May 24, 2016
How Well Is the Mac App Store Curating?
Apps for Writers
The Mac App Store has a ton of applications. Unless you know about an application, it is very difficult to wade through all of the choices and make an informed, intelligent choice. This process is helped by the special sections Apple curates to help the customer along the process of decision making. This is a responsibility Apple should take seriously, they are the authority providing the direction. Their credibility and trust are on the line. I wanted to see how well Apple is doing.
I decided to look at the special section called Apps for Writers. Primarily because this is the category I know best in the store. The section is broken up into four categories:
- Manuscript Makers
- Distraction-Free Writing
- Journaling & Blogging
- Notes & Clippings
I would have liked another section. Aid to Writers. This would include tools which make the process of writing easier and better. This would include Pomodoro timers, grammar checkers, Markdown previewers and the like.
Manuscript Makers
| Pages |
May 10, 2016 |
Great |
| iBooks Author |
Mar 29, 2016 |
Great |
| Ulysses |
Apr 20, 2016 |
Great |
| Scrivener |
Sept 30, 2015 |
Great |
| iA Writer |
Apr 22, 2016 |
Fits better in Distraction-Free Writing, Great |
| Final Draft 9 |
Sept 18, 2015 |
Industry Standard |
| Storyist |
Dec 10, 2015 |
Meh |
| Mellel |
Apr 13, 2016 |
Great |
| MovieDraft |
Feb 07, 2012 |
Old |
| Slugline |
Feb 17, 2016 |
Great |
I am not certain iA Writer fits in this category. Distraction-Free Writing is the better category for it. iA Writer has broadened its scope through support of file directories but it is still a single document centric application. You can read a review here.
MovieDraft hasn't had an update for more than four years now. Is this still a viable product?
This list doesn't seem to be an attempt to pick the best of breed. Ulysses, Scrivener and Storyist, are all playing in the same space. Final Draft 9 and Slugline though fundamentally different products are catering to the same audience, the screenwriter. So, it is not a best of breed exercise. It is a list of the notables. In that case, it makes sense to visit the word-processor category.
Besides Pages, Mellel is the only word-processor in the list. Wouldn't it make sense to include Nisus Writer Pro also in this list? It is being continuously developed, has an absolutely fanatic bunch of users, and is very competent at what it does, process words.
Distraction-Free Writing
iA Writer should be in this section.
I think Rough Draft, Flowstate, and Ommwriter Dana II are just too gimmicky. I would never use them. But I understand that gimmicks sell. So, I am not going to bitch too much about the choice of these products.
Write is classified as abandonware by the developer. Why is it on this list? WriteRoom? Almost four years without an update? The last update was to make it compatible with Lion! Macchiato? That is a product which last got updated five years ago? Really? That is the best available in the App Store?
What about Focused? What about Writed Pro. There are alternatives which are more current than the ones listed. You cannot tell me that there is no better product in the App Store than the one last updated in 2011.
Journaling & Blogging
This is a shorter category. I don't have any gripe about the choices, except for Memoires which is 5 years old. I also don't know anything about two of the choices.
Notes & Clippings
| Evernote |
Apr 22, 2016 |
Good |
| Notability |
Mar 17, 2016 |
Meh |
| Notefile |
Sep 01, 2015 |
Meh |
| Ember |
Oct 23, 2015 |
Aid |
| Simplenote |
Jan 26, 2016 |
Great |
| 1Checker |
Apr 28, 2015 |
Aid |
| MindNode |
May 17, 2016 |
Great |
| OmniOutliner Pro |
May 17, 2016 |
Great |
| Together 3 |
May 19, 2016 |
Good |
| Scapple |
Oct 21, 2014 |
Good |
| Scribe - Intuitive Outliner |
Dec 02, 2014 |
Meh |
Ember and 1Checker shouldn't be in this section. They are aids to writing/thinking. They are not involved in notes or clippings. They belong to the Writing Aids section Apple should add to this list. There are however, some glaring omisions in this list. I think Quiver should be in this list, so should TextNut. I think OmniOutliner Pro is a great choice, but Scribe has a lot more competitors in its price range, and OutlineEdit, Tree 2 and Outlinely all deserve consideration. Likewise Together 3 is a great product but Growly Notes deserves some attention too. Notability and Notefile have iOS counterparts, and if that is a consideration Notebooks should be on this list.
Aids to Writing
This is the section that is not present.
This can include the following products:
Conclusion
So how did Apple do?
A mixed bag really. Some sensible suggestions, but some howlers too. There should be a cut-off date for old products. For instance, if a product has not been updated for the last two OS revisions, it doesn't deserve inclusion in any curated list. I think the Aids to Writing would improve this list.
