03.06.14 |
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Author, manager and developer Michael Lopp:
This morning I realized I might have a productive way to twist status reports into a useful exercise. Let’s call them context reports. A status report documents actions both completed and planned. A context report documents the reason why (and to a lesser extent how) you’re completing these actions and I suspect this information is far more useful to everyone involved.
Being in a job where I’m rarely physically present in most meetings, it’s annoying when I see bullet after bullet point of exactly what happened. The why is so much more important.
03.05.14 |
Work |
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The new minimal text editor Writer Pro is a worthwhile upgrade over its predecessor, iA Writer. It’s a very polished product with useful features like multiple writing modes that each have their own custom font. There’s also Syntax Control, a tool that highlights select parts of your document for easier revisions and edits.
Admittedly I didn’t expect to have such a positive experience; Writer Pro launched in a crowded field of already well made, minimal text editors. There’s Information Architects’ own iA Writer, which already shares the core Writer Pro feature set. And Byword is an editor with exceptional Markdown support, keyboard shortcuts and exporting options.
Details matter
Yet Writer Pro distinguishes itself over the competition with subtle yet important design details:
- The program fades out the standard Mac toolbar at the document’s top when you begin to type. It’s a small touch that removes another distraction from your writing.
- You can enable Syntax Control to highlight just the sentence you’re on. When you scroll through your document, the fade out effect is lifted for easier navigation.
- Most competing text editors only enable line or paragraph focus. Line focus feels too constrained on longer sentences while paragraph focus is too loose. Writer Pro’s Syntax Control set to sentence mode is a happy compromise; it highlights the sentence you’re on, regardless of length.
- Writer Pro’s formats select Markdown symbols so paragraphs, list items and headlines line up vertically. It makes scanning through and organizing a larger document much easier.
- Writer Pro’s font mix of Nitti, Nitti Grotesk and Tiempos is arguably better optimized for writing than options available on competing editors (more on this below.)
Writing modes
Writer Pro doubles down on its existing design strengths with its new writing modes: Note, Write, Edit and Read. You can jump between modes at any time; switching from one writing mode to another changes the font and cursor color to optimize for the task at hand. Content remains unchanged.
Because content is static, Writer Pro’s mode switching can feel superfluous at first; negative reviews on the Mac App Store harp on this a lot. However, after switching between modes for several weeks, the feature has a positive effect on my writing. Note mode utilizes a thin, ultra clean sans serif that pairs well, to quote iA, with the “clean and pristine” nature that notes tend to have. The typography here pushed me in the direction of shorter bullet points over long, rambling sentences.
Write mode retains the monospaced Nitti font from iA Writer. It’s blockier and inherently easier to flow from sentence to sentence, better for uninterrupted writing. Edit and Read modes use Tiempos, a higher contrast serif. This font corrects one of my complaints about the original iA Writer; Nitti was awesome for actual writing, but for editing long form pieces, Nitti’s fluid structure wasn’t ideal (there’s a reason you rarely see idiosyncratic sans-serifs like Nitti used for long reads.) Tiempos is a far better reading and editing choice.
Just to make sure I wasn’t buying into empty typographic fluff, I used Writer Pro’s modes against their suggested intentions for several days. To the program’s credit, writing was more difficult: long form pieces in Note node were written decidedly slower than average. And editing paragraphs in Write node felt awkward with too much space between characters.
Syntax Control
Writer Pro’s other significant new feature is Syntax Control. With a click or keyboard shortcut, most of the document fades out, highlighting only the sentence you’re on or just a document’s adjectives, nouns, adverbs, verbs, prepositions or conjunctions. It’s effectively iA Writer’s “focus mode” on steroids.
Unlike writing modes that I use throughout the writing process, I only found Syntax Control useful for final edits and draft revisions on longer pieces. That slightly dulls this feature’s impact but it’s still useful to cut down on verbiage. Those who need absolute focus on what they are writing will likely appreciate Syntax Control on the current sentence (identical to iA Writer’s focus mode.) I rarely use Syntax Control this way but it’s helpful when you’re having trouble putting together a troublesome sentence.
Shortcomings
While overall Writer Pro is impressive, there’s a few small issues that need work. The Markdown preview window has poor styling with a font size that’s too small and lines that stretch out as far as you resize the window; it feels like an afterthought feature. It’s also odd iA doesn’t automatically covert Markdown syntax (e.g. headlines, bold text, links) when you switch to Writer Pro’s Read mode. Given that iA already went far enough to make this the one mode with a change in functionality (you can’t edit, the cursor and misspelling highlights are removed) they should go all the way to maximize the reading experience. And, unfortunately, this lack of Markdown syntax conversion extends to PDF exports too. It makes PDF exports useless for Markdown writers; get a copy of Brett Terpstra’s excellent Marked 2 as a workaround for now. Additionally, as a writer who’s often typing away emails and blog posts late at night, Writer Pro could really use a “night mode” with light text on a dark background. It would violate Writer Pro’s general lack of customization, but adding the feature would enhance readability and lower eye strain in dark environments, two big wins.
I’m also seeing performance problems with Writer Pro every so often; the CPU usage suddenly spikes and you’re left with an unresponsive, sluggish program, usually after I have the program active for an extended period. It’s rare but annoying when it happens.
