text editor
Latest
Typed brings a touch of Zen to a minimalist Markdown editor
This seems to be the week for great new text editors. First, we had Desk (US$29.99), a new minimalist Mac writing environment that works great with many blogging platforms including WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, Facebook,and more. I liked its totally distraction-free UI, the ability to use Markdown and some built-in text ornamentation tools interchangeably, and one-click quick publishing to WordPress. Today Realmac Software launched Typed ($19.99), a very similar Mac app with some features that may be more attractive to some writers and bloggers than Desk. As with Desk, launching Typed opens a minimalist interface - essentially a blank piece of paper onto which you can type. That piece of paper comes with an inspirational quote about writing on it that disappears once you've started typing. On the left side of the "paper" window are three buttons that only appear when you hover over them. The topmost button looks like a capital T and allows you to select your paper color - white, sepia, or black - the typeface, and whether or not you want a responsive layout (i.e., have the layout and text size respond to being slimmed down to iPhone or iPad width). The middle button, a pair of glasses, gives you a preview how your text will look in a web browser. Links appear underlined and are active, headings are in the correct size, and strong/emphasized text looks the way it should. A left arrow takes you back to the editor when clicked. I found the typography of Typed to be quite nice, although it really only makes a difference in the editor; previews always appear to be in the same set of fonts. Finally, the bottom button is a share button. Clicking it brings up a list of things you can do with your document - copying it as HTML, sending it via Mail, sending it via Messages, zapping it to another Mac or iOS 8 device via AirDrop, or even using it in different apps via Extensions. At the top of your document is the title, and of course a way to save the current document. iCloud Drive is supported in Typed, and the app creates a folder especially for Typed. Other than that, Typed provides a running word count for statistics - click on it, and you can see how many characters you've used as well. Typed makes more use of menus than does Desk, although you can pretty much use the default settings and be set. Preferences are pretty minimal - you can select from one of eight interfaces, each of which has its own UI sound effects and music associated with it. That music only appears when you're in "Zen mode". That's turned on with a menu selection or by typing Command-Y, and puts the app into full-screen mode. You can have transparency turned on (just slightly) to see your Mac's wallpaper if you wish, and there's also a soundtrack that will play as you type (it can also be toggled off to work in complete silence). Unlike with Desk, which has a built-in way to work with many content management systems (CMS), Typed pretty much just lets you save in a native Markdown format or export as HTML or RTF. This can be handy when using a CMS that accepts either Markdown or HTML as formatted input. Just copy what you've entered into Typed to paste as Markdown, export as HTML if that's the way you swing, or copy as HTML if that's what your CMS wants to see. Like Desk, Typed is very minimalist and quite nice if you don't want distractions while writing. Typed is $10 less expensive than Desk, but doesn't include the very useful one-click publishing feature. If you want calming sounds during writing (I don't), they're available in Typed. Desk's pop-up menu for selected text makes it easy to add ornamentation or links without the need to either remember a Markdown shortcut or use the menu bar -- that's something that is missing from Typed. Also missing is the ability to drag and drop an image onto Typed to publish it to a content management system, another handy feature of Desk. Here, you're going to need to upload the image separately and then add an image reference link. The bottom line? Typed is a really well done Markdown text editor that's perfect if you need Markdown or HTML output with a minimum of fuss. If you want to publish directly to your favorite blog with one click, spend the extra ten bucks for Desk.
Desk: A painless writing and blogging tool for Mac
For writers and bloggers, the choice of a text editor can make a huge difference in productivity. The best tools simply fade out of the way and let you write, then magically transform your work into published format with a click. That's the case with developer John Saddington's new app, simply named Desk (US$29.99). After using it for a few days, it has become my default text editor, replacing a half dozen other apps that were clogging my Applications folder. My apologies to all of those other developers... When you're typing, user interface items simply disappear from Desk - you're actually typing on a blank page. Move your pointer with mouse or trackpad, and you begin to see some of the elements. At the bottom of the page you'll see exactly when the current document was last saved, a character count, a word count, and reading time. That last statistic gives you an idea of how long it will take an average reader to fully digest your post. In the right sidebar is the typical scroll bar as well as a vertical toolbar that provides useful functions - a tool for creating new local posts and seeing your local drafts, a way to publish your work to a number of different blogging systems including the ever-popular WordPress with one click, a preview mode so you can see how your document converts over to published formats, and a help button. Many bloggers are probably asking themselves right now "So what about Markdown support?" What's fascinating about Desk is that it doesn't force you to use Markdown for text formatting (sorry, John Gruber) although you can if you are familiar with Markdown syntax and wish to use it. Double-clicking any word or phrase in a document brings up a WYSIWYG text ornamentation pop-up with such common items as bold, italic, underlined, headings 1-6, block quote, links, numeric or bulleted lists, and justification. You can have numerous documents open at any time, each in its own resizable window, or just toggle the current window between your drafts. Desk supports full-screen mode, a transparency mode (not sure why, as the window floating against my Yosemite wallpaper was unreadable), a day/night mode if you want to toggle between black text on a white background or vice-versa, and a "float