iPadpedia

macosxguru at gmail dot com

[themacosxguru]

Here Today Gone Tomorrow

Write for Mac and Write for iPad ceased development

Glamdevelopment’s website has gone dark. They are the developers of Outlinely.

Sunk costs of software adoption

I liked both products. I wrote about them. Here and here. I have them installed on my machine and I use them periodically. They are not going to be developed any more.

What does that mean?

That means that bugs are not going to be fixed. That means new system features are not going to be supported. For instance, El Capitan gives us Split View. That is never going to be incorporated into these products. Outlinely would be an useful product in split view. They will continue to function till some system change makes them unusable.

Let me make this clear so that we completely understand each other: The developers selling a version of the product are just selling that version. There is no implied agreement that the product will continue to be developed. As a consumer we are buying the present version and nothing else. There is no guarantee of an upgrade path, or compatibility with future versions of the OS update.

As an user, however, when you decide to adopt a product into your workflow, there are investments you make in that decision.

The cost of the application.

The time spent learning how the product functions. Getting to know how some of these products work takes time and energy. You put in the effort since you believe that the product is going to add value to your workflow and it is this time spent pursuing the benefits of using the product you lose when you have to move on to another solution.

The work which is stuck in the application. Most of these applications have their own file formats and all your work in it gets saved to these file formats. If the application ceases development, and you can’t use the application anymore, you are caught with files which are not readable anymore. In other words, you are locked out of your own work.

So, from the perspective of the user it makes sense to choose a product which is going to continue to be developed. The time and energy commitment to learning to use the product is better served that way.

What does the user do?

How does an user who is looking for a solution to a problem find a solution which is going to have legs? Going to be developed for a few years? Is going to evolve with the OS?

Sadly, there are no easy answers. There is an answer but it is not the most efficient of answers. Buy from established developers is the answer. But I am not sure it is the most efficient answer. When you buy from an established outfit an ancillary benefit is the history they bring to the transaction. If you are looking for a text editor, you can buy BBEdit. You are not going to have any problems with the developer disappearing or the product being abandoned. Barebones has been making BBEdit for 20+ years, and they are not going away anytime soon. You are going to get a fantastic text editor, which is well-supported and has a record of keeping up with system updates for a long time. Taking the trouble to learn the ins and outs of BBEdit will stand you in good stead for a very long time. It is an investment worth making. If you are looking for an outliner, buy OmniOutliner or OmniOutliner Pro. Omnigroup, the developer, has also been around for a very long time and they are very well established in the marketplace. They are not going away any time soon. Both of these products are great examples of well supported and consistently updated pieces of software which are a pleasure to use.

So, what is the downside?

By definition, the established houses are risk-averse and it shows in their software. In the current marketplace of text editors, BBEdit certainly lags behind both SublimeText 3 and Atom in terms of features. The newcomers are hungrier. They are more interested in differentiation and they are eager to adopt new technologies. Multiple cursors in ST3 and the webkit implementation of Atom being two indicators of this trend. OmniOutliner does things no outliner was really supposed to be doing, and that is unique to this product. Omnigroup has done a great job of keeping this product at the cutting edge of what an outliner is supposed to do. Although even in that market space, Outlinely with its Markdown roots and FoldingText with its different modes has shown us what more can be achieved through an outliner. Thus, even though this is not a statement which can be applied in every circumstance, if you are looking for innovation or innovative features in a category, the newcomers are a much better bet than the established powerhouses. So, when you adopt the established product you are giving up on some features which distinguish the newer competition. Is this trade off worth it? That is a difficult question to answer when you bring in another criteria to the decision. The offerings from the established products are usually priced higher than the newcomers. This is not always true, but generally true. An exception of course is that SublimeText 3 is more expensive than BBEdit. But SublimeText 3 is cross-platform and a license entitles you to use the product in every platform it is available in. Atom of course, is free.

So, what does the user do?

Only adopt products which have a clear output path. You should be able to output your data from the product into an application independent format. Standardized formats are well supported across a wide choice of applications and they include, .txt, .rtf, .pdf, .doc, .md, and so on. Before adopting a product make sure that the data you input into it can be exported to a format which is universally accessible. If the product doesn’t do that, take it out of your consideration set.

Adopt multiple products in categories. If the outlining category is important to you, adopt OmniOutliner and one of the newcomers. If text editors are not that important to you (considering that I spent my life in text editors I have no idea who you are anymore), adopt one of the established ones, BBEdit is a great choice and don’t worry about cutting edge features. Learn it well. You are going to find a lot of uses for it.

Look at products which are task specific. They bring specificity to the problem they are trying to solve and that leads to innovation and improvements which the generalists do not have the motive to consider. Ulysses is great for writers of all kinds, the newest version of iA Writer is not bad, Byword is a great web publishing solution.

Silver lining

I must tell you about an application called Opal. I wrote about it on June 28, 2009, here. Yes. You read that right. 2009. It was last updated on 14th October, 2009. That is 6 years ago. I still use it. It works like a charm and is as efficient as it always was. Sometimes software surprises you.

macosxguru

[themacosxguru]

Overcast, Predatory Pricing, and a Humbler Marco

This is the first attack on the Overcast: Podcast Player pricing model Building Twenty — Overcast’s not-quite-predatory pricing by Michael Anderson.

This is Marco Arment’s defense of his pricing model Pragmatic App Pricing — Medium.

This is the second attack on Marco, Overcast, and his pricing model The Elephant in the Room — Samantha Bielefeld by Samantha Bielefeld.

I must admit that I am not interested in the podcast player category. Podcasts just doesn’t interest me. But it is still software and a competitive space, so I am intrigued. I don’t know any of these people. I have followed Marco’s blog for a while, but these two other folks are new to me.

Does Michael Anderson expect any of his competitors to care for the following?

Where, now, is the market for those apps? How can you possibly expect to gain any traction against high-quality, entirely free alternatives?

So a competitor in a space is expected to make the environment lucrative for other competitors? His pricing strategy has to leave a window for his other competitors to make money in the market he is in? Why? There is an independent developer rules of conduct at work here? Really? What is this? We are all going to agree on a price and then the best icon will win?

Frankly, whether Marco is a millionaire or a pauper is irrelevant to the argument. He is playing in the podcast player field, he has the right to try to restrict competition. He has the right to try to dominate that market. If he is afraid that there are going to be bigger competitors coming into the market with free offerings, he has the right to get there first. Build a customer base and a revenue stream any way he can. What is the problem? Oh, I forgot. The independent developers rules of conduct. What are those exactly? Where are they available? Because it smells to me like price-fixing and I want to see it.

When Marco first unveiled Overcast, he made clear that one of his prime objectives was to safeguard the third-party podcast app market from proprietary takeover by the likes of Stitcher.

