This week’s thing is my helper in writing these posts. The Ulysses app.
Originally, I was an iA Writer user, but for some purposes it became a bit limited for me.
For example, I need a tool that checks my writing, and copy-pasting text to some web service is not only time-consuming, but it leads to context-switching. That’s why the proofreader and editing assistant in Ulysses was the main thing that sold me to switch to it. I can write my post, click 2 buttons and see my suggested revisions instantly. Revising my mistakes takes me less than 30 seconds.
Other important features for me, though not much as the grammar check, are the PDF export and being able to customise how the editor looks. From what I’ve seen in the few times that I needed it, the export is done nicely. Most importantly – you can choose different looks, based on your needs – technical, casual, or more professional and official looking. The customisation is also great. You can fine-tune almost every setting on how different markup should look. You can pick different colour themes, and even import styles that others have made.
At least, these are the main things that interest my in my workflow right now. Of course, there are some negatives too. The forcing of Markdown XL and some weirdnesses when you try to work in pure markdown, but there are no show-killers. Not at all.
Recently, I had to write more than 60 of these “things of the week” because I stopped writing them for quite some time and had to catch up. But now that I’m back to it – I’m genuinely thankful that Ulysess is alongside me to help me.