window" mode that keeps a window foremost on the screen even when you're not actively typing in it. Adding images to a WordPress post was too simple - all I needed to do was grab the local image and drop it onto the post, then use the alignment popup to get it where I wanted it. When publishing to WordPress, it uploaded the image and placed it in the correct location. Resizing an image is as simple as dragging the corner of the image, and Desk gives you the pixel dimensions of the image as you resize. I did run into an issue when I tried to connect Desk to some WordPress blogs that I have. Desk somehow calls the xmlrpc.php file in WordPress to authenticate itself, and my hosting provider initially saw that as a denial of service attack and locked me out of my sites. A quick email to the developer pointed me to a help page and video on how to capture some UserAgent info in Terminal, which was passed along to both the developer and the hosting provider. I can't guarantee that every Desk user will receive the same amazing support I did (after all, I am a tech blogger!) but I was quite impressed. It also helped immensely that John Saddington knew the WordPress expert at my hosting provider... Using Desk for blogging, you can actually set up one site for "quick publish" so that you just have to click the quick publish button on the toolbar and your post is published in seconds. Selecting a specific blog rather than using quick publish, you can add a category and tags to a post from within the app. Need to make changes after you've published? No problem - there's an "update post" menu item. Desk plays nice with iCloud, too. I've chosen to save my drafts and documents in iCloud, something you can select from the title bar of the document. I should point out that at present, Desk doesn't work with iCloud Drive, but that's one of many things on the developer's to-do list. Desk has worked flawlessly for me with WordPress; not so with our proprietary CMS here at TUAW. I've actually had to resort to exporting my Desk document as HTML, then opening it in another text editor to copy and paste into our CMS. Awkward... The app isn't perfect, but it's darned close and considering that this is a first release, I'm impressed. There are no unnecessary "features", and it's obvious that Saddington practices what he preaches by blogging - with Desk, of course - about his development process. The Mac App Store is currently featuring Desk as a Best New App, so it's apparent that the App Store editors feel the same way about Desk as I do. I look forward to seeing how Desk evolves in the future, and hope that Saddington can stay away from the "creeping featuritis" that seems to hit so many Mac and iOS text editors.
Leafnote: A text editor that's powerful in its simplicity
Bloggers and writers have one very bad habit -- we love to try out different tools for putting words onto blank pages. For me, that means that just about very time a new text editor comes on the market, I end up trying it out. Many of the text editors and writing tools that I've tested have been extremely powerful, loading things up with multiple document panes, Markdown support, themes, and all sorts of things that I end up never using. That's why I was intrigued with Leafnote (US$9.99), a new OS X text editor that's designed to let writers do away with fancy features and just focus on organization and getting words out of their minds. Developer John Plewe of Nevercenter Ltd. (also known for the popular CameraBag 2 and Silo Mac apps) says that he wrote Leafnote for his own use. Plewe says that "I'm a developer and wannabe author, so it's mostly designed from the perspective of keeping my ideas and half-finished stories around, or letting novel projects slowly grow over time." And that's a good description of how Leafnote works; it has an easy organizational tool for focusing on parts of an overall project. Leafnote uses some analogies from nature -- a tree is the complete project, made up of a number of "leaves" that are "children" of the tree. For example, let's say you're writing a novel. The novel would be the tree, individual chapters would be leaves. Each of those leaves can have child leaves as well; Plewe says that there's no limit to how "deep" you can go, although in the current version you might run out of screen space since there's no horizontal scroll in the tree (that's coming soon). The writing space is likewise quite simple; there's no ruler, just a blank piece of virtual paper. On the left side of the paper is a graphical representation of your tree, showing every leaf you've created. Each leaf can be named separately, and the icon changes from pure white to "lined paper" once text has been added to a leaf. Four buttons are visible at the top of the sidebar; one for adding an item, another for adding a child item, a third for duplicating an item, and the last for deleting an item. The organizational tools are about as difficult as Leafnote gets. When it comes to formatting text, you have your choice of bold, italic, and underline, as well as having the text right, left or center-justified. That's it. Want to add links? Nope. Want to add footnotes? Nope -- unless you create them as leaves for future formatting with another tool. If it sounds like I'm being critical of the simplicity of Leafnote, I'm not. In fact, I've found over the years that when I begin using more advanced editors like Ulysses, I start paying more attention to how to use the tool than just sitting down and writing. Leafnote reminds me of TextEdit in that it is simple to use, and the addition of the tree-and-leaf structure makes it possible to easily organize even complex projects. Once your draft is done in Leafnote and you want to move the document to more advanced publishing tools, the app can currently export in .rtf and .odt rich text formats as well as the .txt plaintext format. If you want to print a copy of your document, that's possible too -- I saved a copy of a project as a PDF file and it looked quite nice. Leafnote also lets you save projects as template files for future use. Exporting and printing can be done by leaf or by tree, so whether you want to share just a chapter or a complete novel, Leafnote makes it possible. Since Leafnote is in its infancy, there is plenty of room for growth. I'd like to see support for iCloud or Dropbox syncing, a way to change the default font size and type, and ... that's about it. Add any more features, and it might start getting too complex. Right now, the power of Leafnote really lies in its simplicity. Leafnote requires OS X 10.6.6 or later and a 64-bit processor.