If the marketplace is going to rush to free, and Marco gets there first with his loyal users, his podcast user base and his blog readers along with him, that will effect both the big players and the small ones. He is allowed to do that. In fact, every one of his competitors would do the same thing if they could.

Samantha Bielefeld states:

What he is most certainly doing is increasing the odds that no other third party podcast app will feel viable in the market by charging up front for their offering.

Really? Twitter is a free app. Tweetbot is still making money. There are a lot of examples of categories where there is competition from free products and there is a market for paid products too. Isn’t Podcasts from Apple a free product in the podcast category?

If you look at the marketplace of apps, there seems to be a mix of free and paid apps in almost every category. The paid apps are surely facing problems with adoption if there is a free product in that category, but they can still thrive. If you do it right, if you provide value, if you can get the word out, you are going to be able to find your niche. And if you are lucky, it is going to be a profitable niche.

Samantha Bielefeld goes on to state:

In an attempt at increasing market share for his app, he is helping to reaffirm the incorrect thinking that software should be free to the end user.

Really? A niche product in a tiny product category is going to achieve that? I keep a close watch on the topic #nvALT on Twitter. It is free software. It has always been free software, it’s antecedent, Notational Velocity, was free software. Every few days, I see a host of people begging Brett Terpstra for a paid version of nvALT, they can support. I think the causation that free software makes people expect all software to be free is hogwash. There are people who given a choice between free and any sum of money will always choose free. There are also people who are grateful for free but if you provide them a compelling reason to switch to a paid alternative, they will do that with aplomb.

Samantha Bielefeld goes on to say:

The argument that paying for Tweetbot provides for a much more enjoyable Twitter experience over the free alternative holds a lot of ground for many people. There isn’t much of a case to be made when comparing the completely free Overcast to paid apps in the same category.

And that is Overcast’s fault? If you cannot differentiate your product offering from the free ones in the marketplace, it is the fault of the free offering? I don’t have any nice way of saying this, “Stop whingeing, and get to work. Make your product better than Overcast. Add features that it doesn’t have. And get the word out.” If you can’t do that, you are going to be toast in the marketplace, and it is not Overcast’s fault. If you can’t beat Overcast on features and functions, then, Overcast is the category leading product in both price and features. You just have to accept that and move on to a different category.

Overcast is doing what it can to survive. Marco is entitled to do that.

Samantha Bielefeld adds:

Few app developers are able to enjoy the launch day success that comes from having major sites like iMore, Macworld, MacStories, and 9to5Mac all launch reviews of their app in unison on the day of release. The result is a chart topping, traffic driving experience that results in even more downloads than the people who follow his work would provide.

This is just marketing. This has nothing to do with feature sets, with Marco’s popularity, software design, coolness of the icon. This is just marketing. The problem is that some independent software folks don’t seem to understand the process, or the utility of marketing. You are in the business of doing business and if you don’t know how to do that get someone who does. You do the coding, they do the marketing. If you cannot get the top outlets to cover your product make sure you get the next level of outlets to cover you. There is always the blogger looking to write a review of a product.

I have been following this debate over pricing of software for a while and it makes my blood boil. There will always be the asshole customer who will complain every opportunity they get irrespective of what you charge for your product. Ignore them. Decide on your price and go to market. Make sure that your product has managed to differentiate itself from the competition and don’t worry about the free products in the marketplace. If you manage differentiation and can convey that to the customer, you will have provided enough reason for the initial group of customers to adopt your product. Look after these people. Be on twitter, correspond through email, give the customers an opportunity to enhance your product either through feedback or through enhancements (themes in SublimeText, workflows in Alfred, Scripts in BBEdit, you get the idea). Churn. Fix bugs. Get to version 2.0. Look at the landscape and improve the product with every iteration. Market the hell out of it. Do that. You might find that you will not need to whinge at what your competitors pricing strategy is.

Update: I am obviously out of the loop. I read this article by John Welch after publishing my piece. I am disgusted by the response of the cool kids to the Samantha Bielefeld article. I think my criticisms are valid, so, I will keep it posted.

[Responsibility - Matt Gemmell](http://mattgemmell.com/responsibility/), is a very different take from mine. And as usual, very well written.

macosxguru

[themacosxguru]

Links of Note

This scared me. What Happens Next Will Amaze You

A story about Steve Jobs. I learned something from it. “What do you think?” — Medium

An interesting walk through history of Apple.com Apple.com - an album on Flickr

macosxguru

[themacosxguru]

Siri Speaks Different

Before iOS 9, Siri’s accent was a function of your choice of language. In iOS 9, you can have Siri speak to you in an Australian, Canadian, Indian, Kiwi, Singapore, UK, or US English accent. In fact, there are ton of other languages and accents if you are feeling like experimenting.

macosxguru

[themacosxguru]

2015-10-03 Links of Note

The mad scientist Terpstra is up to his usual awesomeness. Useful bookmarklet: Grab sibling links with the Similarity bookmarklet - BrettTerpstra.com

Trying to improve online discourse one swear word at a time is the mad scientist Terpstra again: Swearing politely with TextExpander - BrettTerpstra.com

Helping Package Control work again in SublimeText: Package Control error with SublimeText | Custom D - Web design & development without compromise, Christchurch & Sydney

Searching the Stores through Google: How to Search the iTunes Store, App Store, and Mac App Store with Google - Kirkville

[themacosxguru]

My SublimeText3 Preferences

I have been threatening to post my preference files from ST3 for a while. Here they are:

User Preferences for SublimeText

Markdown Preferences for SublimeText

Distraction Free Markdown Preferences for SublimeText

macosxguru

[themacosxguru]

Ben Brooks tackles the Ad Blockers, Native Advertising and Credibility

Which iOS Content Blocker is the Fastest? — The Brooks Review

A Few More Thoughts on My Top Three Content Blockers — The Brooks Review

Saving 30% or More of Your Data Transfer With Content Blockers — The Brooks Review

Ye Olde Content Blocking — The Brooks Review

Finally, he expresses his opinion on “Native Advertising.”

Native Advertising is a Bad Solution — The Brooks Review

Kudos to Ben Brooks. He is providing a valuable service in testing the various ad blockers out and presenting data-supported recommendations. I bought 1Blocker based on his say-so and am happy with it.

He is thinking about the ethical issues related to ad blocking and he makes some interesting assertions. The issue he is trying to handle deal with bloggers who expect to monetize the exercise in some way. He is not much interested in media houses and their web sites. They have a dedicated sales staff and there is “separation” between the revenue source and the writers reviewing the products. He is much more concerned about the individual operators like him and me, who have to juggle the dilemma of writing and finding ways to generate income from said writing. The conflict obviously arises when a product you review ends up being a sponsor of your writing. The core problem is credibility.

There is a big word associated with this debate. It is “objectivity”.

