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
April 18, 2016
TextExpander 6 and Mac Celebrities Show Their Colors
TextExpander | Simply Indispensable version 6.0 just launched. This is a product I have been using for a long time. It is a valuable part of my workflow so I was excited about the new version. It does a few things which are new, notably:
- They have built their own sync service, which lets you have your snippets on every machine you own. More importantly they have gotten rid of dropbox sync.
- They have built in an infrastructure to share the snippets with team members.
- They have moved to a monthly/yearly subscription service.
I was unimpressed with the changes.
- I don't want another proprietary sync service. Dropbox was working fine. Why do I need to switch to an untested, unknown sync service? Some of my snippets contain data I am not eager to share with the world. How secure is this new service?
- I have no team members I want to share my snippets with. This is a feature I do not need.
- I did the math. This was way too expensive for my perception of the utility of the text expansion service.
I am not complaining about the price. I don't like complaining about price. The seller sets a price, they think is justified. As an user, I am free to agree with that perception of value and buy the product, and if I am not, I can always take my business elsewhere. Price was not a factor in my decision to switch. Value was. I didn't see the utility of the new offering. I am not looking for a new syncing service, neither am I looking for collaboration features. It seemed to me that the product was being redesigned for corporate customers and Smile was telling me that they don't need my business anymore. They are perfectly justified in doing just that. If focus on the corporate customer is what their strategy is, I have no beef with that. I can just wish them luck and go on with my search for an alternative.
So that is what I did. I switched. Took me a day to research the alternatives. There are a couple I was already familiar with: Typinator - the fastest text expander in town & TypeIt4Me - the original text expander app for Mac.. I was not familiar with aText - Typing accelerator - Text macro utility for Mac.. I downloaded the trial for aText. Played with it for half an hour and I switched to aText. It cost me $4.99, and the whole act of switching took about 4 minutes. It imported all my TextExpander snippets into aText, and I was set. The switching was painless. I have been using it for the last few days and so far, I haven't noticed any glitches or pain points which have made me regret the switch.
Now the interesting part.
Smile has been very active in sponsoring blogs and podcasts in the mac community. Most of the thought leaders in the Mac community have had a long relationship with Smile through its sponsorship of their content, so naturally, I was curious. I wanted to see the reaction of the community to this new direction which Smile was embarking on.
Here is Gabe Weatherhead of Macdrifter talking about The New Old TextExpander, and the response from "Smile's business partners."
But it also revealed some true character. Not only was Smile willing to suck it up and take what I assume are major losses but it revealed the character of their "fans." It was enlightening to see how Smile business partners responded to a change that was contrary to many of their own tenants. Some clearly rejected the new change, some endorsed it, and some were silent. I still think one of the most thoughtful and straight assessments came from Merlin and I will forever trust his recommendations.
This is one of those issues which have been bugging me while I think of ways of monetizing this blog. Does your editorial content have an impact on your choice of sponsors? How likely is it that you are going to take a sponsor to the woodshed when they do something boneheaded? In other words, how do you stay unbiased when the sponsors are the ones paying the bills? Do you have to be unbiased, of course, is the more general question. I have tried tackling this question before.
This was a great opportunity to look at the impact of sustained support of a company on the reactions of the thought leaders of the Mac community.
A good overview of the reaction was compiled by Michael Tsai, Michael Tsai - Blog - TextExpander 6 and TextExpander.com, and Michael Tsai - Blog - TextExpander Adjustments. You can go through the originals to make up your own mind about the credibility of the various Mac celebrities.
I am going to point out a few of the reactions which got my attention.
This is TJ Luoma at Rhymes With Diploma — TextExpander 6 (Or: “How NOT to launch your SaaS”):
To be clear, I’m not saying that the Smile folks are bad, evil, mean, money-grubbers or anything like that. What I am saying is this: as an experienced power-user of your software, I do not have the slightest clue why you decided to make this service mandatory when it seems to offer very little for individual users, and I have no idea why I should pay a monthly fee for something that has worked fine before. What problem does TextExpander 6 solve for me? I can’t answer that question. And if I can’t answer that question, Smile has a big problem.
I found myself agreeing with every sentence.
This is from New TextExpander and Video Series — MacSparky.
As a fan of productivity software, I’d really like the companies that make my favorite tools stay in business. In order for TextExpander to continue to get the love and attention it needs to make my life so much easier, it needs ongoing support. TextExpander is so worth it.
The whole review is a gush fest. It almost felt like David Sparks is describing a completely different product from the one we are looking at. There is no acknowledgement of the issues we are talking about. No realization of the stark disconnect pointed out by TJ Louma. If you wanted to see a Mac celebrity shill blatantly for a sponsor, this would be the article to read.
This pablum of supporting the developer has to stop. There is an intrinsic difference between the Brett Terpstra's of the world and Smile Software. Brett is one guy in Wisconsin trying to make a living by making cool stuff. He deserves all the support he gets. Smile is one of the select few medium sized companies in the Mac software space who have managed to grow to a reasonable size of 18 people. The other two which immediately come to mind are the Omnigroup and Panic. They have done well, they deserve your respect, but they do not deserve your charity. If they disappeared tomorrow it wouldn't be the end of the world. There are a ton of products which compete with their offerings and the world would go on fine without them. Stop conflating the myth of the individual programmer toiling away in his garage with the reality of a medium sized organization maximizing its revenue stream.