Ulysses III gets monster 'Warp 1' update
With a week to go until the beginning of NaNoWriMo, it's not surprising that a favorite text-editing tool has received an update. Ulysses III version 1.1 brings -- according to The Soulmen -- over 287 tweaks, fixes and optimizations, including OS X Mavericks compatibility "bang on time." The other changes are numerous enough that there's neither time nor space to list them here, so I'll give you some highlights: Sidebar search: highlights terms in a fully semantic search. Customizable export styles: includes export to Word while keeping style names. ePub export: Go from Ulysses III to e-bookstore in one fell swoop. Built-in preview: includes HTML and PDF preview based on style sheets applied, with live updating. Smart paste: paste as text, code block, raw source or paste from HTML or Markdown. Ulysses Style Sheets: what makes beautiful Rich Text or PDF documents possible. There are a lot more changes than that... The US$44.99 app is an impressive text-editing powerhouse, and this comprehensive update adds a lot more to the menu. The update is available via the Mac App Store's Updates capability.
Marked 2 for OS X arrives from the mind of Brett Terpstra
When he's not working behind the scenes at AOL to make sites like Engadget, TUAW and Joystiq look great, Brett Terpstra spends his time writing books and developing amazing apps. Today Brett announced the availability of Marked 2 (US$11.99), the latest iteration of his Markdown preview application for OS X. To start with, here's what Marked is all about: if you use a text editor to write formatted documents in Markdown, Marked provides a real-time preview of how that formatting will look once your document is posted online or printed. The original version of the app is still supported and available on the App Store for $3.99, but longtime users of Marked will definitely want to point themselves in the direction of the Marked 2 website and get the new version with all of its many features: Built-in MultiMarkdown 4.2, including in-line footnotes Support for Fountain and CriticMarkup Improved search features, including case-sensitive and whole-word options Live highlighting of common or overused phrases Additional export file types, including DOC, DOCX, ODT, RTF, RTFD with included images, and paginated PDF The full feature set is included in the PR blast below. TUAW will have a full review of Marked 2 in the near future. Show full PR text Marked 2 released for Mac OS X - Published on 09/26/13 Brett Terpstra today releases Marked 2 for OS X. Marked allows you to preview your Markdown as you write in your favorite text editor. It tracks your file changes & updates the preview as you go, automatically scrolling to the point in the file where you're currently working. Marked 2 brings a new level of high-quality writing tools to the best Markdown previewer in the world. In addition to Scrivener support, it now supports everything from clipboard previews to MarsEdit blog post previews. Winona, Minnesota - Independent developer, author and blogger, Brett Terpstra today is pleased to announce the release of Marked 2 for OS X. Marked is an app which allows you to preview your Markdown (in any flavor) as you write in your favorite text editor. It tracks your file changes and updates the preview as you go, even automatically scrolling to the point in the file where you're currently working. Marked 2 expands the feature set greatly. Marked 2 ($11.99) includes a rewrite of the file watching system for speed and accuracy. It speeds up just about every part of the app, making it even easier to get your work done without worrying about how it's going to look or waiting for your preview to update. In addition to Scrivener support, Marked now supports everything from clipboard previews to MarsEdit blog post previews. It has a fast search, keyword highlighting and much more. Here's a taste: * MultiMarkdown 4.2 built in, including inline footnotes * Alternative "Discount" parser built in * Fountain support * CriticMarkup support * Advanced document statistics with reading time and readability indexes * Custom processor, pre-processor and additional arguments fields * Collapse/expand sections by headlines for fast navigation New and improved search features: * Case sensitive option * Whole word option * Regular expressions * CSS selector searching * Keyword highlighting: * Live highlighting of common/overused phrases * Regex/wildcard search for keyword/phrase highlighting * Keyword drawer with match counter to easily add temporary keywords for highlighting while previewing HTML preview improvements: * Detect images in Markdown and HTML and watch for changes * Detect php include('file')s and watch for changes * Detect JS and CSS in HTML files and add them to the watch list More ways to incorporate Marked into your workflow: * MarsEdit preview * VoodooPad preview of current page * Preview clipboard * Watch any folder and preview the most recently changed file within it Export palette/Export additional file types: * Export DOC, DOCX or ODT * Export RTF, or RTFD with included images * Paginated PDF export option Pricing and Availability: Marked 2 is available exclusively through Paddle for $11.99 (USD). For a limited time, Marked is available as part of the "Cheaper By The Dozen" bundle from Paddle. For $34.99 you can get a wide variety of quality Mac apps, including Marked 2, Raskin, Habits and many more. For a detailed overview of Marked 2 features, please take a look at the documentation online. Marked 2: http://marked2app.com Documentation: http://marked2app.com/help/ Cheaper By The Dozen Mac Bundle: https://www.paddle.com/bundle/cheaper-by-the-dozen-mac-bundle Download Trial: http://marked2app.com/download/Marked.zip Screenshot: http://marked2app.com/img/hedimg-marked.jpg App Icon: http://marked2app.com/img/Marked-512.png Brett Terpstra is an independent developer, author and blogger living in Minnesota, US. Copyright (C) 2012 Brett Terpstra. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, and Macintosh are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.