The chain of sequence is the following: You are objective, that is, free of biases. You write and recommend something, or do not recommend something. The reader respects your objective opinion and thus values your recommendation (or lack thereof). Anything that gets in the way of this fanciful equation is going to be a drag on your credibility.

I am not sure that writers who are writing on the web to make a living, are really “objective.” We are not academics, we are not trying to provide analysis of objectively collected data points (I would argue that few academics in the social sciences meet that bar). We are a composite of our biases and inclinations and we look at the world through that prism. If that is something that is relevant & entertaining, then people pay us attention. That is our audience.

More importantly, I am not sure that we need to be “objective.” In fact, the more biased you are, the better your opportunity to gain attention. I remember the early days of Gruber. People liked him because he was unapologetically an Apple fan. His audience has grown a lot since then. His unique personality, his ability with the written word, his irritating baseball tweets, all add to the persona he has created and successfully monetized. I am not certain that people go to Daring Fireball because they think Gruber is objective. They go there because he is entertaining and sometimes he has good information to share. And he does snark, oh-so-well.

As an independent in this market space, how do I build credibility? This is a list of some of the things I do:

If I am reviewing a product, I try to provide links to other reviews of the same product. I am particularly conscious of doing this when I am panning a product.

I try to lay out my biases if they are relevant. I like Ulysses, I use it every day, I make sure that people know that when I write about it or its competitors.

Credibility is a nebulous thing. You have to work on building it over a period of time and your readers will get the picture. Can you lose it? Sure. But it won’t be in the sponsors you have accepted money from. It will be in your writing. Sell-outs smell.

macosxguru

[themacosxguru]

Sublime Text 3 - Select, Skip, and Select All

Select a word:

With your cursor anywhere in the word:

⌘ + d selects the word ⌘ + d again selects the next occurrence of the word ⌘ + d again selects the next one

Skipping over an instance of the word:

Type ⌘ + k, ⌘ + d to skip the next occurrence of the word.

Selecting all instances of the word:

^ + ⌘ + g will select every occurrence of the word

(Obviously, these are Mac keyboard shortcuts)

macosxguru

[themacosxguru]

Ulysses for iPad: The complete writing solution

What am I looking for in an iPad writing app?

For the last year and a half, I have been looking for Ulysses for iPad. The same experience and environment provided by the Mac app on the iPad. That has been my ideal of the perfect writing app for the iPad.

There is no number 2.

Why? Because Ulysses provides a complete environment for your writing. It is a product which encourages you to write and lets your writing live and grow in it. It is the best designed piece of writing software that I have seen. I love working in it. So, I want the experience replicated on the iPad. I had been using Editorial on the iPad. I like it. It is in my mind, the best text editor on the iPad, but it is not Ulysses. So, I have been pining for Ulysses for iPad.

Finally. Ulysses for iPad is here.

If you are familiar with the Mac version of this application, you are going to be very comfortable with the iPad version. The developers have replicated most of the functionality of the Mac version in the iPad version and the experience is almost seamless.

External keyboard

You can use Ulysses on the iPad by typing on the onscreen keyboard. I am not very fond of that experience. I can use it in a pinch, but most of the time I like having an external keyboard attached to the iPad. If I am in the middle of serious writing, the external keyboard is something that I rely on. You can get one of a whole slew of external keyboards for the iPad. They connect to the iPad through Bluetooth, and they provide you with a full size real keyboard. Makes the process of entering text much more comfortable than the onscreen keyboard. I have used the Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K760 for Mac/iPad/iPhone, the Logitech Bluetooth Multi-Device Keyboard K480 for Computers, Tablets and Smartphones, Black and the Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch K811 Keyboard for Mac, iPad, iPhone - Silver/Black. All three of these keyboards are multi-device keyboards, in that you can use them with your computer, your iPad and your iPhone. They work very well and they are well made keyboards which feel good to use. I recommend them heartily.

You do have similar benefits from any bluetooth enabled keyboard you want to use. Get one. Makes writing on the iPad a much more elegant experience. In addition, it lets you use keyboard commands. The keyboard bar provided by Ulysses for the iPad is useful but I find keyboard commands more efficient. Also, there are keyboard commands which do not have any equivalents in the onscreen keyboard or the keyboard bar. For instance, ⌃E gets you to the end of the line, and ⌃A gets you to the start of the line that your cursor is on. I find myself using the ⌃E command a lot. On the Mac version, ⌃E gets you to the end of the paragraph you are on, and ⌃A gets you to the start of the paragraph you are on. Very useful, and it works in all your text editors on the Mac.

iCloud Drive

I like Dropbox. I am not very fond of iCloud. At least, I wasn’t very impressed with iCloud till I started beta testing Ulysses for iPad. Now called, iCloud Drive, it works. Yes, surprised the hell out of me, but it works, like it should. In fact, I am writing this document on the iPad and the iMac. The changes I make get reflected in the other device in a few seconds and I can write on the same document on both devices without any glitches. Initially, I thought that the Soulmen folks have done some voodoo on their own to make this work so well, but I am coming around to the realization that iCloud Drive has really improved and the promise of instant syncing is being delivered. Yeah, I am as surprised as you are.

I can start a document in the inbox of iCloud, on either the iPad or the Mac. It appears very soon in the other device. I can edit and work on it, as I feel like, on either device. When I am done, I move it to a folder on the Mac. It is a no friction way of editing and working on a document, irrespective of the device. I find myself utilizing the special talents of both devices. This probably needs an explanation. The experience of using the iPad and the Mac are intrinsically different. On the iPad, I have no distractions, you are effectively on full-screen mode and just writing. It is very good at providing an environment where you write. Just write. I find it easier to edit on the Mac. So after I have the outline and the writing done on the iPad, I edit on the Mac. I also find it easier to add the markdown components to the document on the Mac. Things like links and images are better done on the Mac. You can do them on the iPad, I just find it easier on the Mac, and that is what I find myself doing. The whole process is fluid and I must say that it is very pleasureable. I find myself writing a lot more and hopefully, writing better with this combination.

Keyboard row

Markdown requires you to type a bunch of symbols. Ulysses for the iPad makes it easy for you to type these symbols by providing an extra keyboard row. It contains all the markup you are going to use to write markdown. Press on them and you get a popup list of markup. They are categorized in some way which doesn’t seem intuitive to me. I don’t really know where is which little code, so when I am using the keyboard row to find something, it is pretty much a hunt and peck search. I know the syntax of markdown enough that I don’t find myself going through this exercise often enough to be a pain. If you are starting with markdown, at least on the iPad, you would probably be better off with a cheatsheet than searching for what exactly you are looking for. On the other hand, the markup is there, you just have to find it. Throughout this article I have screenshots of the various pop ups to help you along.

Here comes the first one:

This is the Header pop up. Pretty simple.

