening up the iMac seem easy and it lived up to the demo. This was a great upgrade experience.

Recommended heartily.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

Hardware iMac SSD

October 18, 2017

Anand Sanwal Shares Some Insights

Anand Sanwal

Video: Anand Sanwal, CB Insights: Don’t Do These 68 Things in Your SaaS Company - YouTube

I came across an interesting talk given by Anand Sanwal of CB Insights. I wanted to add my comments to the content of the talk. Give it a listen, you are going to get something out of it.

Don’t take advice from non-customers

I am noticing this in the case of Bear - Notes for iPhone, iPad and Mac. Bear is a note-taking application which has a subscription model. If you pay $14.99/year you get syncing, themes and exporting options. The non-subscription version is perfectly usable if you don’t care for the added benefits from subscription. It is a well-designed application which can fulfill the note-taking needs of most users.

I am following the Twitter hashtag #Bearnotesapp. There is a continuous stream of people asking for features from Bear as a condition for subscribing. It takes the form of “I would subscribe if you added the feature…” The developers of Bear should ignore these folks. They have developed a basic application with a well defined niche. Note-taking. Bear is well thought out and well designed for the category Bear is playing in.

Unfortunately for Bear, Casey Newton wrote an article in The Verge, Why I finally replaced Evernote with Bear - The Verge. The exposure was welcome but the direction was not. Evernote is a different beast than Bear. If someone wants to replace Evernote with Bear, have at it, but Bear should resist the temptation to try to become Evernote. That is not the core competency of Bear. Specifically, Bear does not have to edit images, does not have to display PDF files, does not have to support Excel pivot tables, does not have to be collaboration friendly. And please, Bear does not need to have an Android version.

Bear is primarily a markup based note-taking app. Evernote is at its base an information dump. Those are not the same thing.

My advice to Bear: Talk to existing customers. In the current dynamics of the App Store, isolating the paying user from the non-paying one is a difficult task. But that is the audience which needs to be listened to. They are the people who bought into your initial offering. They are sold. Keep them happy. Churn for them. Ignore the people who are holding back their money to see how far they can make you jump. They are going to lead you astray.

Learn from HappenApps. Quiver, initially designed as a programmer’s notebook was talked up as another Evernote replacement. It is for all intents and purposes, dead. Having lost its way along with a few other problems, Quiver is sadly on maintenance mode at this point.

Don’t fall in love with pedigree

Work with people who are hungry. They work harder.

Ignore their background. Focus on their skills.

Don’t think you know your end market from day one

Sometimes the market is so new that it is not possible to know exactly where it is going. iA Writer is a good example of this. Started out as a single window application where the focus was on minimalism. Single window. No settings. Follow the blue cursor. Very soon, it became clear that the writers were looking for more than that. They loved the minimalism but also needed to manage their files, they needed to access folders, they needed to be able to produce content for different blogging systems. The product grew. It evolved into a fight between complexity and simplicity and iA Writer has done a great job of straddling that fine line. They have managed to enhance their product while still maintaining the focus on providing a minimalist environment for the writer to do what she was most interested in doing, writing.

Don’t price based on competition

If your product is unique, the pricing should also be unique. If your product is not unique and it is a “me-too” product, don’t waste my time. Go back to the drawing board and come back with an unique product.

Your price should be based on the unique set of attributes that you bring to the table. It has nothing to do with the competition.

Don’t dominate conversations with customers

Listen.

Don’t forget to ask for the sale

In my previous work as a political consultant, I always had to remind candidates to explicitly ask for votes. “Please vote for me.” Similarly in a conversation about your product, when you are looking for a sale, be explicit. Ask for the sale.

Don’t worry about competition

Worry about your product. Worry about your customers. Worry about your revenue stream. Worry about your positioning strategy. Worry about your growth. Worry about things you can control. Your competition? Don’t worry about them. Be aware of them. Monitor them. But don’t worry about them.

Don’t try to please everyone

Please the people who pay the bills and are easy to maintain as customers. If you have high-maintenance customers who cost more money to service than they generate, send them to the competition.

I liked the talk. There are several gems you can learn from. These are the ones which stood out for me.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

Business Marketing Pricing

September 10, 2017

Keyboard Maestro Tames Text Editors

Keyboard Maestro Icon

Product: Keyboard Maestro 7.3.1: Work Faster with Macros for Mac OS X
Price: $36

Too Many Keyboard Commands to Learn

In my off time, I play with text editors. Yeah, my life is interesting. Don't judge.