Daily iPad App: You can't go wrong with Write
There's no shortage of text editors available for the iPad, and if you're someone who uses your tablet for word processing on a regular basis you've probably been through at least a few of them. Write is one such app, and while its straightforward design masks a lot of its bells and whistles, it proves to be one of the most capable productivity apps available. Write features full Markdown support, allowing you to compose a document using syntax and then preview the final result in real-time even as you're still editing. You can activate the standard text editor features you'd expect - like bolding, italics, etc - as well as more advanced features like in-document tables via a slim toolbar just above the keyboard. This makes composing a document a smoother overall experience than when using most other word processor apps, simply because everything you need to complete your work is readily available on your screen at all times. One of the slickest features that helps set Write apart is its various swipe controls. Depending on your individual settings you can swipe downward on the screen to delete or save a document, swipe to the right to view works you've previously saved, and swipe to the left to view all available sharing options. Speaking of sharing options, Write has perhaps the most comprehensive list of sharing tools available on an iPad text editor. You can email your document as an attachment, HTML, plain text, or PDF. You can shoot your text out to the world via Twitter or Facebook, or save it to Google Drive, Evernote, or PasteBin. Oh, and the app offers automatic syncing via Dropbox and iCloud. When it comes down to it, text editor apps aren't particularly sexy, but if you're looking for an extremely capable word processor for your tablet you just can't go wrong with Write. The app is priced at an almost laughably low $1.99, which only makes this recommendation even easier. If you type on your iPad, you should probably get Write.
Daily iPhone App: Daedalus Touch
If there's one thing bad about being a tech blogger, it's that you're constantly exposed to new and exciting hardware and software. More often than not, a first glance at an app turns into a buying opportunity, and the next thing you know you've spent anywhere from $0.99 to "a big amount" on the latest and greatest. That was the situation I found myself in with an OS X text editor called Ulysses III (US$39.99) after Megan Lavey-Heaton wrote about it. Well, it turns out that I'm now using Ulysses every day for blogging, and that it also has a companion iOS app named Daedalus Touch ($4.99, universal), which of course I had to buy. Both apps are products of German development house The Soulmen GBR, and there are some similarities between the two. Both work on the concept of stacks of sheets of paper and both are amazing plaintext editors. Install Daedalus Touch on your iPhone or iPad, choose to sync it with iCloud, and a Daedalus folder shows up in Ulysses III on your Mac. One of the features of Ulysses III that I appreciate so much is the "fourth pane" that can be added to the app window that provides one-click access to just about every Markdown style. While Daedalus doesn't supply that pane, it does support export of Markdown style conversions from the app. However, I made up for the lack of that pane by just creating a text document with the Markdown commands I use most often. Like Ulysses III, there's a row of customizable shortcut buttons that appear over the top of the iOS virtual keyboard. That keyboard row also displays a character and word count, perfect for authors who are tied to a specific document length. Daedalus Touch can import files or folders from Dropbox, WebDAV, and Box.com, and even opens zipped text files. Documents can be exported as single or multiple sheets, or entire stacks of sheets. The export options available include emailing as TXT, PDF, RTF, and zip archive, creating an ePub ebook file (including asking for a cover image and meta information), printing, converting Markdown styles, copying to the iOS clipboard, or opening documents in other iOS apps. There are four different color themes, including modes for editing at night, and three nice typefaces. One of my favorite features in Daedalus Touch has to be its excellent use of gestures for navigation in the app, many of which are included in the video embedded below. Another nice touch is a web browser built into the iPad version of Daedalus Touch, which makes it quite easy to do research without having to leave the app. The Soulmen GBR have created a winner with Daedalus Touch, and if you've already succumbed to the charms of Ulysses III, do yourself a favor and get the iOS app.
