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iA Writer now has wikilinks
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Posted by satis
Jun 14, 2022 at 09:56 PM
In 2017 I bought IA Writer for Mac for $9.99 and the iOS version for $3.99. (Pretty sure it was a 50%-off sale.) I just checked the current pricing and was a little shocked to see each has jumped to $49.99, but considering that IA are adamant about not offering subscription pricing this must be the only way to pay salaries and continue development.
I rely on Ulysses for pretty much all text over 300 words, and I’ve gone all-in on their cloud sync which has thankfully been reliable and stable. The Ulysses subscription is $49.99/year (having purchased earlier versions I’m grandfathered-in at a $29.99/yr tier, though) so for a typical Mac/iOS user IA Writer beats Ulysses after two years. (Albeit with different features and less customizability.) I appreciate IA’s continued thoughtful advancements even though it’s only a backup app for me these days.
If you like writing in Markdown and don’t want to pay a subscription IA’s Mac and iOS apps are pretty nice.
If you’re looking only for a Mac app Typora - offering a unique and bulletproof WYSIWYG “live preview” - is an awesome deal at $15. (And it has a 15-day trial.)
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 15, 2022 at 08:19 AM
Typora is gorgeous, and can be used with iOS markdown editors (e.g. the excellent 1Writer, which is unavailable on macOS) simply by designating the relevant iCloud folder as its “Home” library.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Jun 15, 2022 at 08:41 AM
Thanks, @satis – this reminded me of a couple of features I’d totally forgotten, like the variables and metadata functions.
Worth mentioning that iA Writer now keeps track of hashtags, too (it has done for a while, but they’re up front in more recent versions).
satis wrote:
Nice overview at MacStories
>
>https://www.macstories.net/reviews/ia-writer-6-adds-cross-document-linking-metadata-and-more/
Posted by Stephen Zeoli
Jun 15, 2022 at 10:30 AM
I recently wrote a sorta tongue-in-cheek article on Medium giving alternative options for the top three Mac writing applications: Scrivener, Ulysses and iA Writer. The app I offered as an option for iA Writer is Typora.
The article is here, if you care to read it:
https://stephenjzeoli.medium.com/a-possibly-blasphemous-writing-application-show-down-ed27f32f545a
Steve
Posted by satis
Jun 15, 2022 at 01:38 PM
Nice article, Stephen. I appreciate the inclusion of Highland 2, even though its heart is as a screenwriting app that interchanges with Final Draft’s fdx format (and “melts” pdf screenplays into proper formatting inside the app). One of my favorite features is the online theme builder, which makes easy changing text, background and sidebar colors whatever you want.
https://quoteunquoteapps.com/theme-builder/index.php
And there’s a theme gallery submitted by users with a dozen variants to use or to use as the basis for your own theme.
https://quoteunquoteapps.com/highland-2/theme-gallery.php
It makes a stab toward IA/Ulysses features with sprints and goals but Highland 2 otherwise seems to be in maintenance mode at this point, and the Roadmap page on the site has no new features planned. So if you don’t like what you see don’t expect it to change.
I still chafe at IA Writer’s deliberate limitation to using one of their three funky embedded fonts, and the inability to change colors. When I’m writing I have very specfic font preferences for viewing onscreen (Courier Prime for screenwriting, Verdana Pro for most writing, Iowan Old Style or Lora for serif), different fonts/size for printed output, and sometimes I need to change fonts when revising in order to see the work with fresher eyes. And that’s where IA Writer falls down compared to virtually every other writing app it competes with.
When scanning my documents I appreciate in Ulysses being able to see quotes and source code highlighted with a slightly different-colored background, with different color highlights denoting annotations and links and even italics. I like using my own choice of font and off-white background.
IA believes their decision to limit this choice ultimately makes writers more productive by not letting them aimlessly waste time tweaking - and I admit to have done just that for hours with other writing apps - but once I get comfortable with my customizations I rarely need to change them.