My advice to Mr. Sparks:
- Look at the writing of your co-host, Katie Floyd, and learn how to shill with subtlety.
Which brings me to On The New TextExpander — Katie Floyd and On The TextExpander Adjustments — Katie Floyd. This is some good shilling.
From Katie's Week In Review: April 10, 2016 — Katie Floyd:
You may have heard Smile made quite a buzz this week when they released TextExpander 6 and moved the product to a subscription model. This upset many long-time users of the software. Michael Tsai has a nice roundup of commentary along with his own thoughts on his blog. Greg Scown, founder of Smile has a follow-up post on their blog attempting to address some user concerns regarding pricing and the future of TextExpander 5. Personally, I’m very conflicted. I love the product and I have great relationships with the people at Smile, they are a long-time sponsor of Mac Power Users. (You don’t want to know how many people have accused me of being a shill in the last few days.) But, as an individual user, I’m not a fan of the pricing model either. Allison Sheridan had Greg on her podcast this week and asked some pretty tough questions regarding the switch to the subscription model, why the emphasis on sharing, and the customer response. I thought Greg’s answers were honest and insightful.
The technique used here is called "Hang a Lantern on Your Problem," you know you are shilling, you know people are not stupid, they will catch on to the fact that you are shilling, how do you get across that barrier? Attract attention to the problem, talk about how you have been accused of shilling, that deflects from the actual shilling and increases your credibility. Pretty smart stuff. If you want to learn more about this stuff, read Hardball: How Politics Is Played, Told by One Who Knows the Game: Chris Matthews: 9780684845593.
For the record, I don't personally know any of these people. I am a reader who follows their blogs. I was just stuck by the obvious disconnect. To end on a positive note, this got my admiration.
Dr. Drang on the controversy, The new TextExpander - All this:
So unless I discover some compelling reason to stick with the new TextExpander, at some point in the near future I’ll start exploring ways to migrate my collection of snippets over to Keyboard Maestro. I understand from Twitter that this makes me a horrible person who doesn’t want software developers to make a decent living. So be it.
If you noticed, I haven't made any attribution to Smile's efforts to correct the situation. Frankly, I don't care. This is a company which is entering a new market: the cross-platform enterprise market. To be successful it has to use its strength in the Mac market as leverage. The only problem is that they just told their existing userbase to go pound sand. Poof goes the leverage. I am not surprised that they are revising their stand. For my part, I am busy pounding sand.
macosxguru at the gmail thingie
TextExpander
Celebrities
April 3, 2016
Icon
Product: Cloud Outliner Pro 2
Price: $6.99 for Mac version, $2.99 for iOS Universal app.
I discovered that I suffer from glazomania. It is defined as a passion for making lists. I learned about the condition from Listful Thinking: Using Lists to Be More Productive, Successful and Less Stressed Kindle Edition by Julie Morgenstern Paula Rizzo. This is an informative little book which improves your list-taking processes.
I like lists. So, I have been looking around for an outliner on the iPad. I have OmniOutliner 2, but it strikes me as overkill for most of the quick outlines I am interested in. It is a great product. If you live in outlines, it is a product you should investigate. But I was looking for something simpler. Something I could make lists in without reading a manual. Something quick and simple.
I came across Cloud Outliner Pro 2 and decided to see what that was all about. The product is a cross-platform outliner, in the sense that it has both an iOS version and a Mac version. It is also priced very reasonably, $6.99 for the Mac version and $2.99 for the iOS version.
iOS version
Both on iOS, and on Mac OS X, Cloud Outliner Pro 2, is well designed and efficient at managing lists. It has all the usual features, this is a non-comprehensive list of features I consider important in an outliner:
- Optional checkboxes.
- Optional automatic numbering (three styles).
- Ability to add notes to items.
- Customizable text size, color and style.
- Ability to move items by both keyboard commands and drag and drop.
- View completed tasks.
- Filters for displaying only checked or only unchecked items.
- Collapse/Expand functionality for all itmes.
- Automatic highlighting of links and phone numbers.
- On iOS, portrait and landscape support.
- On iOS, wireless keyboard support and a wide range of keyboard commands.
- On iOS, swipe left and right to change indentation level.
- Password protection.
- Customizable document templates.
- Flexible document manager.
- Sync documents across all devices through iCloud.
- Sync outlines through Evernote. (I have not tested this feature. I am not into Evernote).
- Export of outlines to PDF and HTML. (I would have preferred an additional option to export as markdown).
- Import and export of OPML files.
- Light and Dark themes.
Mac OS version
On both platforms this is a well-designed and feature-rich outliner. Distinguished by being quick, and keyboard friendly, I am happy to recommend this to anyone looking for a cross-platform outliner.
You can buy the products by using the following links and sending a few cents my way. Thank you for the support.
Cloud Outliner Pro 2 $6.99
Cloud Outline Pro 2 for iOS $2.99
macosxguru at the gmail thingie
Outliner
Bicycle For Your Mind