MultiMarkdown Composer 2 is a powerful, flexible Markdown-based text editor
MultiMarkdown Composer 2 has just been released and is currently available for US$5. Long story short: if you like to write in Markdown, you should get this app. Why MultiMarkdown? Markdown has been around for almost a decade, and has not changed much since its initial release. It gives people a simple way to make readable documents which are easily converted into HTML. MultiMarkdown was created to add some frequently-requested features such as table support and footnotes, as well as working around some difficulties in Markdown itself, such as 'underscores in URLs' (or what I like to call "How do you solve a problem like Wikipedia links?") I find MultiMarkdown's footnote support to be hugely beneficial, and consider it fairly essential to any significant writing that I do. Why MultiMarkdown Composer? The biggest challenge facing people who write in Markdown these days is that there are a whole host of different variations of Markdown out there. Most of them either add some feature to Markdown or fix some problem. Some of them might say that they are using 'Markdown' but are actually using a variant. For example, Tumblr says that it supports Markdown, but it also automatically links URLs (which isn't what strict Markdown down) and adds support for MultiMarkdown-style footnotes. Now, I happen to think that MultiMarkdown is the most useful variant of Markdown because the changes and additions bring features that I like, but if you want strict Markdown syntax enforcement, MultiMarkdown Composer can help you too. Just choose Format > Markdown instead of Format > MultiMarkdown. However, I think a better option is to write locally in MultiMarkdown using MultiMarkdown Composer, and then have it generate the HTML that you will use to post into whatever blog or CMS that you are using. That way you will not be relying on someone else's interpretation or implementation of Markdown, and can still use all of the additions that MultiMarkdown has to offer. New Features in MultiMarkdown Composer version 2 Live Preview: One of my favorite features in MultiMarkdown Composer version 2 is the live-preview. While version 1 integrated very well with Marked, I often found it frustrating to have to switch to another app to see my document previewed. Actually I find it annoying to have to switch to another window. There are several 'Markdown editors' available, and several of them have offered a 'split screen' mode where the window is divided into two halves: left side for editing, right side for preview.[1] MultiMarkdown Composer version 2 supports this feature and lets you choose which side you want to use for preview. MultiMarkdown Composer comes with several 'CSS-like' stylesheets to customize how the preview and editor is displayed, and it is very easy to adapt them if you want to make your own. If you still want to use MultiMarkdown Composer with Marked, you can do that too, or you can just turn off the preview window altogether if you want to focus on writing. There are three 'modes' which you can use: Typewriter Mode, which keeps the current line centered on the screen as you type Focus Mode which blurs the top and bottom of the current document. There is also a preference setting to allow you to control the 'Focus Mask Height' which determines how much of the document will be shown or hidden when in Focus Mode. Auto Zoom which will automatically resize the editor as you resize the window. Auto-zoom is a bit hard to explain, but very cool to see in practice. If you are writing on a small screen and want to simply focus on what you are writing, I suggest turning off the preview, turn on Auto Zoom, and make the MultiMarkdown Composer window full-screen. Inspectors: MultiMarkdown Composer now also has three floating inspectors: Info, References, and Table Of Contents (TOC). Each of the inspectors can be toggled using a keyboard shortcut for easy access when you need them, or to hide them when you don't. The Info panel contains a running count for words, characters, and lines. The Reference panel keeps a handy list of your reference links, and makes it easy to insert them again if you need to use them in more than once place. The Table Of Contents panel not only lets you see the entire outline of your document, but it allows you to drag and drop different sections and rearrange your Markdown document. That's incredibly cool and useful, especially if you are writing a longer document and need to reorganize it. Built in Cheat Sheet: I wrote a quick primer for Markdown, but MultiMarkdown Composer now has something even better: a built-in syntax guide which you can open (and close) using the keyboard shortcut ⌘ + / (or use the "Help" menu). This will give you fast access not only to the basics of Markdown, but also the special syntax additions available in MultiMarkdown. Elastic Tabstops: I have to admit that I had never heard of Elastic Tabstops before, but for those of you who don't write everything in 12pt Inconsolata-g with real tabs, I could see how this would be useful. (MultiMarkdown Composer also has a feature to change tabs to spaces or vice versa.) 'Old' features in MultiMarkdown Composer which are very handy: MultiMarkdown Composer has features to clean up metadata, lists, and tables which is very handy. It also does a very good job of determining when you are creating a list and continuing it automatically. There's also a 'Toggle List Type' option (which may be new or maybe I just missed it before) which will change an ordered (numbered) list into an unordered (bulleted) list. Pricing You probably know the drill by now: Apple doesn't give developers any way to offer 'upgrade pricing' so when new versions of apps are released, developers generally offer the app for a reduced price for a limited time. That allows existing users to buy the new version for a reduced price, but also allows new users to get it for that price too. While I think this is sort of a raw deal for developers who are losing a significant amount of profit for new users, it doesn't appear that Apple is going to change this policy any time soon. If you are reading this after the introductory price has expired, don't worry, you will still be buying a great app which is well worth the asking price. Use Markdown? Use MultiMarkdown Composer. I have been writing in Markdown for as long as I can remember, and have been writing in MultiMarkdown since I learned of it. For me it's a simple decision, I've tried several different 'markdown text editors' and I keep coming back to MultiMarkdown Composer. If you have been thinking about learning Markdown or MultiMarkdown, MultiMarkdown Composer makes it very easy to do. You can find out more about MultiMarkdown Composer at http://multimarkdown.com or learn more about MultiMarkdown Syntax to see why it's a better alternative. Mou might not have been the first app to offer it, but it was the first that I saw. ↩
Nice roundup of Markdown-ready Mac apps
Markdown can be a huge time saver, once you figure out how to use the lightweight markup language. Learning it, though, can be daunting to those with little or no prior knowledge of HTML. To help get you started, Appstorm recently published a list of over 35 different OS X apps that support the language. The list is broken down into preview apps, regular editors, distraction-free editors, editors for the programmer and other text-based apps like the journal Day One that integrate Markdown. You can check out the full list on Appstorm's website and then read our Markdown primer, which contains the basic syntax to help get you started.