Themes and Markup

Ulysses for the iPad like on the Mac, supports a markup called Markdown XL, in addition to regular Markdown. Markdown XL is a variant of markdown which lets Ulysses support annotations, footnotes and attachments. It is the default markup and it is fully supported by the iPad version. You have the choice to use either of Markdown, Markdown XL, Textile’d, a new variant called Minimark, or your own custom markup. I write in Markdown XL or Markdown for the most part. When you start a new document, you are given the choice of specifying the markup you would like in the document, like this,

Since we are showing an image, we might as well do another one:

This is the second pop up from the keyboard bar. I understand the icon and it makes me think of lists. I guess I can elaborate that understanding to include indents, outdents and block quotes. It is a stretch, but kind of intuitive.

Ulysses for Mac has lovely themes in-built and there is a whole host of user-contributed themes which are available in the Styles Exchange portion of its website. All the themes which you have installed on the Mac are available to you on the iPad through the magic of iCloud. If you want you can make your own themes through the Mac app. The iPad app doesn’t let you make themes. If you do make your own theme on the Mac, it can be used on the iPad too. You can learn how to make your own themes here.

Adding fonts to Ulysses for iPad

The application lets you access the system fonts in iOS. You also have the ability to add any font you want. I use Nitti. So, on the Mac, I took the whole folder of Nitti and compressed them. I send my email account, the compressed file. On the iPad, in Mail, I just tap and hold on the archived attachment, out pops a window which gives me the options showing what I wanted to do with the attachment, I chose Open in Ulysses. Ulysses on the iPad launches and the active font is Nitti. That is it. That is all I have to do to add fonts to the application.

I can have the same result by archiving a font in Dropbox. In Dropbox, I select the file, I tap the share icon, I tap the Open in… icon, I tap Open in Ulysses, and I now get to use the font in Ulysses for the iPad.

This is the second step:

Since we are doing images, might as well add the third one from the keyboard bar.

This is where the intuition takes a break. I don’t really know how this collection is intuitive. But it does contain Markdown syntax which are very useful to me. I call it the Misc icon.

A trip through the preferences

Ulysses for the iPad doesn’t have very complicated preferences. They are accessed by clicking on the gear icon at the top of the window.

You can do the following things here:

Set the default font for the document.

You can choose to restrict the number of characters per line, the space between the lines, the paragraph spacing and the first line indent (if you want any)

You can choose the theme you want to use. I find myself using a tweaked copy of Solarized XL all the time.

You can choose to be in dark mode. One of the advantages of themes for Ulysses is that almost all of them have a dark mode. On the iPad, I spent a lot of time in dark mode, it is a nice way of working.

In text editing options, you have a whole plethora of choices, which are pretty self-evident. The one thing I want to add is the recommendation to use TextExpander 3 + Custom Keyboard. I use it on both the Mac and the iOS devices. It makes writing easier and efficient. I don’t want to write without it.

The Sheet preview options define how you want the sheets to be displayed in the sidebar.

That is pretty much it for preferences. So, I am going to do show another icon from the keyboard bar.

This is the A icon:

Gives you the ability to mark something, or to turn something into bold(strong) or italic(Emphasis). I use the keyboard commands for this, ⌘b for bold and ⌘i for italic.

A collection of observations

Ulysses for iPad has complete output options. You get to define the styles of the document type you are outputting to, and it does its thing. You can output plain text, html, ePub, PDF, or RTF. RTF is useful if you use Microsoft Word. So you can write on the iPad and treat the iPad as a complete solution for your output needs too. I write in markdown and tend to output to PDF if I have to share the document with other people. Most of the time, the output stays in markdown, so this output function is nice to have but not intrinsically important to me.

I have been writing this document for the last three days and of course after I praised iCloud Drive, the whole setup took a major dive. Apple’s Internet offerings were offline for a while. I notice that the reliability of syncing is a little touch and go. I was a part of the beta for this product and most of the discussions online seemed to deal with problems regarding syncing. I haven’t run into them myself but that is a concern for the product. I would prefer it if the developers implemented Dropbox syncing. You have the ability to export your document to a whole host of cloud services like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Box and even Dropbox. So you are covered in case of emergencies. I have been relying on the Mac version for the last year and a half, and have been in the beta program for the iPad version, and have never lost a document.

There are people who are very comfortable writing in anything they have in front of them. I read that George R. R. Martin writes in Wordstar. He is quite productive and creative. There are also people who obsess about their writing instruments and find themselves writing less and obsessing more as a result. So, my advice is the following, I love writing in Ulysses for the iPad and Ulysses for the Mac. If you are looking for a tool, you can adopt these and they are going to provide you a gorgeous environment to write in. If you are happy with your tool of choice, why are you reading this review? Get back to writing.

I am going to explain another of the icons in the keyboard bar here:

I call this the B icon. It has nothing to do with the markup. Raw Source and Code would probably have been better depicted with the letter C. But Comment and Delete? I don’t know.

I am going to complete the remaining two icons on the keyboard bar here:

I call this the media icon, and then the markups make sense. You can add a footnote, video, image, Annotation or a link through this icon.

The last one now:

I have no idea what to call this icon. It is in my mind the oops icon. You can Clear Markup and Undo.

I like the fact that the markdown syntax is available in the keyboard bar, however unintuitive it might be. I tried to come up with a better classification scheme or a better notification scheme and I came up empty. So, I am not going to beat up on the Soulmen for this one. I am glad they are available. Thank you.

Recommendations

If you write and are looking for a home for your writing, you cannot go wrong with Ulysses for the iPad and Ulysses for the Mac. They have made my writing life incredibly pleasureable and efficient. I live in these two programs nowadays, and I am ecstatic about it.

I have written about Ulysses for the Mac before, here and here.

macosxguru

Some other takes on Ulysses for iPad

Ulysses for iPad — The Brooks Review

Ulysses - Do You Write?

Ulysses gets even better… and an iPad app too | David Hewson

Quick Thoughts on Ulysses for iPad - The Newsprint

Ulysses for iPad: The go-to text editor for long form writing | iMore

Six Colors: Review: Ulysses for iPad and Mac

[themacosxguru]

Writing email outside the email app

Email is a necessary evil. It is evil because it is distracting. I find myself in the middle of a task and an email arrives which I have to respond to, and then another and then another and very soon I have no recall of what I was originally working on. So, I have time windows. I do email in thirty minute windows two or three times a day. At the end of each window, I quit the email program, I use Apple’s stock Mail app.

However, the need to send email beckons a lot more than the windows I have designated for email. The solution: an app which lets me send email without the need to launch Mail.

On iOS devices, I use Drafts. On both the iPad and the iPhone, Drafts lets me compose an email, in markdown.

Then I hit the action button on the top right hand corner, and get this.

