WriteRoom has set an infuriating trend among fullscreen editors – minimalism to a fault. Why mention an OS X app on a Linux blog? Because everything I’ve said applies to its imitators – and, usually, worse. It is a stiff, unyielding program, although I will admit that it does have a scrollbar. Switching between documents is anything but intuitive, and a pain to do even once you’ve learned how to do so. There are no toolbars, only one kind of statistic, and certainly no clock or other means of keeping track of time. Every single useful option is buried under so many unnavigable menus that the extremely limited amount of customization allowed (color, font, plus a load of small tweaks) is hardly worth the effort. ![]() ![]() For just twenty-five dollars (say it with me: twenty! five! dollars!) you can purchase the most uncomfortable writing experience of your life. And for this, I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of WriteRoom, one of the most popular editors of this sort for OS X. Using FocusWriter made me realize just how disgustingly unusable most other editors of its kind really are. And there you have it, folks – a distraction-free text editor you can actually use. I think we can all agree this is, to use the software-engineering term, stupid.įinally, a short trip to the bottom gives you stats (words, paragraphs, characters, and pages), a clock, how close you are to achieving your defined goal for the day (wordcount or time), plus tabs to switch between the documents you currently have open. You might think I’m being sarcastic with that wow, and I wish I were, but I’m not. I’ve experienced way too many fullscreen editors missing this simple navigation tool, forcing me to page up or down the whole length of my document to get anywhere. Wander over to the right and you’ll see a scrollbar. Move your mouse to the top, however, and you will find – honest-to-su – a menu and a customizable toolbar.īut that’s not all. Let me explain the navigation experience: generally, FW gives you nothing on the screen besides your text, earning it that “distraction-free” label. So why do I dislike other fullscreen editors so? It turns out FocusWriter answered my question for me, simply by being so damn good. I may even use it once in a while, which is the highest compliment I can give to a member of its species. It is, hands-down, the best editor of its type I’ve seen and probably ever will see. Straight out of the box, FocusWriter gives you a non-eye-bleedy color scheme – black on light gray – a spellchecker, rich text capabilities, and an easy interface to switch between documents. That’s not a slight against FocusWriter – FocusWriter is a rarity among these sorts of editors in that it is not only fullscreen, it is full-featured. It wasn’t until I tried FocusWriter that I realized why. ![]() pyRoom, ubuntu, writeroom, writing on linux | 17 CommentsĪs I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a fan of fullscreen editors. FocusWriter and how I came to despise WriteRoom Posted: Janu| Author: awkisopen | Filed under: FocusWriter | Tags: darkroom, distraction free editor, focuswriter, fullscreen editor, gottcode, linux, linux mint.
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