The thing about getting an external keyboard for my iPad is now I’ve realized just how terrible my app x2y supports external keyboards. Just submitted a new version that not only handles tabs way better, but also adds several keyboard shortcuts.
@joec sorry for the somewhat random question, but as you’re talking about this, I suppose you may know of a good markdown editor for the iPad. Any suggestion?
@frederico My current favorite is Ulysses. I use that for all my blog articles, etc. I’ve also used Byword, which I like quite a bit.
@frederico I switched to iA Writer a few months back to avoid the subscription model. Don’t regret it. An excellent app!
@frederico I’ve owned iA since it came out. Love it, but lack of tagging is annoying as I’m piling up gazillion of documents and notes. I like Ulysses and Bear as well, but the subscription models bug me. At the same time, they maintain the app more often than iA.
@oyam I see... actually for this purpose I use Simplenote and am very happy with it. The problem, for me, is when I have to turn a note from Simplenote into an actual document, as I don’t use word processors, but markdown in plain text.
@frederico Ah nice, I used to do the same. I got tired of switching between the two and consolidated everything in iA. It does great job for writing both short and long text, lots of extra markdown features are supported, and it does nice job of previews.
@oyam hum, I’ll check it out. Coincidently, the other day I realized I almost never use the tags in Simplenote anymore. I used to, but now not only I never search through them, I also hardly ever tag a note. I just search for a word I know might be there. Lazy, I know...
@oyam I've been thinking about this lately, but iA doesn't seem as good a fit for quick notes as Ulysses or Bear. Plus it seems you have to open each Dropbox file individually on iOS now, to get it into iA. Maybe it works better if you use iCloud though.
@oyam On Mac I really like Caret. It has similar features to iA, but a few extras I love, like inline image previews and keyboard shortcuts for opening and creating files. Too bad it doesn't come with a mobile app as well.
@jamesshelley thanks for the suggestion. I ended up getting Byword on a sale and will be testing it for a while. If I still feel it’s lacking in some respect iA is next on my list.
@jamesshelley I prefer the functionality and simplicy of iA Writer, but I have a degenerative eye condition and every so often I can't read the iA writer text, it's inflexible about points sizes and so on. ByWord on the other hand IS flexible and always easy to read. Markdown documents travel between the two with ease.
Until recently I would covert to a Word doc before sending, because that's what my clients expect. Now I just save as Word and send without checking, the formats seem to convert perfectly from both apps.
@belle You’re right. I just tried with Dropbox and it seems pretty painful, it used to be better. With iCloud it’s very seamless and search is good too, including smart search folders, etc.
@oyam Yeah, you get extra functionality if you use iCloud both in iA and Ulysses I think. I get it, but in a way it's lock-in, because you can't easily move to an app that uses Dropbox sync without doing a full export first.
@belle I had a quick look on the site, it looks really nice, can’t wait to try it. I don’t write that much, never mind being good at it, but I have a unhealthy obsession with writing software, so I would probably pay for it even to just try it.