I am going to keep a lookout on updates to this and other curated lists for future coverage.
macosxguru at the gmail thingie
Curating
Mac App Store
Writing
May 21, 2016
Links of Note 2016-05-21
This is beautiful.
A Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) City Guide - Life & Thyme
A write-up on the advantages of Markdown.
You Should Probably Blog in Markdown - Media Temple Blog
We are getting to the point where we need tools to protect the Mac OS from evil. This is a good start.
KnockKnock
RansomWhere?
I bow to you Mr. Stephen Radford.
Restoring an Apple Extended Keyboard II
A lovely free monospace font for coding and writing.
mononoki
macosxguru at the gmail thingie.
Photography
Markdown
Malware
Keyboards
Font
May 12, 2016
Tip - Three Fingers to Drag Items on the Mac
I don't know why Apple hides this feature.
Go to the Accessibility preference pane and choose Mouse & Trackpad from the left pane. Click on Trackpad Options
Trackpad Options
From the drop-down menu select Enable dragging and choose three finger drag from the drop-down selector next to it.
Three finger dragging
Now in the Finder, you can select a file and use three fingers on the keyboard to drag it to a new location. In your text editor, you can select a section with three fingers and drag it to another location in your file. The three finger drag will work in moving objects around in a whole slew of applications.
I still don't know why Apple hides this feature. Shouldn't it be in the Trackpad preference pane?
macosxguru at the gmail thingie
Tip
MacOS
Trackpad
May 8, 2016
Outlinely 2.0 Grows a Library and an Younger Sibling
Outlinely
Product: Outlinely
Price: $14.99
Product: Outlinely Express
Price: Free
Outlinely is a text editor with the heart of an outline. Or, if you prefer, it is an outliner with the heart of a text editor. It lets you write content in markdown, while using the metaphor of an outliner as its organizing engine. The seamless merger of a text editor and an outliner is the goal of this program.
I wrote about Outlinely previously here.
Outlinely has been updated to version 2.0 and it has grown a younger sibling, Outlinely Express. I am going to cover the new features of Outlinely and then touch on Outlinely Express later in the piece.
New Features
Library: Outlinely now gives you the ability to organize your outlines in folders and to achieve this it introduces the concept of a Library. It is the usual three pane Library UI.
Outlinely Library
The left pane contains the folders, the one to its right contains the files in each folder, and to its right is the editor window. These keyboard commands are useful:
- ⌘+1: gives you the Editor window alone
- ⌘+2: gives you the Editor window and the Files sidebar
- ⌘+3: gives you all three windows: Folder sidebar, Files sidebar and the Editor window
Outlinely has iCloud support. The developer hasn't announced anything, but this leads me to speculate that their might be an iOS version in the future. That would make this product perfect.
At this point, you can have your files stored in iCloud or on your Mac. The Library has sections for both.
Right-Clicking on a folder in the Folder sidebar gives you the following drop-down menu.
Right Click on Folder
Useful commands. The Show in Finder command opens up a finder window with the contents of the folder. This is useful if you are even vaguely interested in knowing where your files are in this new Library.
Right clicking on a File gives you a similar drop-down menu.
Right Click on File
Usual commands, but the one which is interesting is the Add to Favorites option. You can add a file to the Favorites and it shows up in the Favorites group in the Folder sidebar. Makes it easier to access the outline you are working on currently.
The Library is enhanced with an Open Quickly (⇧+⌘+O) command. It searches through your library across folders for files. It comes up with matches both for the title and the contents of the files.
Open Quickly
This is an useful addition to the program specially if you have a ton of outlines.
Preferences: Outlinely in its newest version has grown a preferences panel with some nice additions.
Outlinely Preferences
It gives you the option of specifying line height and paragraph spacing. You can condense or expand the way text is rendered on the editor window. That gives you the ability to fit more content into a view or choose to display your content in a manner you are comfortable with. Useful if you are writing a long outline, and there is a lot of material on the editor trying to attract your attention. Which brings me to the next feature.
Focus Mode: When you are writing and the outline is rather long, you will find that it helps to be in Focus Mode. Focus Mode dims out all the content except the current section of text you are working on. This is similar to the Focus Mode shared by programs like iA Writer and Byword. I have wanted this in an outliner and am happy to see its appearance in Outlinely.
Full Screen Mode: Outlinely is beautiful in full-screen mode.
Features Which Are Old, but Worth Noting
Keyboard commands: Outlinely has always supported a selection of useful keyboard commands.
Outlinely Keyboard Commands
The extensive support for keyboard commands makes the process of using this program pleasurable. I like the focus on keyboard commands and on the program giving you easy access to the main ones in its help menu.
