I don't think we've mentioned this app before. It's called Author. The developer has some ambitious goals for the app, many of which are already in place. One of these is using pinch gestures to progressively fold the document down to its headings. Take a look at the video for more:

http://www.liquid.info/author.html

Steve Z.

Very interesting, thank you Steve. Liquid | Author is on the Mac App Store now, with exporting ("publishing" to PDF, Word, Plain Text, RTF, Print) for a $5.99 IAP. Liquid | Flow, the capture tool mentioned in the video is also on the Mac App Store.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

I don't think we've mentioned this app before. It's called Author. The
developer has some ambitious goals for the app, many of which are
already in place. One of these is using pinch gestures to progressively
fold the document down to its headings. Take a look at the video for
more:

http://www.liquid.info/author.html

Steve Z.

Turns out the Author features in the video on Hegland's website are not the features sold in the version on the Mac App Store. Most importantly the major feature for copy text from another source and pasting it as a text citation, or for creating video citations. The developer responded to a query with "This is a feature we had to remove but we are working to bring it back in a more useful way. Please give us one month. :-)" I suppose that's a fair ask, but one shouldn't say "out app does blah blah blah" when it doesn't really do "blah blah blah" or even merely do "blah".

Other than that, the app for sale today is a kind of RTF editor.

App reached version 4.0 in December. Still free(?!) in the Mac App Store, where I just noticed it's featured on the main page under 'Apps and Games We Love Right Now.' Some intriguing features like permanent selectable multi-clipboard and folding text down to outline level and auto citations formatting.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/liquid-author/id951792010?mt=12

http://www.liquid.info/author.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBaNGCCPFzo

Author has added a "dynamic view" feature, which is similar to Scapple, but which is bound to your document. I haven't really tried this out yet, but if it works like is presented in the video (second video down on the website below) it could be astonishingly useful... I haven't seen any other app do this.

http://www.liquid.info/author.html

Steve Z.

Interesting. I've tried this out. It requires shifting back and forth from keyboard to mouse / trackpad, which is a drag on rapid entry or brainstorming. Dynamic view cannot be used to build an outline -- one has to do mouse clicks to add text from dynamic view to the end of a document, which in itself is a bit meh. Of course there is no hierarchy. I've used Author from time to time and feel it is about 90% very good but always a bit off target.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:

Author has added a "dynamic view" feature, which is similar to Scapple,
but which is bound to your document. I haven't really tried this out
yet, but if it works like is presented in the video (second video down
on the website below) it could be astonishingly useful... I haven't seen
any other app do this.

http://www.liquid.info/author.html

Steve Z.

From my experience with Author, your assessment is right on target. The developer has fantastic ideas and ambition for this app, but there is always something that doesn't quite work right or in an intuitive way. I hold out hope.

Paul Korm wrote:

Interesting. I've tried this out. It requires shifting back and forth
from keyboard to mouse / trackpad, which is a drag on rapid entry or
brainstorming. Dynamic view cannot be used to build an outline -- one
has to do mouse clicks to add text from dynamic view to the end of a
document, which in itself is a bit meh. Of course there is no
hierarchy. I've used Author from time to time and feel it is about 90%
very good but always a bit off target.

Stephen Zeoli wrote:
Author has added a "dynamic view" feature, which is similar to Scapple,
>but which is bound to your document. I haven't really tried this out
>yet, but if it works like is presented in the video (second video down
>on the website below) it could be astonishingly useful... I haven't
seen
>any other app do this.
>
>http://www.liquid.info/author.html
>
>Steve Z.

Found this today: https://www.augmentedtext.info/ …which appears to be an update on the original Author app posted in this thread? Haven’t tested it myself yet, but it seems to have developed since the liquid.info days, and the concept map looks really interesting… No updated iOS app however, far as I can see…

It seems in general there are a lot of things word processors could do, but don't. It's like word processor developers see the horror of Word's original outline mode and stick with formatted text editing.

Scrivener and similar apps are notable exceptions.

You know, all those years ago, I had super high hopes for foldingtext, from Jesse G... He somehow divind into the rabbit-warren of node-syntax and callbacks and never came up for air on the experience..

I think I just got the experience I always dreamed would happen with Author..
Just a few days in and seriously enjoying the finer choices with some superb working tools in there.. My 'overly' linked writing exported to PDF outputs are just beautiful.
Just writing a vote of respect to Mr hegland.
Very nice work.

Ah, I did love FoldingText. Mind you, I like Bike too – especially now that Jesse is talking about bringing it to iOS.

bigspud wrote:

You know, all those years ago, I had super high hopes for foldingtext,
from Jesse G... He somehow divind into the rabbit-warren of node-syntax
and callbacks and never came up for air on the experience..

I think I just got the experience I always dreamed would happen with
Author..
Just a few days in and seriously enjoying the finer choices with some
superb working tools in there.. My 'overly' linked writing exported to
PDF outputs are just beautiful.
Just writing a vote of respect to Mr hegland.
Very nice work.

I was about to say, I too loved Folding Text and was delighted to find that it is still - somewhat - under development, with a fully working version is available for free - https://support.doubledogsoftware.com/t/is-foldingtext-under-development/1209

And then I followed bigspud's recommendation and fully agree with him that Author seems to be a superb writing tool for ... authors (especially non-fiction/sort-of academic like myself).

So far I'm only using the free Basic, but only Export from the full version is missing, so it's a great place to explore and start to get familiar with the options.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Ah, I did love FoldingText. Mind you, I like Bike too
– especially now that Jesse is talking about bringing it to
iOS.

bigspud wrote:
You know, all those years ago, I had super high hopes for foldingtext,
>from Jesse G... He somehow divind into the rabbit-warren of node-syntax
>and callbacks and never came up for air on the experience..
>
>I think I just got the experience I always dreamed would happen with
>Author..
>Just a few days in and seriously enjoying the finer choices with some
>superb working tools in there.. My 'overly' linked writing exported to
>PDF outputs are just beautiful.
>Just writing a vote of respect to Mr hegland.
>Very nice work.
>