hi I'm a little confused about the rate of updates on Writeroom. Is quickcursor the sole solution to the restoration edit in writeroom feature? That's what caused most of the buzz about this neat app originally and as far as I can see the last update was in November of last year and it does not implement edit in writeroom in 10.5.n.
thanks, Ray
Copyright © 2008 Jesse Grosjean. All rights reserved.
jesse - June 11, 2008 12:21 PM
Yes QuickCursor is the sole solution. And it does work now, but is quite flaky. I'll improve things when I can, but I just don't have time right now.
But I would disagree that "edit in writeroom" is "the" feature that got people interested in WriteRoom. WriteRoom is about "Distraction free Writing". That's it's feature. If for some reason a Mac update breaks WriteRoom's full screen mode I'll throw down everything and fix that ASP.
"Edit in WriteRoom" was a secondary feature designed to make it a bit easier to get text in/out of WriteRoom. The problem with it is that by nature it requires WriteRoom to muck around in other applications address space and try to get text in/out. Unfortunately the nature of doing that means that the feature will always be a bit flakey and will work sometimes and not others. Because of this I decided to remove that code from WriteRoom and put it in the separate QuickCursor app that I'll be able to make open source, and generic (so that you can use "edit in" with other text editors, not just writeroom). That's the logic behind the change. The source isn't public yet because it's pretty messy, but I'm happy to give it to anyone who wants to work on it on a case by case basis.
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Thom Coverly - June 28, 2008 8:29 AM
Perhaps what Ray is saying (and this is certainly true for me), is not so much that Edit in WriteRoom is the primary feature that gets people interested in the app but that it is the feature that is the tipping point for many who are looking at the various full-screen editor options.
After all, you can fudge the white text on blue-screen effect for free in Word, there is jDarkRoom which is free, there is CopyWrite which has a full-screen editor mode amongst its features - and those are just the few that I considered, I know there are more.
Now of course they're not as good as WriteRoom, but I plonked down my money for WriteRoom because, on top of its core beauty, it has (I'm still in Tiger, but about to upgrade) the Edit in WriteRoom as a feature. I just love being able to take a file I'm working on or some text and open it in WriteRoom with no hassle. Compare that with, say, CopyWrite, where I would have to import the file (txt or rtf) only into a project before I could even begin using full screen mode, and then export it again once done. Tedious.
So don't underestimate the attractions and tipping-point power of the Edit in WriteRoom functionality.
If it comes good in Quickcursor with essentially the same simplicity and convenience that will be great, but please don't let the concept sit on the backburner!
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David Smith - July 2, 2008 12:12 PM
I just downloaded a trial of writeroom. To piggy back on some of the comments here, I can attest to the fact that unless the edit in writeroom plugin is fixed, I would not pay money for this program. Sorry, it's neat as is but not $25 neat.
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oscar - August 7, 2008 3:45 PM
Absolutely agree that Edit in Writeroom is THE most important feature in WR. It truly makes writing distraction free, which of course is the whole point.
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Mathew Mitchell - August 7, 2008 11:40 PM
Jesse: I have to agree with everyone else. The saddest thing about moving to Leopard is that "Edit in WriteRoom" no longer functions. It was, from a user's viewpoint, elegant and simple. The QuickCursor, as currently implemented, is much more than flaky. It's completely unreliable--that makes it useless to me (put differently, QuickCursor is "distraction creation"). But even if QuickCursor worked correctly, it isn't as elegant as the old "Edit in WriteRoom."
Perhaps the old "Edit in WriteRoom" didn't work in everything (I don't remember right now), but it did work in at least 90% of the apps I used. That's great in my book. And it was dependable and very very easy to invoke.
While you may not see this feature as the "heart" of WriteRoom, it's clear others do. Or perhaps it's the "soul" of WriteRoom. At any rate it's important.
I used to use WriteRoom everyday, now I use it about once a month. Why? Because there's no "Edit in WriteRoom" which made things so seamless and elegant. That feature was indeed the "tipping point" for me that made WriteRoom worth a purchase, and worth enthusiasm. I hate to say it, but I think you've grossly missed one of the key selling points of WriteRoom. Are you working for Green Bay's management these days? (Just joking!)
Keep in mind, if WriteRoom is all about "distraction free writing" then what are all the features that go into creating that? Part of the "distraction free-ness" process was created by getting into, and out of, WriteRoom in such an elegant way. QuickCursor has all the cool buzzwords associated with it (open source, anyone can contribute, etc. etc.): but to an average end-user that's all mumbo-jumbo for jettisoning one really kick-ass feature of WR.
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