Themes and Font Choice: When you click on the icon depicted by an A on the top-right of the editor window you get a drop down menu.
Outlinely Themes and Fonts
You get a choice of themes and you get to assign a font to work in.
Complete manual: The developer provides a complete manual on the program online. It is easy to follow, and a significant help to the use of the program. I wish more developers did this.
Improvements
I love the program. I think it could be improved by the following additions:
- Typewriter Mode. I like focus mode but the product would be improved with support for a typewriter mode. If you expect me to write on a screen, you have to give me the ability to stare at the middle of the screen and not at the bottom of the screen. It is a pain to be always looking at the bottom of the screen. Please include a typewriter mode. That would enhance focus mode.
- Font Face Support: I want to be able to choose a particular font face and not a font. Operator Mono for instance has a light version I am particularly fond of. I can't pick that. It has an italic and bold version. The rendering should be fine, but the program defaults to the Regular. I wish I had more control over this.
- iOS Version: From your support of iCloud, I am getting the feeling that you are moving towards an iOS version. Please let me be right. An iOS version will make this product versatile.
Outlinely Express
This is Outlinely 2.0 without the Library. It is free. It is a great way to test out the product and decide whether you want to upgrade to the whole version. I think you are going to love it.
Outlinely and Outlinely Express are recommended heartily.
This is another review of the program:
Outlinely 2.0 – a quick review | Welcome to Sherwood
macosxguru at the gmail thingie
Outlinely
outlines
markdown
text editor
May 3, 2016
iA Writer Grows Up in Meaningful Ways
iA Writer
iA Writer initially awed us by its blue cursor and Nitti fontface. Its minimalistic aesthetic, and its lack of preferences. It was opinionated software built with passion and a philosophy embracing minimalism. Its second iteration was a mess. We now have the third iteration of iA Writer with us.
I will write this review by covering some of the new features of this version.
The Library
iA Writer has grown up. Some of the changes were expected. If you are selling a minimalistic text editor, sooner or later, you have to build in file management into the program. Users need a way to manage the files they are generating with your program. So, iA Writer manages your files and folders.
It doesn't support tabbed windows having different files open, but you can open multiple files in their own separate window.
You can add folders you want to work in through the Library tab of the preference window.
iA Writer Library Preference
The folders you add become accessible in your editing window by pressing Library on the top right of your window, or by swiping with two fingers to the right on your trackpad, or by pressing ⌘+E. You can hide the Library by swiping with two fingers to the left, or by pressing Library on the top right of the editing window or by pressing ⌘+E. You are better off learning the keyboard command as it toggles the Libary on/off.
In the Library, you can right-click on a file to get the following drop-down menu.
Right-Click file view
So, the usual file-management functions are available to you from this drop-down menu. You can send the file to a new folder, rename, and delete the file. You also get to open a new window for this file, and ask for the Finder window containing this file. Useful, and well thought out.
You can switch between the different folders by clicking on the drop-down menu of folders on the top left of your editing window.
Drop-down folder view
Quick Open
Learn the Quick Open shortcut. It is ⌘+⇧+O.
Quick Open
The Quick Open function looks for files in all of your assigned folders. It is similar to the same function in Sublime Text 3. The search is competent and supports some interesting options. Read the help file in the program for advanced search to get the details.
These got my attention:
- name:ST3 → this will search for documents whose name contains the letters ST3
- text:"redundant" → this will search for documents whose contents contain the word redundant.
- Remember that the name: and text: queries support a single word.
- Advanced search supports AND, OR, NOT, & NEAR.
Quick Open gives you a dropdown list and you can choose the file you want opened. Hit Return to open the file in a new window, ⇧+Return will open the file in the same window, and ⌘+Return will show it in the Finder.
iA Writer doesn't support projects, but this is a great way of having access to your text files which have been organized into different folders and the search is instantaneous and complete.
Preview
⌘+R will give you a preview window of your content. You can get the same window by a two-finger swipe to the left. Since the keyboard command ⌘+R is a toggle to turn the preview window on/off, you are better off learning that. Pressing ⌘+E while the preview window is on, will close the preview window and open the library window. Useful if you are keyboard driven.
If you are so inclined, you can change the width of the preview window to Thumbnail, Half, or Full. This is accessible through the View>Change Width to> menu command. I am not fond of having the Preview window open all the time. It distracts from my writing and the Preview window jumps around when you type and it is very distracting. I think this is a bug. There is no reason for the Preview window to jump around like that.
The look of the Preview window can be changed. Options are accessed through the menu command: View>Template. You can choose between Modern(Sans), Classic(Serif) and Manuscript(Mono). Pick your favorite.