VIM 101: a quick-and-dirty guide to our favorite free file editor
In the world of text editors, there's a plethora of options out there. If you've ever Googled "how to edit HTML sites" or some such, you know what we mean. Allow us, then, to introduce you to VIM, a free website editor that offers many of the same features as Adobe Dreamweaver, and runs on just about every desktop platform. Specifically, it comes by default on the vast majority of Linux distributions, OS X and commercial Unix systems. (It's available to install on Windows, too.) And did we mention it's free? That command line UI isn't necessarily self-explanatory, though, so join us after the break for a quick crash course to help you get started.
Video shows another way Apple could implement text editing on iPad
As noticed by iDownloadBlog, YouTube user danielchasehooper has come up with an idea that would simplify text editing on the iPad by making it even easier to select text. Instead of tap, hold and zoom to select text, you could use a finger swipe to move the cursor and hold shift to select the text. You can check out the concept in the YouTube video embedded below and let us know what you think in the comments. [Via iDownloadblog]
VIM Adventures teaches you keyboard shortcuts, :%s/n00b/pro/gc in no time
If you've ever had the pleasure of using VIM, the popular Linux (and other platforms) text editor, you'll know that dark magic lies within its keyboard shortcuts. However, with so many to learn, where do you start? Well, some fine fellow (Doron Linder to be precise) thought the answer to that question was a neat little fantasy adventure game. VIM adventures coaxes you through the learning process via ingenious little tasks that teach you the shortcuts along the way, all washed down with a healthy glug of gaming nostalgia. Before long you'll have the keys to the castle and, of course, unabated word processing prowess. Tap j to hit the source link and get started.
iTextEditors provides quick app reference for plain text fans
The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who love to edit text files on the iPad, and those who really, really don't. For everyone in the first group, our resident mad scientist Brett Terpstra (ably assisted by a crew of volunteers including TUAW contributor Michael Jones) has kicked off the iTextEditors reference page. The page provides a full feature matrix for more than 30 iOS editors, with more entries on the way. Looking for an editor with printing capability, Dropbox sync and word count for $0.99? The chart's got you covered (several times over, actually, including iA Writer). Brett plans to continue updating the page indefinitely, so if you're a developer (or ardent and well-informed fan) of an application that's not yet on his list, check out the page and let him know.
Daily Mac App and Friday Favorite: CodeRunner
CodeRunner is a text editor for people who write code. It comes with built-in syntax highlighting for AppleScript, C, C++, Java, JavaScript (Node.js), Objective,C, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, or shell scripting. I have been using it for a few months, mostly for writing shell scripts, and love it. The color coding makes it easy to immediately tell when I am missing a quote or some other basic syntax flaw, which means making fewer mistakes. It automatically applies templates (which are editable) to new files, so whenever I start a new shell script, it automatically includes the header lines and some other settings that I always use. In fact, it defaults to using the same template as the last kind of file you saved, so if you tend to write in one language, it will automatically pick that language and template. Otherwise you can choose manually. One of my favorite aspects of it is a built-in terminal console, which lets you test the script without switching over to Terminal or iTerm. A recent update even made it possible to define arguments, compilations flags, or arguments before sending it to the built-in console. The console automatically appears when needed, and can be shown/hidden with a keyboard command. CodeRunner offers "completions" (for example: automatically adding a closing bracket when you open one), but it also lets you turn that off if you don't like it. There are even themes to change the color combinations. I tend to prefer a simple black-on-white, but there are several dark background/light type options as well. In Lion, CodeRunner supports Autosaving, Versions and Fullscreen mode. It also supports "tabs" (multiple documents in one window) if you want to use them, but doesn't require them. Generally I don't like tabs in any apps except web browsers, but it is handy to have the option to keep related files together when working on separate projects. CodeRunner isn't going to replace a complex program like BBEdit with integrated FTP and a multitude of configurable options, but it doesn't need to. I own, use, and love BBEdit, but I use CodeRunner exclusively for writing shell scripts now, and vastly prefer it for that purpose. If you want a lightweight tool for writing scripts, you should definitely check it out on its home page or download it from the Mac App Store for $10. (Also: if you use regular expressions -- especially if you have trouble with them -- be sure to also checkout Patterns, an app by the same developer which makes it much easier to see how they expand. I'll probably review that more fully another day but it's currently on sale for $3 instead of $5, so you might want to check it out soon.)
