iA Writer and Byword – again

“Distraction-free” text editors can be a distraction in themselves.

I’ve blogged before about iA Writer and Byword. Like a lot of other people. I have to say, the jury’s still out. On my Mac, I think I now prefer Byword. On my iOS devices I think I still prefer Writer. But I also have WriteRoom on iOS, which is also worthy.

On my 21.5-inch Mac I think the font in Writer might be just a little too large. In Byword I can customise the font to my exact preference. The no-options stance of Writer is admirable, but if it ain’t quite right there’s no way to fix it.

If I open the same document in both Writer and Byword and switch from one to the other for comparison, Byword works well for me. I’m writing this in Byword as an external editor to nvALT – light mode, wide, Georgia 20pt font, 100% zoom. It’s lean, elegant, minimalist. Although having said that, I did the exact same thing not long ago and my preference was for Writer, although I don’t think I’d tweaked Byword’s font then. Byword also seems a little more snappy than Writer.

In iOS I don’t have Byword: even at the reduced price of £1.99 it’s still much more expensive than the iOS version of Writer at £0.69, which I already have. I bought WriteRoom so long ago I can’t remember how much it is. Both Writer and WriteRoom look great in iOS, and at it’s higher price I’m not tempted to give Byword a try as a replacement for either of these.

I’ll stick with Byword on the Mac and Writer/WriteRoom in iOS for a while and see how it goes. When Scrivener for iPad is released this will probably all become irrelevant anyway, as I’ll more than likely use that app for pretty much everything. And let’s not forget that it’s not the app that’s important, it’s what you do with it.

One more thing

A note regarding my Das Keyboard: I do still like it, I just wish it had a little more resistance in the keys, was a little stiffer in the click – I suppose I wish it felt more like a manual typewriter. Still, it’s pretty good as far as computer keyboards go; I couldn’t go back to my spongy Apple chiclet keyboard now.

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iA Writer addendum

Writer’s iCloud syncing works even when my Mac’s disconnected from the Internet – something I find rather magical and impressive. Presumably the app syncs to devices on the home network or something.

The 21st Century typewriter

A blog about my new favourite Mac app – iA Writer

Writer is the purest form of writing app. It’s the 21st Century equivalent of a typewriter.

I’m a writer, so text editors are important to me. For fiction writing I exclusively use Scrivener. In my day job I have to use Word, but I don’t like it. I’ve bought Byword, and also WriteRoom on both OSX and iOS. I bought WriteRoom several years ago and recently rediscovered it. I bought Byword not so long ago, attracted by its appearance and the fact that it also offers markdown preview and HTML export. Although I read about Information Architects’ Writer some time ago, I didn’t buy it because I wasn’t sure about the lack of customisation or its appearance – factors which are not unrelated.

A few weeks back I set WriteRoom to be my default text editor, but it didn’t quite work for me: it felt a little out of date, and there were too many customisation options to fiddle with. Plus, having been prompted to upgrade, which I did, I started to get a nag screen to pay for the upgrade every time I opened the app. This bugged me somewhat, not because I’m averse to paying, but because I assumed the update was just bug fixes or such like. I liked the way the old version worked, and the updated WriteRoom was all different, with themes and what have you.

Byword does what it does just fine, and previews markdown very well, although the display is a little small even on my 21.5-inch Mac. I just didn’t gel with the app, though. I can’t really give a good reason why, other than the display settings didn’t really work for me no matter how much I changed them.

Zen

In the search for the perfect text editor I thought I’d give iA Writer a go. I’m glad I did. I knew the moment I opened the app that it was for me. Having a complete lack of customisation options really works – when the appearance is already perfect there’s no need to change it. The font is beautiful to look at and the perfect size for my Mac, and the slight texture to the off-white background works very well. The iOS version has equal aesthetics on the iPad.

The only thing I’d change about this app on the OSX version is the blinking cursor: the cursor stands out because it’s bright blue – I don’t need it to blink to attract my attention, and the blinking somewhat detracts from the overall zen of the app in my view. But that’s a small point.

Purity

Writer also increases your output. You open a document and you type. That’s all you can do. Writer is the purest form of writing app. It’s the 21st Century equivalent of a typewriter. Coupled with my Das Keyboard, this is a winner.

The syncing of documents via iCloud seems to work faultlessly, and is also quick. Writer reads plain text files so I can still use nvALT to quickly create text files in my Dropbox folder, open these in Writer and edit them, as well as in WriteRoom on my iOS devices. Byword didn’t seem to play well with text files in Dropbox, possibly because the plain text and markdown formats were merged in that application – I don’t know.

Writer is now the default text editor on my Mac, with WriteRoom deleted, and Byword consigned to the role of markdown preview and HTML output: I’ll draft posts such as this in Writer, preview markdown and copy HTML output from Byword, then paste into WordPress. Bingo.

If you’re looking for a minimalist text editor that will increase your productivity and is a pleasure to use, iA Writer is the one to go for.

Martin
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ADDENDUM: worth noting that the iOS version of Writer reads both text and markdown files, which is something the iOS version of WriteRoom doesn’t do – looks like I’ll be deleting that as well…