You can export from the Preview window. Click on the Export button on the bottom right corner of the Preview window and you get a choice of exporting your content as Plain Text, HTML, PDF or a Word document. If you copy the content in the Preview pane, you can paste into a Rich Text application as styled text.
iA has always had an opinionated streak. Sometimes that is a good thing, sometimes, not so much. The Preview window does not support local image files across restarts. So, if you add an image file it will show up in Preview in that editing session, but if you quit the program and come back to it, the Preview window will not show the image files. It will, if it is an image accessible via a web URL. Really? I am writing a book. You want me to take all the pictures and put them online for Preview to work? Being on my machine is not going to work? This is beyond irritating. It makes the Preview window useless to me. Thankfully, I can have Marked 2 give me a preview and then I don't have to deal with this boneheadedness.
Export
Starting with plain text documents, iA Writer gives you the ability to export to HTML, Microsoft Word (.docx) or PDF format.
Print as PDF
File>Print… from the menu or ⌘+P will give you the system standard print dialog, you can choose to print as PDF, click on the Show Details button to get the extended window, and then choose to print with the filename as the header and page numbers as the footer.
Docx Export
File>Export… from the menu or ⌘+⇧+E will let you export the document as a Word document(.docx), an HTML document, a plain text document or a PDF file. I have no need for Word documents so I haven't tested out the integrity of the conversion from markdown to .docx. You can get the details on the conversion from here.
This is a competent export function. The one program which handles this part of the document production cycle better is Ulysses. Ulysses gives you complete control of the look of the document through templates (called Styles in Ulysses). iA Writer doesn't give the kind of detailed control that Ulysses provides but it is competent and useful.
Import
You can import Microsoft Word (.docx) files into iA Writer. They will be imported as markdown based text files. You can write and edit in iA Writer and then export it out again as .docx files.
Sharing
You can post to Medium and WordPress. I have no need for these functions. So, I haven't tested this out. The feedback on Twitter is positive, so I am assuming that this works fine. It is adding a dimension to the plain-text editor, in effect, turning it into a blog publishing engine. Impressive.
You can also use the System Sharing Service to enable sharing between iA Writer and other applications, like your mail program. For details, explore this section.
Preferences
One of the signs that iA Writer is growing up is the addition of preferences.
Preferences - General
The General pane of the Preferences window is the place where you add your Medium account and the WordPress account. The rest of it is pretty self-explanatory.
Preferences - Library
The Library pane of the Preferences window gives you the ability to add folders to your library. You get to specify the sort criteria and set some view options.
Preferences - Editor
In the Editor pane, you get to specify the size of the text in your edit window. You get to choose whether Focus mode concentrates on a sentence or a paragraph. I like the paragraph setting much more than the sentence setting. You have some control over spelling and grammar. In smart substitutions, since I write for the web, I don't use smart quotes, if you are exporting to Word documents, you might want to turn these on. I like the two dashes turning into an em dash, which is achieved by selecting the Dashes option.
Preferences - Preview
You get to specify the behavior of the Preview window in the Preview pane. I am not very sure that I like the "Lazy Markdown" option of the Return starts a new paragraph option. I always find it better to write Markdown the way it was intended and not bring in variability depending on the editor I am working in.
The iPad version
Behaves similarly to the Mac version. I am glad to have this available on the iPad.
Just a small gripe, on the Mac version, I can have typewriter mode and Focus mode together. Why can't I have that on iOS? Why do I have to choose one or the other? Other than this minor gripe, it is a pleasure to use on the iPad.
Impressions
With MultiMarkdown support, iA Writer sure has grown up. It is a complete markdown based writing engine now. You can see that the evolution of the product has made it sharper, and more competent as a tool for producing markdown based text. I like working in it.
My workflow included Sublime Text 3 and Ulysses. I used to write small pieces in Sublime Text 3 and anything big used to get written in Ulysses. I have found that I am using iA Writer more with this new version.
iA Writer in this iteration has regained its status as the pre-eminent minimalistic text editor on the Mac and iOS. However, it is not perfect yet. It needs to be able to create text files with whatever extension the user wants instead of forcing the .txt extension on its users. It is inconvenient to be unable to use iA Writer to create new files with the .md extension. That drives me batty.
What are the improvements I am waiting for:
- Support local images.
- Let me make text files with any extension I want.
- Incorporate the concept of projects and tabbed windows.
I like the present iteration of iA Writer. I recommend it heartily if you are looking for a minimalistic text editor.
iA Writer for Mac OS: $9.99
iA Writer for iOS: $4.99
macosxguru at the gmail thingie.
iA Writer
Markdown
Bicycle For Your Mind