Choose Markdown>Email and it gives me a compose email window with my content neatly turned into rich text. Fill in the recipients name, send, and I am done with the email.

On the Mac, I use Let.ter. It lets me do a similar thing. I write the email in markdown.

I can preview it.

And then I send it along.

Textwell lets me do the same thing from within the program. I write my content. I highlight it. I can send it to a predefined recipient or I can just choose email and it will give me a mail compose window, and I can enter the email addresses of the intended recipients. Click send and I am done. The only downside of Textwell is that it doesn’t do the markdown to rich text conversion. So, if you don’t always write in markdown, Textwell can do the job fine.

I use these apps several times during the day and they are very useful to me. I get the benefit of sending email without the distraction that the category brings with it.

You can buy Textwell Mac version here. $9.99. You can buy Textwell iOS version here. $2.99. You can buy Drafts 4.0 for iOS here. $9.99. You can buy Let.ter app directly from the developers for $3.99.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

[themacosxguru]

Textwell: Modeless Textbox

Textwell - The Modeless Textbox for iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac.

In the world of text editors this is a strange beast. The closest product that this is analogous to is Drafts on iOS.

Conceptually it is one sheet of paper. You type on it. You fill it with content that you are working on, and then you send it somewhere. You can save it to a file, prepend or append it to an existing file, or you can use a bundled action/write an action yourself to do with the content what you wish.

Does that sound confusing enough? It does because it is not what we usually do with a text editor. We edit text, we save it to a file, and then we move on. We might occasionally take the content and put it into an email message or a tweet and use some other dedicated program to send it along, but in Textwell it is all done within it. The program ships with a slew of actions which let you do a whole bunch of things with the content you create. When you are done, you clear the one sheet of paper you have, and start with a new blank sheet of paper. Efficient and a little different from the norm.

It has a companion iOS version. With iCloud Drive support, you can work on the same piece of paper on all your devices.

The Mac version of Textwell

This is a well designed piece of software. Don’t get me wrong. This is not competing with BBEdit or SublimeText. It is not feature comparable with a text editor. It is as the developers describe it, a "modeless textbox.” A window where you input text. Then you perform some actions on the text.

For instance, I wrote the following tweet: Trying out the Mac version of #Textwell, the modeless textbox for iOS and Mac OS devices. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/textwell/id905944937?mt=12&uo=4&at=10lrLv.

I selected the text of the tweet and hit ⌥⌘T, which is the keystroke I assigned to the Tweet action, and it posted the tweet through the Twitter app. Done. I cleared the textbox and it was now empty and waiting for the next thing I wanted to do with it.

The interface of Textwell is simple. It is a textbox.

You can extend the window to the right and the left. The left extension is a panel which shows different versions of documents you have been working on. I think this is the version control provided by iCloud Drive. But they are a listing of the different iterations of the content of the page you are working on. On the right is the actions panel. This contains all the actions available to you. You can arrange these in folders and that helps you locate the particular action you are interested in. The actions are Javascript programs which run in the built-in web view. They are very well documented here.

The application ships with a bunch of these actions and you can easily write more if you need them. I have just started learning Javascript, so it will be a while before I write my own actions.

Textwell is customizable to a certain extent. You can use any font you like, and design your own theme to a point. I came up with a version of Solarized Dark. I wish the cursor was a little thicker. I changed the cursor color to Red to help it stick out a little more. Textwell lets you set the maximum text width and that defines the width of the text in your input window.

Interestingly, Textwell doesn’t provide a keyboard command for full screen view, but if you click on the green doohickey on the top left of the window, it will switch to full screen view. It is a usable full screen view, and that is the mode I am in when I am in Textwell. The absence of a keyboard command for that is a little weird.

One suggestion to improve the product for me would be to add a typewriter scrolling mode. It is something I have gotten used to and miss when it is not available.

When I started this review, I was planning a comparison between Drafts and Textwell. The more I use Textwell, the more I realize that the two products are essentially build around the same idea. Write something, move it on to other uses.

The comparison with Drafts on iOS

There are a few differences between the two programs which make a direct comparison between the two somewhat problematic:

Drafts does not have a Mac version.

Textwell is at version 1.3.4 while Drafts is at version 4.0

Textwell on iOS costs $2.99 while Drafts costs $9.99

Drafts is markdown friendly. Textwell just does text.

On iOS, Drafts is much better designed. It is not even remotely close. Textwell is functional, but Drafts is heavenly. I have been using Drafts since the day it was released, and I think that it is one of the best designed apps for the iOS. Textwell has a long way to go to catch up.

So where does that leave us?

Do you need a textbox? I am a SublimeText user and initially looked on the whole textbox idea as a bit of a gimmick. The more I gave it time, the more I realized that there is something to be said for the modeless textbox that Textwell provides. I like having a dedicated program where I write something, do something to the text and then move on the next task. It focusses you on the task and then lets you clear the page and move on to next task. It deserves a place in the workflow and it is adding value to my routines.

The Mac version is well designed. It is a worthy addition to any text file users arsenal. My hope is that the iOS version matures and becomes as useful on the iOS devices.

Recommendation

If the idea of a textbox on the Mac intrigues you. Get the Mac version and the iOS version of Textwell. You are going to find a lot of ways you will use this neat little program. If you spend more time on the iOS devices than the Mac, get Drafts.

You can buy Textwell Mac version here. $9.99. You can buy Textwell iOS version here. $2.99. You can buy Drafts 4.0 for iOS here. $9.99.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

[themacosxguru]

The Panoroma investigation and Apple’s lame response

The Panorama program is available here:

[BBC Panorama Apple’s Broken Promises BBC Documentary 2014 Workers Life in china Making iphone 6

This is what we learned from the Panorama program:

Apple’s supplier Foxconn had to put nets around the buildings to stop the workers from committing suicide.

The workers at the Pegatron plant are working insane hours 12, 14, 16 hour days are not uncommon.

The workers are sleeping on the job. They are exhausted.

The paper trail doesn’t mean anything. The reality and the paper trail are not the same. So when you audit the books, you are auditing a mirage which has nothing to do with reality.

The sleeping quarters are not compliant with the company regulations.

When Apple buys tin from Indonesian smelters, you have no idea of the origin of the tin. They might be coming from illegal mining operations which hire child labor.

I thought these were the salient portions of the program.

This is the letter from Apple senior vice president of operations Jeff Williams to the UK employees of Apple, it was posted at Read: Apple’s letter to UK staff over Chinese factory conditions - Telegraph:

UK Team,

As you know, Apple is dedicated to the advancement of human rights and equality around the world. We are honest about the challenges we face and we work hard to make sure that people who make our products are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve. Last night, the BBC’s Panorama program called those values into question. Like many of you, Tim and I were deeply offended by the suggestion that Apple would break a promise to the workers in our supply chain or mislead our customers in any way.

