I drifted away from Ulysses because I didn't like everything stored in-app. If I use a keyword in a blog essay, I don't want that keyword infusing into a short story or novel project. I don't use keywords much, so I may be overly grumpy on that topic, but I want separate baskets for different species of egg.

Version 18, though, sounds like it will support storing projects in external folders with full (or near-full) Ulysses functionality. Until now, external folders didn't get the fully Ulysses feature set.

I might be getting back on board. It's a nice product.

https://ulysses.app/blog/2019/09/beta-ulysses-18/#more-10601

Ulysses 18 sounds interesting for people who do not want to be locked into iCloud, but there's another side to the story that that blog posting doesn't address. "Markdown XL" and the other features mentioned in the blog post might imply a proprietary format for documents, or a Ulysses-specific JSON or other structure. This would possibly prevent using those files in other apps while still retaining the Ulysses feature-related data to preserve using those files and features in Ulysses. I.e., external storage doesn't necessary equate to compatibility, and that is an issue that has, in the past, made Ulysses unattractive for some.

You already have this problem. Markdown is not portable at all. It's just that it isn't really visible. Headlines and lists work and maybe images. Thats it. We have over 30 different markdown versions at the moment and Ulyssess is just one of them and my app will one day give version 31.

You misread my point.

This is why I don’t use Ulysses. When they turned to a subscription model, I had a terrible time getting my data out. When you export you lose markdown xl. Ulysses is essentially a proprietary format. As has already been said. External folders won’t help with that. They’d be better off using multimarkdown.