Daily iPad App: Elements 2
Elements is one of many text editors available in the App Store. It supports Dropbox, Markdown and TextExpander which makes it popular among iOS users. It's available for the iPhone, iPod touch and the iPad, but the iPad version really shines as a text editor. Version 2 was just released and adds several notable features for editing and exporting documents. The iPad version uses the entire screen and the large onscreen keyboard, which makes it easy to create a text document or markdown file from scratch or edit an existing one on the fly. I don't have a Bluetooth keyboard and was unable to test this functionality in the latest version of the app. All documents can be uploaded to your Dropbox account and synced across devices. Even when you are offline, the file changes will be saved and uploaded when you connect. Elements uploads files to a default /Dropbox/Elements/ folder and you still can't change that location. Variety is the spice of life and Elements has a bunch of export options that let you save your file as an HTML or PDF document. You can export the document to Tumblr, Facebook, Dropbox, Evernote, iTunes, and email. The editor UI has also been tweaked with a new dealt font of Museo Sans, a new Markdown preview view and appearance settings that are now available from the within the app. Elements 2 also removed the ability to change the background color setting, a change that users of the earlier version may find annoying. Elements is a very capable text editor for the writer or coder that uses their iPad regularly. It's a universal app available for US$4.99 from the App Store.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: Byword
To a writer a decent text editor is worth its weight in gold. Unlike Word or Pages, Byword is a text editor that gives you just enough to get the job done, while getting out of your way. In its most basic form it's a plain text editor, but it can also produce and edit rich-text files and MultiMarkdown support, meaning that for the most part, you can get almost any sort of creative writing done within its minimalist writing interface. When windowed, Byword gives you a svelte borderless writing experience, but when full-screen it removes all distractions with a blank off-white background that fills the screen with just a single column of text with some great typography in the center. Various tools like a file type indicator or word and character counters are available at the bottom of the screen in faint text, while search and full-screen buttons are hidden in the top right hand corner. The font size, color, column width and typography can all be customized, even allowing white text on a black background if required. Byword also includes a "focus" mode, which highlights a portion of the text (shown above), fading out the rest. You can choose from one to nine lines or just one paragraph to include in the highlight, which allows you to concentrate on just the text needed at the time. For US$9.99 Byword is a great text editor, providing just enough functionality while getting out of your way.
Ommwriter for iPad joins the distraction-free writing fray
The iPad is a writing tool for many. It's something you can pop into a bag, pair with a keyboard and use for composition on-the-go. Most users graduate beyond the Notes app quickly, and that's when a text editor like Ommwriter for iPad (US$4.99) is considered. Ommwriter was born as a "distraction-free" text editor for the Mac ($4.99 in the Mac App Store; a free version is also available). Its unique features -- background image, ethereal music and key-press sound effects -- are also on the iPad app, along with a few others. The app's uniqueness is also polarizing. Many people either love it or can't stand it. The short of my review is this: if you like Ommwriter for the Mac, with its New Age music and bony trees, you'll love it on your iPad. If you don't, the iPad app will grate on your very last nerve. Here are the specifics. %Gallery-127340% UI Ommwriter for iPad offers a wintry scene at launch. Barren trees stand in a snowy field as snowflakes fall from a grey sky. A musical arrangement of wind chimes, synthesizers and other electronic bits and bobs can be heard, while a cursor blinks in the upper left-hand corner. This is your new document. With a Bluetooth keyboard or Apple's iPad Keyboard Dock attached, you're ready to begin typing. Those without a hardware keyboard can use the software keyboard, but it's not what you might expect. It, too, has been "Ommwriter-ified." Tap the "0" at the bottom of the page (that number is a running word count) to summon it forth. Ommwriter's software keyboard exists in a semi-transparent rectangle with rounded edges and rests on the lower half of the screen (note that the keyboard is only available in the landscape orientation). As you type, three things happen. First, each letter is placed at the cursor, as you'd expect. Each key press also leaves a ghost image on the keyboard itself. A small splotch of dark grey appears at your finger's landing point before fading away over two or three seconds. Finally, the keyboard itself jiggles with each tap, as if it were made of Jell-O. This behavior is in keeping with the app's overall aesthetic, but I found it distracting. That's it for the app's looks. Now onto the function. Use Typing is easy enough, but there are some rough spots. First and foremost is the lack of auto-correct. It's safe to assume that many users will use the software keyboard, as they want the full Ommwriter experience. I typically make the most errors with an on-screen keyboard. In fact, Ommwriter increased the time required to get something written. This is less of a problem with a hardware keyboard (note that key-press sounds are unavailable with a hardware keyboard). Also, the key-press "ghosting" animation makes the keyboard look muddy once you're typing quickly. When you're done, you can save your document by tapping the wrench icon on the keyboard's lower left-hand corner to open the preferences window. Tap the second icon from the right (it looks like a sheet of paper) to save it to a list of documents. From there, you can open any document, rename it, duplicate it or share it via email (the default output is .txt; PDF is also available). Finally, you can delete any document from the list. Preferences Ommwriter for iPad offers decent options for its look and feel. Again, tap the wrench icon to produce the preferences screen. You'll find seven settings: type style, type size, background image, "music," key-press sound effect (including silence), save (as described above) and brightness. You've got four font styles to choose from, from serifs to script to all lower-case (urgh). There are four font size options, with the largest being nice and legible. There are seven background images available, and all but two are very heavy on dreary greys. There are seven sound effects options, or eight if you include silence. Three are new-agey type music that's heavy on the synths and chimes. Other options include chirping crickets, a noisy office (rustling papers, footsteps walking about, muffled voices, etc.) and finally... breathing plus a vacuum cleaner. I've no idea what to make of the last audio track. It starts with the sound of halting breathing, and after a few seconds the unmistakable sound of a vacuum cleaner is heard. It runs for a while and then stops. Next, a heart beat begins, followed by what I can only describe as creature-feature mad scientist laboratory sounds. The breathing is constant throughout. It definitely sets a tone. As I said at the beginning, fans of Ommwriter for Mac will adore the iPad app. It's less of a distraction-free writing environment and more of a mood-generating text editor. There are many people who like to "set the stage" if you will for a writing endeavor. Ommwriter for iPad succeeds at creating a mood. Others concentrate more effectively with a monotonous noise running in the background; something to filter out nearby real-world distractions, like noisy kids or barking dogs. If that's you, give Ommwriter for iPad a try. Those of you who like quiet and a no-frills text editor should look elsewhere.