Caret, has the following choices:

Caret

Dark Mode has a keyboard command of ⌘;.
Focus and Typewriter modes have no keyboard commands.
The File pane has a toggle of **⌘**.

iA Writer gives you the following commands:

iA Writer

Focus Mode has a keyboard command of ⌘D.
Typewriter Mode is ⌘T.
Night Mode is ⌃⌘N.
Show Library which is the File Pane has a toggle of ⌘E.

Bear gives you the following commands:

Bear

Bear doesn't have a Focus Mode or Typewriter Mode. It's Night Mode is a function of the theme you are using. It however has a Library, and the keyboard command to show everything is ⌃⌥1, and it is not a toggle. The command to show only the Editor is ⌃⌥3.

Byword has a completely different set of keyboard commands:

Byword

Its Full Screen mode is a non-standard ⌘↵. Different from the standardized ⌃⌘F.
Paragraph Focus is ⌥⌘↵.
Line Focus is ⌃⌘↵.
Typewriter Mode is a toggle tied to ⌃⌘T.

So the four text editors each have different keyboard commands for the same function. Drives me nuts. I have a solution.

Keyboard Maestro makes it possible for me to work in each editor without any friction.

Markdown and Keyboard Maestro

I use Zettt's Markdown library for Keyboard Maestro to write Markdown. I don't worry about how keyboard commands are implemented for Markdown in each of the text editors I am working in. I use the Keyboard Maestro macros. They work the same in each of the editors and I don't have to learn anything new. Less friction for me.

Keyboard Maestro and Bear

Take Bear. The commands I am interested in here are Show Tags, Notes and Editors and Show Editor Only. Bear doesn't have a typewriter mode or focus mode or night mode and so those are not relevant. The full screen mode is also the standard ⌃⌘F. So, I don't have to worry about that either.

The Library Macro:

Bear: The Library Macro

I like typed strings better than keyboard commands in Keyboard Maestro. Less stuff for me to remember. I type the string ,libr and all three columns show up.

The Editor Only Macro:

Bear: The Editor Only Macro

This one is to get rid of all distractions in Bear and concentrate on the Editing window. I type the string ,edit and the only thing left is the editor window. The sidebars disappear leaving me to concentrate on my words.

The Preview in Marked Macro:

Bear does not have a built in preview function. It farms out the preview to Marked 2. The command does not have a keyboard command attached. I made a typed string macro (,prma) to preview the document I am working on in Marked 2.

Bear: Preview in Marked

Makes the process simple and it is easy to remember.

Keyboard Maestro and iA Writer

I am fond of iA Writer and spend a lot of time writing and editing in it.

The Focus Mode Macro

I am interested in Focus Mode in iA Writer. It has the keyboard command ⌘D. There is no way I am going to remember that.

iA Writer: Focus Mode

But I can remember ,fomo, for focus mode.

The Typewriter Mode Macro:

The next command I need is of course, Typewriter Mode. It is assigned to ⌘T, that is the system command for Open a New Tab. There is no way I am going to remember that either. We need a Keyboard Maestro macro:

iA Writer: Typewriter Mode

The string to type is ,tymo, for typewriter mode.

The Night Mode Macro:

iA Writer has a Night Mode. The Keyboard Maestro macro for that is:

iA Writer: Night Mode

,nimo toggles Night Mode on/off in iA Writer.

The Library View Macro:

The last one is the Library view in iA Writer. Assigned to ⌘E. I don't find that intuitive. So another Keyboard Maestro macro to the rescue.

iA Writer: Library View

Tied to ,libr, this toggles the Library on/off.

Keyboard Maestro Tames the Text Editors

Whenever I get a new text editor to try out, I look at the keyboard commands and then make the corresponding macros. There are a few standard commands I am interested in:

1. Typewriter Mode ,tymo
2. Focus Mode ,fomo
3. Library View ,libr
4. Editor View ,edit
5. Night Mode ,nimo
6. Full Screen Mode ,fsmo

The Markdown portion of the keyboard commands in each of these editors are not relevant to me. Zetts' macros take care of those. These are the ones which are specific to the text editor and I use the same typed string triggers in each of them. Standardizing on the typed strings makes it possible for me to reduce the friction of using a new text editor. It is one less thing for me to learn and it makes the process of writing easier.

These are basic macros and they are easy to create. Keyboard Maestro is a productive addition to any workflow. You can find many ways to make your life easier through this amazing application.

Keyboard Maestro is heartily recommended.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

Keyboard Maestro Bear iA Writer Writing