I’d like to give you facts and perspective, all of which we shared with the BBC in advance, but were clearly missing from their program. Panorama showed some of the shocking conditions around tin mining in Indonesia. Apple has publicly stated that tin from Indonesia ends up in our products, and some of that tin likely comes from illegal mines. Here are the facts:

Tens of thousands of artisanal miners are selling tin through many middlemen to the smelters who supply to component suppliers who sell to the world. The government is not addressing the issue, and there is widespread corruption in the undeveloped supply chain. Our team visited the same parts of Indonesia visited by the BBC, and of course we are appalled by what’s going on there.

Apple has two choices: We could make sure all of our suppliers buy tin from smelters outside of Indonesia, which would probably be the easiest thing for us to do and would certainly shield us from criticism. But it would be the lazy and cowardly path, because it would do nothing to improve the situation for Indonesian workers or the environment since Apple consumes a tiny fraction of the tin mined there. We chose the second path, which is to stay engaged and try to drive a collective solution.

We spearheaded the creation of an Indonesian Tin Working Group with other technology companies. Apple is pushing to find and implement a system that holds smelters accountable so we can influence artisanal mining in Indonesia. It could be an approach such as “bagging and tagging” legally mined material, which has been successful over time in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We are looking to drive similar results in Indonesia, which is the right thing to do.

Panorama also made claims about our commitment to working conditions in our factories. We know of no other company doing as much as Apple does to ensure fair and safe working conditions, to discover and investigate problems, to fix and follow through when issues arise, and to provide transparency into the operations of our suppliers.

I want you to know that more than 1400 of your Apple coworkers are stationed in China to manage our manufacturing operations. They are in the factories constantly — talented engineers and managers who are also compassionate people, trained to speak up when they see safety risks or mistreatment. We also have a team of experts dedicated solely to driving compliance with our Supplier Code of Conduct across our vast supply chain.

In 2014 alone, our Supplier Responsibility team completed 630 comprehensive, in-person audits deep into our supply chain. These audits include face-to-face interviews with workers, away from their managers, in their native language. Sometimes critics point to the discovery of problems as evidence that the process isn’t working. The reality is that we find violations in every audit we have ever performed, no matter how sophisticated the company we’re auditing. We find problems, we drive improvement, and then we raise the bar. Panorama’s report implied that Apple isn’t improving working conditions. Let me tell you, nothing could be further from the truth. Here are just a few examples:

Several years ago, the vast majority of workers in our supply chain worked in excess of 60 hours, and 70+ hour workweeks were typical. After years of slow progress and industry excuses, Apple decided to attack the problem by tracking the weekly hours of over one million workers, driving corrective actions with our suppliers and publishing the results on our website monthly — something no other company had ever done. It takes substantial effort, and we have to weed out false reporting, but it’s working. This year, our suppliers have achieved an average of 93% compliance with our 60-hour limit. We can still do better. And we will.

Our auditors were the first to identify and crack down on a ring of unscrupulous labor brokers who were holding workers’ passports and forcing them to pay exorbitant fees. To date, we have helped workers recoup $20 million in excessive payments like these.

We’ve gone far beyond auditing and corrective actions by creating educational programs for workers in the same facilities where they make our products. More than 750,000 people have taken advantage of these college-level courses and enrichment programs, and the feedback we get from students is inspiring.

I will not dive into every issue raised by Panorama in this note, but you can rest assured that we take all allegations seriously, and we investigate every claim. We know there are a lot of issues out there, and our work is never done. We will not rest until every person in our supply chain is treated with the respect and dignity they deserve.

If you’d like to learn more about our Supplier Responsibility program, I encourage you and our customers to visit our website at apple.com/supplierresponsibility.

Thanks for your time and your support.

Jeff

This letter made me gag. What a bunch of poppycock.

Firstly, what the hell is Williams and Cook offended about? Does Apple have material objections to the findings of the program? They explicitly admit the situation in Indonesia. They do not challenge the assertions about the working conditions or hours in the factories in China. Apple points to their audit of the documentation and the program explicitly shows the documentation to be meaningless and not representative of what exactly is happening. What are they offended about? And more importantly, who gives a shit about whether they are offended or not? Apple increasingly talks about the values that guide their organization and everything Apple does and stands for. Set a bar. You have to meet it. When someone points out that you are falling short, you are offended? Give me a break. Get off that self-pity horse and fix the problems. Don’t whine. Fix the problems.

Apple’s get out of jail free card is based on the notion that they are the only company who tries? Apple is one of the largest companies in the world. Its claim is that there are deep underlying values guiding every decision it makes. That is what gives them the ability to charge the premium prices they demand in the marketplace. Their products are not just electronic gizmos. They are electronic gizmos which were produced within a value system. Apple’s value system includes this one “…that people who make our products are treated with the dignity and respect they deserve.” Really? Remember that this one has taken a few hits in the last few years. Remember this executive team was also in charge when Steve Jobs made a deal with Google, Intel, Adobe and other silicon valley companies to stop poaching engineers from each other. That was collusion amongst employers to keep employee wages down. That is the effect of discouraging poaching. Keep a lid on engineer wages. That was treating people with respect and dignity? That is Apple’s history. So now when they tell me that they are offended by the suggestion that workers at one of their suppliers are being made to work overtime without their consent, I have to ask them, how gullible do you think I am?

You are telling me that you try. I accept that. You are trying. The situation is still not perfect, so try harder. This is important.

Your products are imbued with a value system. That is what makes your brand special. It is not Dell, or HP, or Samsung, or Walmart. All of the earnest pronouncements you make about your value system guiding your decisions is the added aura around your products. That is the added advantage you have in the marketplace. That is the source of your margins, that is the source of your brand loyalty, that is the source of your consumers’ obsession with your products. Don’t screw that up. If you screw that up, you will have the moral standing of Walmart or a Shell.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

[themacosxguru]

Activate dark mode with a keyboard command

Dark mode in Yosemite can be applied by opening up System Preferences>General and checking a box. But you can also use a keyboard command if you do the following:

In terminal, input this

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/.GlobalPreferences.plist _HIEnableThemeSwitchHotKey -bool true

This is a sudo command, so it will ask for your password. Also be careful that you type it out carefully. Logout and log back in.

You can now toggle Dark mode on/off by typing ⌘⌥⌃T.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

[themacosxguru]

Links for December 15, 2014

System replacement fonts for Yosemite.

Interesting attempt at making SublimeText configuration easy.

A rant against proprietary file-formats, and a plug for Slugline.

Be careful. Wear gloves. OSX for Hackers: Yosemite Edition.

Dr. Drang helps you find things in #BBEdit. BBEdit finding - All this

[themacosxguru]

Outline your life with Outlinely

Outlinely Price: $7.99

Outlinely is an interesting mashup between an outliner and a text editor.