TUAW's Daily Mac App: TextWrangler
Trawling through and editing code can be loveless task. TextWrangler is a free app from the Mac App Store that could make it just a little bit more bearable. Brought to you by Bare Bones Software, the folks behind Yojimbo and the incredibly powerful BBEdit, the free TextWrangler is pretty intuitive and feature rich. Starting out as BBEdit lite, TextWrangler is a fully fledged editor in its own right. You've got pattern matching, full search and replace, syntax highlighting for quite a few source code languages, code folding, which compresses the code down to a more manageable length, and many other text manipulation and batch processing features. The interface is pretty simple to navigate with most needed tools available via an icon or keyboard shortcut, plus there is some decent text color-coding that makes reading code a little easier. You can open and save over FTP and SFTP, streamlining HTML authoring. TextWrangler even has support for both AppleScript and Mac OS X Unix scripting, making batch processing easy. Whether you're looking for a decent editor for HTML, CSS, XML or anything else, TextWrangler is a great free starting point. If you're just looking for an editor for writing plaintext files, a replacement for TextEdit, or modifying XML, .plist files or something similar, then TextWrangler is more than up to the job. TextWrangler is available for free in a slightly limited form from the Mac App Store and in its full glory from the Bare Bones Software website and will work on Mac OS X 10.5 and up.
Paragraft gets iOS Markdown editing right
I just discovered Paragraft, a text editor for iPad and iPhone that boasts some ingenious Markdown features (if I've lost you already, check out the TUAW Markdown Primer for a crash course). The good parts of Paragraft blew me away enough that I'm able to overlook an ugly icon and some bad interface decisions to deliver a fairly glowing endorsement: this is the first app I've found that has really allowed Markdown on iOS to make sense. There's no shortage of Markdown-enabled apps on any Apple platform right now, and I love that. I love Markdown, and while it's far superior to writing HTML or dealing with Rich Text in an iOS environment, I always miss the Markdown speed I can achieve in TextMate and other text editors on the Mac. Nebulous Notes has the flexibility to start getting there, but you have to build all the macros yourself. Other apps handle auto-continuing lists, maybe adding bold and italics, but still leave you digging through multiple levels of iOS keyboards to get to some symbols. TextExpander Touch can help quite a bit, too, but none of these really tap the capabilities of the iPhone and iPad. Paragraft has made me begin to rethink the possibilities.
Byword 1.2, now with Markdown support
Byword is a full-screen, "distraction-free" word processor that has an interesting twist: it focuses on just the text around your cursor (or even just the current line), dimming the rest of your composition so that even that can't distract you. Byword (and its predecessors) are based on the idea that you'll be at the top of your writing game if there's nothing else on your screen. Whether you subscribe to that theory or not, it's becoming an increasingly crowded field. Thankfully, there's more to Byword than just a blank screen and blinking caret. Byword, which can also run in a windowed (non-fullscreen) mode, brings great typography along with its minimalist interface. Some of its brethren, like OmmWriter Dana, have done this as well, but if you add in excellent keyboard navigation, hyphenation support and its unique focus mode, Byword begins to stand on its own. Oh, one more thing. While I don't personally subscribe to the distraction-free idea, Byword has added one thing that always gets my attention in any writing environment: Markdown support. MultiMarkdown support, actually, with footnotes, tables and other fun stuff. Wondering what I'm talking about? Have a look at TUAW's Markdown Primer and the MultiMarkdown documentation for more advanced features. Use Markdown syntax while you're writing, then flip over to the Markdown Preview to see your rendered text. The preview mode has buttons for copying HTML source (great for pasting into blogs) and for exporting the HTML to a file (optionally including the Byword visual styling). Markdown is a great move for Byword. I'm seeing increasing support for this popular format across the board, which I think is a great thing. I do wish for a few things, including my usual plea for advanced editing tools, such as auto-pairing of brackets and automatic list continuation. I would also love to see an option for printing the rendered document directly from Byword. You could print straight to PDF that way, too. If you want a good-looking editor for plain text or minimal rich text and don't want all of the extra buttons and formatting options, this is worth a peek. There's a free trial available on the Byword homepage, and you can pick up Byword on the Mac App Store for US $9.99.
