HogBaySoftware
Latest
Folding Text: Markdown-inspired editor with a folding twist
Folding Text (US$14.99) is a handy Markdown-based editing app for the Mac. Brought to you by the developers of WriteRoom and TaskPaper, it displays Hog Bay Software's commitment to clean interface design supporting strong text features. To say Folding Text is a to-do list editor that allows you to show and hide sections is to miss a great deal of the application's nuance. Its enormous feature set makes me think that the people who develop this tool also use this tool, and are growing it to accommodate real-world practical needs. For example, the app offers a checkbox-based "todo" mode and a time-annotated "timer" mode. These help you keep track of tasks to complete as well as when they should occur. By renaming your file with the appropriate extension (myfile.todo or myfile.timer), you unlock feature sets that add further structure to your lists. The video below demonstrates these. Keeping the isolated WriteRoom philosophy in mind, Folding Text can also "focus" on a portion of a list. This allows you to concentrate on just one part of your organization work at a time. For example, if you're working on a complicated schedule, Folding Text can hide away extraneous bits until you're ready to deal with them. What Folding Text delivers is a clean Markdown-based editor with a lot of end-user control over what you see and what you hide. For anyone who works with lists and wants a simple and uncluttered way to edit them, Folding Text provides a worthy entrant into a field dominated by the Omni Group and Cultured Code.
TaskPaper for iPhone, simplified to-do lists go mobile
TaskPaper, from the developer of WriteRoom, has been around for a while, and we've been talking about it since version 1.0. After what seems like a long wait, TaskPaper for iPhone is out. The super-simple to-do list with surprisingly robust capabilities is now mobile, and syncs with the desktop version (through Simpletext.ws) for a complete task management solution. The interesting aspect of TaskPaper is that it uses plain text files with minimal formatting to create and manage to-do lists. The file is easily read by other applications, and things such as tags and due dates are handled in a very human-readable format. The iPhone version offers the functionality of the desktop version, and the two work together quite well. Current users of TaskPaper on the desktop should note the format changes in TaskPaper files. TaskPaper costs $29.99US for the desktop version. At $4.99US, the iPhone version makes a great counterpart and a very useful addition to your productivity toolset.
First Look: WriteRoom for iPhone
Just like its Mac counterpart, WriteRoom for iPhone gives you a simple application to create a document in. When you open WriteRoom you are presented with a black screen -- all of your documents are located here. Clicking on a document name will place you in editing mode.To create a document, just tap on the "+" button at the top right of the screen and a blank document will show up with a subtle blinking cursor against a black background.WriteRoom's developer has created a neat way to retrieve documents from your iPhone and get them on your computer. You can browse, edit, and even create a new document on your iPhone from Safari. All of this is dynamic, so as soon as you create a document in Safari, it appears on your iPhone and vice versa (a web page reload is necessary in your web browser). The main problem with Bonjour sharing over Safari is that it only works with Safari's Bonjour bookmarks. Overall, WriteRoom for iPhone is solid, just works, and is completely worth the $5 (US). WriteRoom is simplicity at it's best, and has a very nice user interface without distractions and fancy addons. You can purchase WriteRoom for the iPhone from the iTunes AppStore for $4.99 (US). Be sure to check out our gallery of WriteRoom screenshots.%Gallery-31897%
WriteRoom 2.0 goes official
We reported a WriteRoom 2.0 beta from Hog Bay Software early last month, and the company has now announced an official release. Version 2.0, as you might remember, brings with it rich text editing, a live word count, saving documents wherever you please and a standard text/rich text storage format and more. In addition to an official version release, WriteRoom's price is now $24.95 (up from its previous 'free' and $14.95-while-in-beta prices).WriteRoom 2.0 is a Universal Binary, and a free demo is available.Thanks everyone who sent this in.