Using an Outliner

There are people who love thinking in mind-maps, others love thinking in outlines, and then there are those who love thinking in a hybrid solution of mind-maps and outlines. If you are a person who is into lists or who loves thinking through things in a hierarchy, you probably need an outliner. And no, Microsoft Word’s outline mode doesn’t cut it.

This is a very competitive category in the Mac software space. The 800 pound gorilla in this space is OmniOutliner. It is available in a standard ($49.99) and pro version ($99.99). If you are into outlines and rely on them to think things through, you should get OmniOutliner. It is the best product in the marketplace.

If you are not sure about outlines, or not sure about spending that kind of money on an outlining program, Outlinely is a great alternative. It is a basic outliner, but it does the basics very well.

Outlinely to conquer outlines

You are going to be happy using Outlinely for your outlining needs. The product is well designed, it is simple and has a good help file which runs you through all the things you can do with it, and how to do it. I am not going to give you a rundown through its features except to say that you will find in it everything that you really need to work in outlines.

I am going to highlight two features I particularly liked.

Mark things done

If you have a list of things to do. ⌘ + D will mark it done.

Focus Mode

If your outline is long and complicated and you are getting distracted staring at all the stuff you have already written you can apply focus mode (⌘ + enter) to just concentrate on the section you are interested in. Hit the esc key to get out of focus mode. Useful when you need to concentrate on certain sections of the document and you want the other stuff out of the way.

Conclusions

Outlinely is an elegant, well-designed solution for your outlining needs. It has all the features you need and is an excellent outlining application.

Recommended most heartily.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

[themacosxguru]

Leafnote: One to Avoid

Product: Leafnote

Price: $9.99

One thing it does well

Leafnote does one thing well. If you have a project (a collection of documents) and its contents are broken up into different sections (each individual document), you have the ability to move the sections around in your document. Conceptually, every section, is its own document and you can determine the order of the project as a sequence of different sections. So, effectively, you write the sections, then you order the sections into the best order that you can conceive. Then you export. This is a feature shared with Scrivener, Ulysses, and every other outlining program in the marketplace. Other writing programs let you achieve the same effect, but it is not as smooth and easy as in Leafnote.

All the other things

Nevercenter, the developer describes the product as “super-minimal.” They are not kidding.

There is no preference panel. None. You don’t get to choose the font you write in. You don’t get to tweak the look of anything. You don’t get to do anything to customize the appearance. You have to work, as is.

That has some benefits. Like I said before in the review of Desk, the developers who design these minimal apps believe that preferences are distracting and they are interested in reducing all distractions. A commendable goal, however, I like writing in Nitti, and if I am going to be staring at the screen for hours on end, I want to see the font I want, and not some arbitrary font chosen by the developer.

There is no typewriter scrolling. No dark mode. No ability to change the font size. No ability to change the leading, the amount of vertical space between lines of text. Nothing. The developer makes no effort to provide an environment conducive to writing. I am writing this review in Leafnote and I already have the start of a headache. The font is too small, the space between lines is too scrunched and it is uncomfortable to be here.

What is even more disturbing is that there is no find function. If you have any number of notes, you are going to have to find the right one you are thinking about. That exercise is going to be manual. I have no words to describe how painful that process can be. This is a product designed by someone who doesn’t write much, or has a much better memory than me.

This is a non-standard writing app. It doesn’t support some of the basic features you take for granted in any text editor/note-taking/writing program. This is not a comprehensive list of all the useful stuff which this application does not support: - Doesn’t let you select a word and hit ⌃ + ⌘ + D for dictionary lookup. - Doesn’t let you hit ⌘ + + or ⌘ + -, to increase/reduce the font size. - Doesn’t implement a find function. You have no ability to find anything in this program. The find function does not exist. So the find exercise is completely manual. - Doesn’t let you move a line up or down. You can move sections up and down your master document if you have broken up your content into sections, but individual lines? Only through cut and paste. - No sort fuction. - No fullscreen option.

Conclusion

Leafnote provides a demo for you to try out. You can try it out.

My recommendation is to avoid it.

If you are looking for a writing/note-taking app, you will do much better with a whole slew of alternatives available in the marketplace. This is not a comprehensive list of alternatives which are better than Leafnote at providing you a better designed writing environment:

nvALT, free

TextWrangler, free

Katana, $9.99

Write for Mac, $9.99

People who disagree with me

Leafnote: A text editor that’s powerful in its simplicity | TUAW: Apple news, reviews and how-tos since 2004

Leafnote review: Focus on writing, not on how to use the app | Macworld

Taking note: Leafnote

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

[themacosxguru]

Desk: A Publishing Solution

Desk is a new publishing app on the Mac OS. It is available in the app store and costs $29.99. It lets you write a mix of markdown and WYSIWYG and post to several of the more popular blogging engines.

It is at version 1.0, so we are at the start of the journey of this product.

The stated features/goals of Desk are the following:

The Experience: “True distraction-free interface,” both “Markdown and WYSIWYG,” “speed and efficiency,” and media integration.

Technology: “Your platform”  (WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Facebook, Typepad, Movable Type, Squarespace, and more to come soon), “everywhere you are,” “post management,” and “community powered.” 

Philosophy: “Never changing,” “a storytellers app,” “decisions not options.” 

I am going to write this review keeping in mind the goal of the app and the stated motivations of the developer. And I am going to start at the bottom of the above list of goals.

Storytelling

I agree completely with the developers fascination with stories and the need to tell them. It was interesting for me to read someone else’s take on what I believe. We are the sum total of our stories and we should share, because out of this sharing comes understanding, wisdom and love. I read the developers blog on Storytelling, and found a shared value system. That was the reason behind me buying the program.

Decisions not options

A lot of these minimalistic text editors seem to share the developers take on feature bloat. He states “Every time you give a user an option, you are asking them to make a decision. When a user doesn’t care or understand the option this ultimately leads to frustration.” Makes absolute sense. Only the developers of Microsoft Word would disagree with this notion. Unfortunately, it can be carried a little too far. I like writing with Nitti as my font of choice. The developer doesn’t give you the ability to change the font. It is not a bad font that the program uses. It is actually quite usable, but the choice of a font is not a technically complicated decision. We have been all using computers for a while and we get the mechanics of changing fonts. You want me to live in this program, give me the ability to choose the font I want. This gimmick made sense when iA Writer used it first, that was what? Seven years ago? We are over it. Now can I please use the font I want in my documents?

I understand the need to reduce complexities. I understand that when you take away the preferences, the resultant benefit is the reduction of distractions, but I really like my font, and it’s absence is distracting.

