WriteMapper 4 is out for Mac and Windows

Posted by Dormouse
Dec 12, 2023 at 02:57 PM

One of the relatively few writing apps I hadn’t tried.
Won’t give it a good kicking, but might nudge it a bit.

Looks to be a PWA prog, primarily a markdown notes editor with outline and mindmap attached. Instant dark mode was good.
But not usable for me - the mindmap is so much less intuitive and easy than Mindomo (the far fewer features could even be an advantage). Might be better on the Mac. And I use Mindomo for all sorts of playing around with ideas, not just outlining a doc.
I also don’t see any advantages - and a number of disadvantages - over other markdown editors. The mindmap integration really is the USP.
I also looked at the producthunt page.

Roughly speaking, it looks okay, maybe usable. I wouldn’t reject it out of hand.
But I’d expect to find multiple niggles - expected features absent, accessing them unintuitive, and some things not working.
And that’s an issue for a writing app, which needs to be slick and predictable and not get in the way of the writing.

And then there’s the issue of pricing and sustainability.
V1 users get free upgrade to V4. V2 and 3 users get a 50% discount. $65 is more expensive than Scrivener, though less than subscription progs like Dabble. From the ProductHunt discussion, I’m not convinced that the developer has a business strategy that is producing sufficient income.
And is it really better than Obsidian + one of its mindmap plugins? I suppose yes, given that you’d also have to add Longform to reorder docs.