In common with others on the forum, I use outliner software for writing stuff. Inevitably, this means I’m also drawn to writing software (Scrivener, Ulysses, StoryMill etc.), much of which also supports outliner functionality.

I’ve just discovered a nice writing app that is also an outliner (albeit in the sense of two-pane outliner, rather than Workflowy/DynaList-style folding outliner). Unusually, it’s available for both macOS and Windows, and while it makes a fairly austere impression at first glance, it’s actually full of goodies.

The app is WonderPen (https://www.atominn.com/wonderpen - Chinese website), and I’ve been using it for a couple of weeks now to draft stuff. Among the things the author fails to mention about it in his write-up on the Mac App Store is its support for split panes (you can display two different notes - or the same note - side by side or one above the other), its rather neat backup function (called snapshots, including a nice little timeline of when snapshots were created) and its very flexible hierarchy (you can have as many subdocuments as you like, in a NoteCase-style hierarchy, along with different icons if you prefer to differentiate between folders and documents; there’s a limited number of icons, but they’re sensible ones).

Also, it has a nice search function - and unlike some writing tools we could mention (Ulysses, I’m looking at you here), it also searches through the memos you can attach to any of your documents, subdocuments, folders etc. You can choose not to search through memos; it also supports search and replace. And it highlights search hits in documents (although not in memos, presumably because the latter tend to be very short).

It also supports character counts (although not word counts; and it doesn’t support targets yet, but personally I rarely use them). In fact, my only criticism is that it doesn’t support automatic substitution, e.g. it doesn’t turn computer-generated apostrophes/quotation marks into their elegant “curly” equivalent, which is a bit of a let-down for a writing app. However, WonderPen does appear to be in active development, and when I dropped the suggestion to the developer, he responded immediately (pointing out that he’d overlooked this aspect because he’s Chinese, but would check it out a.s.a.p.).

There’s an impressive list of export options (Word, HTML, PDF and even PNG!); it also imports text files. There is support for images in Preview mode (the editor uses Markdown), but images aren’t automatically imported into the WonderPen library that forms the basis for the documents (you can create multiple libraries). Of course there’s nothing preventing you from putting images in the library yourself.

So: a very nice little gem. Support for tags would be nice, but the excellent search function means one could use those in any case without necessarily formalising them.

Cheers,
Bill

Sorry, I have been inaccurate in my description - WonderPen *does* import images into its own library.

The PDF export is especially impressive – detailed, crisp, precise, unlike some competitors.

The more I discover about it, the more I like it!

How strange - I went to the site, had to click 'English', clicked to the Mac App Store link (not USA) which then transferred me to my MAS. To my surprise I appear to have already bought it (but didn't have it installed), although I have no recollection of having done so, and cannot find a record for purchase. So I downloaded it.

Here's the US MAS link ($9.99):

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wonderpen/id1173437104?mt=12

The app has apparently been around since 2016.

Many thanks for sharing this interesting find!

MadaboutDana wrote:

Workflowy/DynaList-style folding outliner). Unusually, it’s
available for both macOS and Windows

And Linux apparently, which makes it even more interesting!

BTW, check out the 'elegance' of the smart / curly quote marks above and below ;)

substitution, e.g. it doesn’t turn computer-generated
apostrophes/quotation marks into their elegant “curly”
equivalent, which is a bit of a let-down for a writing app.

After playing with the app I deleted it (again). It seems okay, like Ulysses without cross-platform support or sync.

No themes.

No bracket autocomplete.

No typewriter scrolling.

No spellcheck or support for macOS's built-in spellcheck.

No choice of font (although I thought I saw screenshots using a Courier-like mono font).

It's a 69Mb Electron app. Sigh. (That was probably what most made me originally delete it.)

No support for Services. (Maybe that's a limitation of Electron apps?)

It's $40 cheaper than Scrivener, but much less full-featured. It's cheaper than Ulysses, but with Ulysses part of the excellent Setapp.com service suite I'd still choose Ulysses. And these days I really want to use something cross-platform so I can easily use/sync with iOS, or at least a web-view.

Hi Satis, just a couple of updates:

satis wrote:

After playing with the app I deleted it (again). It seems okay, like
Ulysses without cross-platform support or sync.