Never changing

The developer addresses the issue of consistency with the following statement, “Just as we have our favorite notebook and our favorite pencil and/or pen, I hope that Desk becomes that emotionally involved in the user’s writing experience – that they can wake up knowing that the app hasn’t changed and so they can do what they need to do: Just simply write.” I find myself agreeing with the sentiment. We are creatures of habit and it feels good to know that my writing environment is going to stay the way it is. There is a comfort to that. It is a little strange talking about emotional attachment to software, but I understand the sentiment. I am emotionally attached to Ulysses III, I live in it. It is always open on my computer, I am always writing in it. I am getting to know the ins and outs of the program and it is my tool of choice. I remember when the first version of Ulysses III was released, I was absolutely distraught, I ranted up a storm. It didn’t have the features I really wanted, it did things I didn’t want it to do, and it did some things badly. I was equally agitated with the first update, but over time, it got better. The developers iterated, the product improved, bugs got fixed, and now I live in the program. Can Desk achieve that kind of an emotional connection with its users? Only time will tell. But consistency is one factor in the road to that kind of emotional connection and the developer of Desk has the right idea.

Your Platform

Desk does a great job of supporting most of the common blogging platforms, and there are more to come. I would like it to support ghost.org and squarespace more comprehensively but that maybe a problem with the blogging platforms not having a public API available for the developers.

Everywhere you are

Desk supports iCloud and local storage. So, you can access your work from multiple computers. I find iCloud very temperamental, I avoid using it. The local storage in Desk for me, is a Dropbox folder. That gives me the benefit of working on my Desk documents wherever I want to, with whichever Mac OS machine is handy.

Post management

Desk lets you manage and edit all your existing posts in the blogging platforms it supports. That makes it easy to revise and update posts from the past. Very useful feature.

Community powered

Desk runs a forum for its customers. The interaction between the users and the developer is going to address the areas of further development of the product. It is seemingly the preferred way of the developer engaging with the users. Small indie developers who are in the App Store have a problem in that they don’t really know who their users are and this is a great solution to the problem of disconnect between the developer and the product. Ulysses developer, The Soulmen, solve this problem by being hyperactive on Twitter. Long time BBEdit developer Bare Bones Software, solves this identical problem by being very active on Twitter and also by running a Google group.

It is not enough to be engaged with users. You have to listen to their suggestions, be responsive to their feedback and add value to the interaction. Community building is a worthy goal but it takes at the minimal, time, involvement and a worthy product. Good examples to emulate would be the Sublime Text community, the BBEdit community, and the Scrivener community. I like the goal, this is what will give the product stickiness in the long run. We shall see how this works out.

I am a little hesitant about the prospects of building a community around Desk. It is a publishing app. There are a lot of writing apps around. Desk is distinguished in that space by its publishing feature. In that space, the competition is a little narrower: MarsEdit, Blogo, and Byword are the ones which come readily to mind. Is it possible to build a community around a blogging app? That is the question. I don’t have the answer, but I have some observations. Communities build around products which are:

Customizable or extendable. SublimeText, TextMate, and Ulysses are good examples of this category. Desk by its design is not customizable or extendable.

Complicated and deep. BBEdit, Adobe Photoshop, Alfred, are good examples of this category. Desk by its design is neither complicated nor deep.

New to the world. In the sense that the products challenge the prevalent way of doing things. They cause, in equal measure, discomfort and ecstasy on the part of the consumer. Scrivener and Ulysses are good examples of this category. Desk by its unique design shows some traction in this space.

Designed to let the user express their individual preferences and choices. Almost all the products I have been talking about exhibit some tendencies towards this customization. Desk by its very nature is anathema to this ability to customize and extend.

Thus my hesitancy in predicting the growth of a community around Desk. However, I am willing to be proved wrong. So we shall see.

Now the juicier parts, the experience of using Desk. Remember, this is version 1.0. There is a lot of room for growth and change. This is a take on the product as it stands today.

A true distraction-free interface

The product is very well designed. Like iA Writer, before it, all the chrome disappears when you start typing in the program. It is an interesting effect, and it helps you to concentrate on your words. It is obviously designed with care and love and it shows all throughout the product.

However, the full-screen implementation is all but broken. It might be usable on a portable Mac, but on a 27inch iMac, I don’t want to have the line I am working on spread across the whole screen. That is impossible to write in. A smaller window with line breaks at 60, 80, or 120 characters, would make it usable. Byword, iA Writer, and a host of others do a much better job of this.

If you are going to introduce a writing application, you have to enable typewriter scrolling. I don’t want to be staring at the bottom of the screen all the time while writing. All of the competition in the writing space implement this feature. Ulysses does it best by being flexible and giving the author the ability to choose any spot on the screen for the feature.

I have noted earlier that the absence of font choices doesn’t curb but cause distractions for me.

Markdown and WYSIWYG

I understand the need for implementing WYSIWYG. There are a lot of people who are not conversant with markdown and they are comfortable with the WYSIWYG method of styling content. It makes sense to cater to them. But if you are going to cater to markdown users you have to implement all of markdown, and do it well. Users can have a choice of mixing and matching if they want, but if they want to just write markdown, they should be able to do that too. In that case, your syntax highlight should work. At this point it works sporadically, as evidenced by the figure below:

This leads me to another issue. Desk saves its files as .dpm files. This is a proprietary format which is understood only by Desk. In reality it is a bundle much like a folder and in the package is a text file and a settings file. The presence of the text file, which contains all the text content of the post, provides me with some hope that if the program goes away or if I want to cease using it, my data will still be available to me. I would prefer it if the program would let me export a markdown file. At this point, it exports to Docx, PDF, HTML, and RTF. I write in markdown. I would like to keep a markdown file for my backup. I know I can always copy and paste to a text editor and get across this problem, but it would be nice to have the function built in.

Shortcuts

I like the plethora of shortcut commands that Desk provides the user. They are much appreciated. Being the “avoid trackpad at all costs” kind of guy, it is a great environment to work in. I like the “quick publish” feature too. Makes the transition from Desk document to published post really simple.

However the shortcut to full screen mode is ⌃ + ⌘ + F (Look at the iWorks apps). That is the system wide shortcut. Why are you making me learn another one? ⌘ + enter is not standard for full screen mode.

Media Integration

Another very nice feature of the program. It is going to be appreciated by the poster who uses a lot of images. Makes the writing and publishing of blog posts completely frictionless and that can only be a good thing.

Conclusions

I like the application. It is very well-designed. It provides a well-designed home for your blogging.

I am looking for the following improvements from the product:

Font choices

Full-screen mode needs work

Typewriter scrolling

Full support for Markdown

The ability to export as Markdown

As a publishing solution, this is a great new product in the marketplace. Has the ability to reduce the friction involved with blogging, and that is a very important feature to have.

Recommended.

macosxguru at the gmail thingie

Some other takes on Desk

Desk: A painless writing and blogging tool for Mac | TUAW: Apple news, reviews and how-tos since 2004