Conclusions
Over the past year I’ve written mostly in Byword on both on iOS and the Mac, with occasional forays into iA Writer when I’m in the right mood. Now, after weeks of heavy Writer Pro usage, it’s my main writing choice on the Mac going forward. That said, with its strict minimalism and higher cost, Writer Pro isn’t for everyone. If it’s your first look at a plain text writer, Byword is a more well rounded, cheaper alternative. Nonetheless, if Writer Pro’s visual mode changes and Syntax Control sound compelling, or if you’re a typographic geek like me, give Writer Pro a try.
03.05.14 |
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The sound and picture quality isn’t pretty, but it’s wonderful seeing Spielberg and a much younger Harrison Ford make history. It’s an hour filled with interviews and behind the scenes footage. Speilberg’s direction bits to the actors is especially interesting (via Jason Kottke.)
03.04.14 |
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Ask almost any developer: we’re picky about our color schemes in our text editors. I see a lot of suggestions online, but many are poorly thought out or don’t have decent coverage among multiple programming languages. But Lavavel developer Dayle Rees really outdid himself with this package. It’s available across several of the most popular editors (Sublime Text, Coda, VIM, XCode) and he provides 50 plus variations, in both subtle and more high contrast forms. Best of all, I couldn’t find one that isn’t well designed.
Generally I’m a die hard fan of Solarized Dark out of the default Sublime Text 3 setup. But Dayle’s color schemes are tempting; I’m running a few test development days with some of the darker variations that match my style.
03.03.14 |
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A.A. Dowd, The A.V. Club:
Taxi Driver is rarely as much fun as Goodfellas or Mean Streets or The Wolf Of Wall Street is. There are no iconic classic-rock montages, no Rolling Stones boogies. The ugly characters tend to be really ugly, not hilariously so. (Marty himself appears in a very unflattering cameo, oozing violent misogyny and racism from the backseat of Bickle’s cab.) Where many of Scorsese’s most popular movies unfold as a breathless series of great set pieces, Taxi Driver has a more cumulative brilliance; it’s a downward spiral into madness from the first frame onward.
We’ve all seen our share of “edgy” and “dark” films. It’s almost become a punchline in the independent theme, especially in the horror genre. But it’s hard to top the darkness that Scorcese nails so perfectly in Taxi Driver. What a film.
02.28.14 |
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I’ve been linking lately to several of these Dissolve “keynotes”, where a movie of the week gets dissected and kicked off with an extended essay on the film’s themes and impact. And for good reason; the writing is uniformly excellent, and every so often there’s a selection that I’m already a huge fan of. Case in point, 1987’s violent, lurid action/social satire RoboCop:
The dualities of RoboCop are also reflected in the movie itself, a sleek hybrid of genres, creators, motives, and influences: hyper-violent 1980s action and dystopian science fiction, two American writers and a Dutch director, commercial savvy and artistic ambition, real-world blight and comic-book cartoonishness. Like RoboCop himself, the film is a complex organism that’s made to seem stark and simple, and it makes other Hollywood action movies look like ED-209—big, lumbering machines that look fearsome, but sputter, pop, and break down with alarming frequency.
02.27.14 |
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Excellent opinion piece from Wired’s Chris Kohler on the indie game resurgence in quality and risk taking:
The question used to be, could independently produced games compete with the big studios? Now I think the question should be, can the big-studio model continue to exist? Right now, indie games are serving niche audiences that were left behind by big studios. What happens when small teams start to make shooters that can pull audiences away from Titanfall? Football games that are more fun than Madden?
For players, it really doesn’t matter where the great game experiences are coming from, as long as they’re coming from somewhere.
02.26.14 |
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True Detective is getting an incredible amount of buzz, from the lead actors to the dark, Twin Peaks like storyline and high end cinematography. I’m not quite onboard yet with all the high praise; the jury is out until we see where this eight episode season ends up. But one aspect is undeniable: Matthew McConaughey is doing amazing acting work and remains the most interesting aspect of the show. This LA Review of Books delves into the show, but really is most about McConaughey’s resurgence from romantic comedy punch line to A-list actor:
While McConaughey certainly signed off on those roles [in many romantic comedies], it’s difficult to blame him for what was, in essence, the work of the contemporary star machine, with its imperative to find charisma, cast it in a blockbuster, flatten it out, and relegate it to B-pictures when the concept, not the star, fails to catch hold. McConaughey was never a bad actor: he was just a bad Hollywood actor.
He was bad, in other words, at playing the annoying manchild who “grows up” to be a bourgeois provider, bad at playing supporting actor to a CGI franchise, and bad at being a palatable white guy who stands in for the audience. Think back to Dazed and Confused: McConaughey isn’t either of the main dudes who earn our identification. He’s the weirdo in the peach-colored jeans hanging outside by himself and giving no fucks.
02.25.14 |
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Speaking of oral histories, Alex French and Howie Kahn over at Grantland put together an excellent history of how 90s indie cult classic Swingers came together. Almost all the major crew are interviewed: Jon Favreau, Ron Livington, Vince Vaughn and Doug Liman. The story where a pre-Bourne Doug Liman sneaks around state troopers illegally shooting a highway scene is a highlight.
02.25.14 |
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Like many others who grew up hanging out in arcades in the 90s, Street Fighter 2 was a fixture, a game you agonized, fought, and obsessed over. I’ve got an indelible teenage memory of finally beating the game with E. Honda in the arcades. So naturally I can’t help but highly recommend this Polygon long read compiled by Matt Leone. Some really incredible, revealing interviews charting the game’s history.
And for web designers/developers there’s a special treat with that intro. It’s not only a clever recreation of the SF2 title screen, but there’s some smart HTML5 canvas and CSS treatment as well.