Distraction Free Reader/Writer

Productivity

distraction-free writer

SHOW HN2013

85points
60comments
#283of 1,739 in 2013
Top 17%of 2013 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

6 positive, 6 neutral or asking, 6 mixed, 10 critical, out of 28 comments about the project. Thread score -0.08.

Execution: 0 for, 7 againstDesign: 3 for, 2 againstIdea: 1 for, 0 againstPerformance: 0 for, 1 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Clean, simple interface with great shortcuts

    From 3 comments
    • Nifty little app! I am sure I will stop using notes or open up text wrangler to jot down a few things every now and then. I like the simplicity (great shortcuts) which makes the…
      Regmi on HN
    • Great job! Most recently I have just been using Google Docs for writing out my blog posts before syndicating them to Medium and Tumblr; I might give this a whirl. The biggest…
      tommaxwell on HN
    • Great app! I could use the additional features, as I've been using the plain text mode in the browser so far. "data:text/html, <html contenteditable>" in the browser's address…
      pranavrc on HN
  • Useful as a replacement for pastebin-style sharing

    From 1 comment
    • This is actually quite cool. I could see this being a nice replacement of pastebin-type sites when sharing significant amounts of text. My two suggestions would be: -Add a few…
      meowface on HN

Objections

  • Many similar distraction-free writers already exist; unclear differentiation

    From 2 comments
    • There sure are a lot of these now. There's Koi Writer [1], Dark Copy [2], Light Write [3], Quabel [4], Wabisabi [5], Write.app [6], Pen.io [7], (I like this one), Draft [8], and…
      daturkel on HN
    • It might just be me, but the typewriter sounds are pretty distracting. Also, there is a bit of ironic juxtaposition in an app called "inkpen" that sounds like a typewriter. But…
      eddieroger on HN
  • Site was repeatedly down or unreachable

    From 3 comments
  • Typewriter sounds are distracting

    From 2 comments
    • It might just be me, but the typewriter sounds are pretty distracting. Also, there is a bit of ironic juxtaposition in an app called "inkpen" that sounds like a typewriter. But…
      eddieroger on HN
    • Great job! Most recently I have just been using Google Docs for writing out my blog posts before syndicating them to Medium and Tumblr; I might give this a whirl. The biggest…
      tommaxwell on HN
  • Top navigation bar distracts from text

    From 1 comment
    • I find the top navigation bar to be distracting. It even gets in the way of the actual text. http://scrot.it/350
      waltz on HN

Requests

  • Custom CSS and theme/font options

    From 3 comments
    • Nice! One thing I would like with something like this is to be able to add custom CSS to the preview
      andyhmltn on HN
    • This is actually quite cool. I could see this being a nice replacement of pastebin-type sites when sharing significant amounts of text. My two suggestions would be: -Add a few…
      meowface on HN
    • Pretty nice, one thing I'd say is that the preview view should respect the user's theme setting. If I'm using the dark colour scheme, go to preview what I've been working on and…
      _frog on HN
  • Preview should respect dark theme

    From 1 comment
    • Pretty nice, one thing I'd say is that the preview view should respect the user's theme setting. If I'm using the dark colour scheme, go to preview what I've been working on and…
      _frog on HN
  • Other login options such as Google

    From 2 comments
    • This is actually quite cool. I could see this being a nice replacement of pastebin-type sites when sharing significant amounts of text. My two suggestions would be: -Add a few…
      meowface on HN
    • Looks nice. I currently use Draft for writing like this, primarily because it lets me write at work. Login with Twitter isn't permitted on our network (one thing that pains me,…
      horyd on HN

Questions

  • How is it different from existing writers like WriteSpace?

    From 2 comments
    • Can you articulate how this is different / better than writespace?
      intellegacy on HN
    • There sure are a lot of these now. There's Koi Writer [1], Dark Copy [2], Light Write [3], Quabel [4], Wabisabi [5], Write.app [6], Pen.io [7], (I like this one), Draft [8], and…
      daturkel on HN
  • Is it built on ZenPen?

    From 1 comment
  • Why Twitter-based data use and tracking?

    From 1 comment
    • It's cool, I like it. Couple of points, it's a distraction-free writer but I've been quite distracted by a couple of things, somewhat OCD: The Twitter image isn't updated when…
      s4m20 on HN

Alternatives named

  • FocusWriter, OmmWriter, iA Writer, WriteRoom

    From 1 comment
    • There sure are a lot of these now. There's Koi Writer [1], Dark Copy [2], Light Write [3], Quabel [4], Wabisabi [5], Write.app [6], Pen.io [7], (I like this one), Draft [8], and…
      daturkel on HN
  • Mou, Dillinger, MarkdownPad, EpicEditor

    From 4 comments
    • Can anyone recommend a Markdown editor with Markdown code on the left and a preview on the right? OS X or Windows. Doesn't have to be free.
      kmfrk on HN
    • Mou is pretty good (and free)! http://mouapp.com/
      radicality on HN
    • Dillinger. It's open source, so you can also run it locally or on your own server. It's also a web-app, so it's cross-platform, too, of course. http://dillinger.io/
      hugs on HN
    • MarkdownPad http://markdownpad.com/ is neat and does the preview thing, split screening your editing. (requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile, which it comes with and…
      insteadof on HN
  • PyRoom, UberWriter (open source)

    From 3 comments
    • Any open source ones?
      dannyp32 on HN
    • I'm a big fan of the open source pyroom[1]. Development has stalled but it's feature complete for me so I don't mind. FocusWriter also looks good, xplatform & open source [2]. 1:…
      blutack on HN
    • I have made one for ubuntu, and it's foss: http://uberwriter.wolfvollprecht.de It's more or less an iA Writer clone but uses pandoc as "backend" which is really powerful.
      droelf on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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