Well, you can put a library anywhere you want, including synced folders in Dropbox, iCloud etc. I’ve set my own system up with Datto Desktop (formerly AutoTask, formerly Soonr).

No themes.

True. Not a priority for me. But it does have light/dark modes, and you can edit the Editor background yourself in the ‘Advanced’ section of Preferences (using your own colours/images). If you want external themes (for exports), you can also input your own custom CSS (or JavaScript) into the ‘Advanced’ section of Preferences. Oh, and it also supports document templates, although there isn’t much discussion of how to create them.

No bracket autocomplete.

True; again, not a priority for me as a touch typist; note that it does support standard keyboard shortcuts (Cmd/Ctrl+B etc.)

No typewriter scrolling.

Yes, in fact it does have typewriter mode, both under the ‘View’ menu and as a keyboard shortcut.

No spellcheck or support for macOS's built-in spellcheck.

No, that’s true. Perhaps a shortcoming, but I tend to use multiple (external) spellcheckers anyway.

No choice of font (although I thought I saw screenshots using a
Courier-like mono font).

On the contrary, you can change the default fonts for both UI and Editor in Preferences. A mono font is used automatically for code blocks (set using the standard Markdown characters).

It's a 69Mb Electron app. Sigh. (That was probably what most made me
originally delete it.)

True. But it’s neat, responsive and clever, and does at least come in well under 100MB (unlike e.g. Joplin and other Electron notetakers with far fewer features). So it’s a tidy piece of Electron programming.

No support for Services. (Maybe that's a limitation of Electron apps?)

True. But the (impressive) range of export options does, I suggest, partially make up for this shortcoming. As soon as it’s finished exporting something (an individual document, a group of documents etc.), it gives you the option of opening and viewing it.

It's $40 cheaper than Scrivener, but much less full-featured. It's
cheaper than Ulysses, but with Ulysses part of the excellent Setapp.com
service suite I'd still choose Ulysses. And these days I really want to
use something cross-platform so I can easily use/sync with iOS, or at
least a web-view.

Of course this is all about personal preferences, and yes, I’m sad there isn’t an iOS app - I prefer iOS/macOS combinations myself. But for a cheap’n’cheerful writing app that runs across Windows, Mac and, as Alexander has pointed out, Linux, I think it’s an interesting (non-subscription-based) find.

Oh, and it’s worth mentioning that each library also supports its own kanban board, which is a selectable view. It’s a very simple kanban board, clearly designed as a straightforward way to keep track of an author’s to-dos. It’s not the same thing as Scrivener’s/StoryMill’s index cards, just a simple planner. But as I said, it’s horses for courses…

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify a few more features!
Cheers,
Bill

… just to add to my last update on WonderPen, I’ve just discovered the little shirt-shaped icon in the bottom status bar, which allows you to customise the font colour, width of the document, line height, opacity of the document, paragraph spacing and various other things. So despite the austere appearance, WonderPen can actually look very, very different, depending on what you want.

I believe the settings are applied on a “per library” basis, so you could have different settings for different libraries. Only one library can be open at a time.

Cheers!
Bill

MadaboutDana wrote:

>No spellcheck or support for macOS's built-in spellcheck.
No, that’s true. Perhaps a shortcoming, but I tend to use multiple
(external) spellcheckers anyway.

Can you mention some of those external spellcheckers? How do they integrate? Are they only for Mac?

Hi Alexander,

Ah, I have a somewhat idiosyncratic approach to my own writing - while I use integrated third-party spellcheckers (such as PopClip; macOS only), I also use a variety of tools to double-check my text as I near final output, checking not just the spelling but also things like grammar, word frequency, clarity etc.

I don’t regard any of them as definitive; they simply offer alternative “opinions”, spotting potential weaknesses and allowing me to hone the final result.

They include e.g. Word, LibreOffice, Hemingway Editor, Refly Editor, Novellus, Liquid|Author, Scrivener and others.

It’s a finicky way of working, but since I act as my own copy editor, I like to view my text from as many different “angles” as possible. I will often generate PDFs or ePubs and read through my text on different platforms (e.g. iPad), using various fonts. It’s amazing how different text “feels” in different formats.

This isn’t an approach I would necessarily recommend to others!

Cheers,
Bill