Forum Posts Feed
Caret with Chrome for cross-platform work with plain text files
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 23, 2016 at 02:07 AM
Here is a tip for working with one or more plain text files across multiple computers and platforms that have Chrome installed (including, and especially recommended, if you’re a Chromebook user).
1. Install Chrome (if you don’t already have it).
2. Install the app Caret from the Chrome Web Store (as you will see, it has glowing reviews as one of the best text editors on Chrome):
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/caret/fljalecfjciodhpcledpamjachpmelml
3. Sign up for a Google Drive account (if you don’t already have one).
4. Download and install Google Drive Sync on your PC (I presume there is one for Macs too).
5. Launch Caret, open a new file, and save as a plain .txt file directly on Google Drive.
6. While you’re at it, customise Caret by choosing a theme (I like “Idle Fingers”, a nice dark theme) and other options in “User Preferences.”
7. Start writing, and keep saving. As long as there is an internet connection (or the next time the machine connects to the internet), the local copy of the file will be automatically synced with the Google Drive cloud.
Now, the beauty of this setup is that once you have opened the same file(s) in Caret on your other machines, it will automatically reopen them in a tab and updates them to the latest version pulled from Google Drive, every time you launch the app on any of those machines.
This means that you can keep working on the same document across multiple machines for as long as you like (months, if necessary), without having to look for the file and having to reopen it and sync it manually.
Let’s say you started working on it on a Windows laptop, you went to bed, wanted to add to the text, you can just reopen it in a Chromebook and carry on typing.
The only thing to be careful about is if the text file gets too big (over 1MB), then the syncing might take a bit longer, so be careful not to shut down the machine in the middle of that or alter the file on another machine in the meantime, as that might create a conflict and some text might get lost.
I only ran into that problem if I was too eager to shut down my Chromebook (it can shut down and boot so quickly, around 4-6 secs, that one can get trigger-happy shutting it off), without letting the big file sync properly.
Google Drive Sync does display an indicator in the System Tray (in Windows) or in the File Manager (in a Chromebook), so you can keep an eye on that to make sure the sync has completed.
This system thus works best if the files are kept under 1MB (which is quite a lot of text in a plain text file anyway).
Google Drive keeps older changed versions for 30 days, so they can be restored, which is another nice feature. And all of the above is free.
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 23, 2016 at 02:21 AM
Dr Andus wrote:
>Let’s say you started working on it on a Windows laptop, you went to
>bed, wanted to add to the text, you can just reopen it in a Chromebook
>and carry on typing.
The added bonus of using this system on a Chromebook is that Chromebooks can remember the apps you had open when you last shut down the machine, which means that every time I boot any of my Chromebooks (I got one laptop sized one, and one tablet sized one, for different uses), Caret launches automatically as the topmost window,with the text file(s) open, so I can start typing within a matter of seconds.
Posted by jaslar
Jan 23, 2016 at 07:24 PM
Is there any particular advantage to this over just using another Cloud-based up, such as SimpleNote? It would still be available on multiple devices, have a tested sync strategy, and support markdown, word count, etc.
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 24, 2016 at 12:24 AM
jaslar wrote:
Is there any particular advantage to this over just using another
>Cloud-based up, such as SimpleNote? It would still be available on
>multiple devices, have a tested sync strategy, and support markdown,
>word count, etc.
I’m not familiar with SimpleNote, but I guess I could use the example of Workflowy instead as a similar cloud-based system.
The advantages of using Caret would be more for those who are already invested in the Chrome ecosystem, and work across Windows, OSX, Linux, and Chrome OS using mainly devices with keyboards (desktops, laptops, convertibles). I don’t use touch interfaces (mobile phones or tablets) for writing or text editing, so I don’t need a solution for Android or iOS.
With the above in mind, the particular advantages to me are the following:
1) The Caret app—with the last open files—open automatically when I boot my Chromebooks, reminding me to carry on with those tasks (such as write diary entry).
2) The app provides me with the exact same customised interface (with the chosen theme) in all those devices and it allows me to increase font size with CTRL+ on all devices, which is important when screen resolutions are different. This e.g. doesn’t work in WorkFlowy’s offline Chrome app on Windows, the font is too small on my hi res monitor.
3) Caret is a reasonaby sophisticated text editor (emulating Sublime Text), so it might offer some features not available on cloud-based services, such as the “project directory”, i.e. an explorer pane for viewing and managing the multiple text files within a folder or associated with a project. And there is the customisability (choose your font, background colour and lots of other things).
4) Caret works offline. You can choose whether to save the files locally on the hard drive or in the cloud (no such option with WorkFlowy app, for instance).
5) Besides the project window, it also shows multiple open files in tabs, so it’s easy to work with multiple files.
But also I just like the simplicity of writing in a plain text editor.
Posted by Paul Korm
Jan 24, 2016 at 09:59 AM
Caret looks interesting, as well as @Dr Andus’ suggested approach.
Chrome on iOS does not support Chrome Web Store apps, unfortunately. There is no Caret client for iOS. (A couple apps have the name but are different.). With iCloud and Ulysses (and other apps) it’s possible to emulate the approach described above with a text editor. For diary / journal purposes I use DayOne on iOS and OS X. Very clean sync in the background. For coding, Textastic on both platforms syncs well in the background.