FoldingText has been discussed here before. Looking for progress recently, I was, at first, disappointed to discover that more than a year had passed without updates to the Mac version, but then I was pleased to learn that a new version of FoldingText has been designed as a plugin for the Atom text editor:

http://www.foldingtext.com/foldingtext-for-atom/

Atom, incidentally, has just reached version 1.0:

https://atom.io/

I have tested the plugin only minimally so far -- I just wanted to share the info for others who might be interested. But I do think there is a lot to be said for this particular category of outliner software: plugins for text editors. And I think developers could go much further: one idea that occurs to me would be to create smart folders and/or filters to isolate particular lines within a text-based outline.

I tried this back in January, but was disappointed. No spell check, no word count, folding by level of indent, not heading. I also had trouble CLOSING the program (Windows). But I've been playing with Haroopad, Smartdown, and Editorial, all excellent long form writing tools that allow me to edit the same files across platforms and Dropbox. All markdown based.

Caution: Rant Alert!

Let me start this small rant with this: Jesse Grosjean of Hogbay Software is entitled to run his business anyway he wants. HOWEVER, as someone who has purchased FoldingText and TaskPaper (as well as the iOS version of TaskPaper), that is, as a customer, I am very frustrated with his priorities. He dropped the iOS apps 15 months ago saying he was going to focus his efforts on TaskPaper, WriteRoom and FoldingText. TaskPaper and WriteRoom have not been updated in three years. FoldingText did get an update a year ago, but since then nothing, and it is not like the software is without flaws. It's nice if he wants to make FT work with Atom, but 90% of the people who've bought FT do not use Atom and never will. It seems he is focusing his development efforts to benefit an ever narrower customer base, and forsaking those who have supported him with their dollars up to now. Personally, I find this in extremely bad faith, and will think long and hard before ever buying another app from him.

Okay, that's the end of the rant.

Steve Z.

A reasonable rant, if such a thing is possible. I've bought WriteRoom, Plaintext, taskpaper, and was also irritated when such promising beginnings seemed to fizzle out. Even Oakoutliner seemed incredibly promising, then just got abandoned, apparently.

But I have to say that Editorial is my current favorite, offering everything I liked about the others, and some intriguing new workflow functions.

Good points. I held off on buying FoldingText and for now I'm just free-riding on the Atom plugin while it's in beta. (With the added benefit that text files mean no lock-in). But I'm well aware of the issues raised here and certainly they would have to inform any consideration of making a purchase.

Indeed, I still pine for the same developer's other long-lost project: Mori. That's a piece of software I would be willing to pay for again.

Lucas wrote:

Indeed, I still pine for the same developer's other long-lost project:
Mori. That's a piece of software I would be willing to pay for again.

Yes, indeed. It was still "alive" when I moved from Windows to the Mac, and was one of the first OS X licenses I purchased.

About the rant: on a business level, entirely justified, Steve. Given the regard in which Jesse was held as a developer when I moved to the Mac, I can only imagine that there must be non-business reasons for what has happened.

Well, here's how Jesse explains himself.

http://jessegrosjean.gitbooks.io/foldingtext-for-atom-user-s-guide/content/getting_started.html

Why FoldingText for Atom

In 2007 I created TaskPaper in response to what I thought were overly complex "todo" apps at the time. TaskPaper is a plain text format together with a syntax highlighting editor. It presents your todo's in a text outline without any "user interface" in the way.

I then began a long journey of trying to extend TaskPaper's plain text outline interface to do more. I added more outliner features. I added outline filtering. I addopted Markdown syntax. The end result is FoldingText for Mac.

At some point TaskPaper's original design became a liability. It started as a simplifying factor that put the user in control. But each new feature needed a new syntax rule. Eventaully all those rules created more complexity then they solved.

A New Start

FoldingText for Atom is a restart.

I've zoomed back to 2007 and taken the simple text outline that I liked so much about TaskPaper. But I ditched the plain text editor interface. And restarted with a more traditional outliner editor interface.

For the last year I've been zooming forward again. Redoing the features that I added to TaskPaper over the years. But this time without the need that they work in a syntax highlighting plain text editor.

It's been a wonderfuly simplifiying process. There's still lots to do, but I think the foundation is ready.

Thanks for the update. Since most of the innovation in editors seems to be happening in products aimed at software development and team collaboration -- a very large market and growing -- it perhaps makes sense that FoldingText's newest incarnation would appear in Atom because it fits well with users who have a lot of detailed tasks to track in doing thir work.

It's not like there are dozens of people working with Jesse to develop products -- AFAIK, he's on his own -- so he'll have to pick and choose where to best invest his time. Inevitably some users will be left behind and disappointed, but independent developers have to make tradeoffs that are guaranteed to please some and really displease others. The scenario has been part of the history of development for a very long time.

I was telling someone that I really liked Editorial on iOS. They mentioned the Atom text editor. What I remember about it: free, multiplatform, lots of plugins. The title of this article (from last July): "Turn Atom into the Best Markdown Editor for Mac." He writes, "For those of you who use Editorial app on iOS for writing like I do, these Atom packages that I mention below should make the experience really similar."

Here's the link: https://www.news47ell.com/how-to/atom-best-markdown-editor-mac/

Off to CRIMP.

Hope you have a powerful computer. Atom is pretty much the poster-child for avoiding Electron apps for performance reasons....

jaslar wrote:

I was telling someone that I really liked Editorial on iOS. They
mentioned the Atom text editor. What I remember about it: free,
multiplatform, lots of plugins. The title of this article (from last
July): "Turn Atom into the Best Markdown Editor for Mac." He writes,
"For those of you who use Editorial app on iOS for writing like I do,
these Atom packages that I mention below should make the experience
really similar."

Here's the link:
https://www.news47ell.com/how-to/atom-best-markdown-editor-mac/

Off to CRIMP.

shatteredmindofbob wrote:

Hope you have a powerful computer. Atom is pretty much the poster-child
for avoiding Electron apps for performance reasons....

Not really. An old Acer Windows 7 laptop. But it installed, really easy to download packages.

It actually does wind up offering something like Editorial, with a few oddities. For instance, I can cycle through levels (folding) by putting the cursor at the beginning of #Header 1 and hitting tab. That's org-mode. Similarly, a couple of quick clicks on the tool bar, and you can move forward and back by header.

There's a word count plug in, and a taskpaper plugin. All install quickly, and take effect instantly.

As it is designed for programming, I couldn't see an easy way to turn off line numbers. On the other hand, the line numbers kind of disappear (I don't notice them after a while), or I could use them to hop around the file via a "go to line" keyboard shortcut.

Another command I like: Ctrl-UP/DOWN moves the paragraph.

All in all, it was a pleasant enough writing environment, with a project folder (opens up a file directlory), multiple tabs, and spell check. It is BIG though. 130 megs? And to be fair, I didn't try it on a huge file. But you have to admire the up-to-date power, the well-designed plugins, and the cost!

how's atom with the FoldingText extension/package thing?

is it highly capable at this point?

I used it for a couple of nights, and the folding text and taskpaper modes worked pretty well. But maybe one of the first commenters here got it right, it does seem kind of sluggish, and I've had it crash a few times. So maybe I do need a more powerful computer.

well this was 2015,

last updated 2016

https://github.com/FoldingText/foldingtext-for-atom

https://atom.io/packages/foldingtext-for-atom

basically dead