• In-line links can be inserted using square brackets for the ‘friendly name’ of a link followed by ordinary brackets for the web address. This format is automatically applied if a link is pasted into Paragraft, with the first part of the web address, less the http://, used for the ‘friendly link’. If a link is pasted when some text is already selected, the selected text is used for the friendly link text. Links can be tapped to open (or long pressed to choose open/email or copy) in Preview mode.

Example: [Paragraft](obliquely.org.uk/blog/paragraft)
Example: [mail the ether](mailto:no.one@ether.space)

 

• Document lists can now be filtered by using full text search as well as document title search
• Full text search available within the document. (There is no search/replace, but if you copy your replacement text before you begin to search, you can do multiple replacements fairly efficiently.)
• Improvements to Undo and Redo, including easy access while editing.
• Double-tap ‘q’ when text is selected now applies the italic markup (*text*) or, if it is already applied, removes it. The same applies to double-tap ‘x’ for applying and removing bold markup ‘**’.
• Option to include HTML in documents: HTML tags are interpreted in emails, allowing for image insertion and richer styling – entering the HTML can be hard going with an iPhone software keyboard, but it’s good to have the facility for occasional use; HTML tags are either shown raw or suppressed for printing / PDF / preview. An optional web preview can be switched on in settings.
• Major overhaul of settings interface. Settings are now accessed via the spanner button rather than placed below the list of document lists. Overall fewer taps needed to modify settings and return to editing work. Far fewer taps to get back to editing.
• ‘What will you write today?’ prompt on creating a new document now automatically disappears when you start to type. (User suggested improvement.) Similar functionality when creating email signatures.
• Basic implementation of block quotes. Up to three levels by beginning a paragraph with between 1 and 3 > symbols. (More refinement needed, e.g. swipe to adjust level.)
• List of document lists now renamed ‘Paragraft’. ‘Sorts’ button placed on the left replaces the less effectively placed and labelled ‘Edit’ button on the right.
• Improvements to handling of bold, italic and the use of * as a symbol in text. Some less common use cases are now handled better.
• Improvements to the appearance of the document title button.
• Improvements to truncating of long document names in the document title button.
• Progress bar shown when creating large PDF documents.
• Improvements/changes to the display of spinner when rotating, switching between editing and previewing, and opening documents.
• Option to display links in PDFs in three different styles, or not to be styled at all.
• Option for horizontal lines to span the width of the page or be of a medium width and centred. Improved appearance for horizontal lines.
• Fixed issue where flipping to Preview mode reset the shuffle button state to the un-shuffle position.
• Fixed an issue where selection was unreliable on the last line of a paragraph after the paragraph had recently grown in height.
• Improved way in which Paragraft handles line breaks within paragraphs, resolving an issue where line breaks within paragraphs could be lost in some cases.
• Fixed a number of issues where unhelpful scrolling took place when editing paragraphs larger than the size of the screen.
• Fixed issue where when quitting and restarting the app led to the ‘lasted changed’ rather than ‘last seen’ document to be loaded
• Fixed issue where files with .markdown extension were not being imported into Paragraft. Added detection of files with .md and .mmd extensions as valid for importing.
• Fixed an issue where initial scroll position on opening a document was unhelpful / unexpected.
• Fixed an issue where entering < > or &nsbp; could cause crashes.

Monday August 15th 2011

Paragraft is an app for the iPhone that’s now available on the app store. My tag line for the app is: less than a word processor, more than plain text.

I wrote Paragraft because I wanted an easy way to write up notes while travelling light and wanted to be able to share those notes in a neat and tidy format.

Plain text – or indeed, the excellent app named PlainText, wasn’t quite enough for my needs. But a full word processor was too much, not least because so fiddly to use on a small device.

Modern word processors aim to be WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). There’s a lot to be said for this. But, for me, it’s not the right paradigm for a handheld device.

As I write, Apple has recently released a revision of Pages, its decently featured WYSIWYG word processor, for the iPhone. Pages originated on the Mac and then migrated to iPad. Apple have thought hard about how to make it viable on a device with a screen as small as the iPhone. They may have done nearly as good a job as can be done, given the constraints.

But the constraints are severe and require making some pretty serious trade offs. For all that is gained when scored against the value of WYSIWYG,  more is lost, when scored against the value of faff-free writing. And I don’t think there’s any amount of design ingenuity that’s going to overcome the fundamental issue here.

The issue is that for Pages the basic working unit is, well, the page. This is the unit you interact with to compose, to edit, to impose style. That unit makes lots of sense on a desktop or a laptop. But on something phone sized, it means if you want to be able to read your text, the width of each line is broader than the screen. So you end up scrolling back and forth just to read a whole sentence. Tiresome.

Running against the WYSIWYG tide, there is a vogue for working in just plain text. One argument for this is that worrying about your formatting is really just so much distraction. Focus on your writing, we are urged. As someone who definitely worries too much about formatting, I see merit in the backlash. But not quite enough. Plain text doesn’t produce output that I actually want to read, whether it is on screen or on paper. And it definitely doesn’t produce output that I want to share with friends, colleagues or clients.

Paragraft lets me compose in plain text using some simple and human friendly conventions to indicate formatting such as bold, italic, headings, and lists. When you want to see what the styled text looks like, a simple touch switches between showing the plain text and the styled text.

To the extent I have got it right, the flip between the two modes is fairly seamless. This creates some sort of illusion that I find difficult to describe, but enjoy experiencing. It’s almost as if the styled and plain text version of what I’m writing morph from one to the other.

Although what you see while editing and composing is not what you get when printing, creating a PDF, or sending a rich text email, you have pretty good information about what you get. For me, I have enough information about what I will get to keep me happy.

WYSIWYG is a means of having control over the final output of your work. But on a phone, it’s a means to that end that brings a lot of disruption to the flow of composition and editing. Here, as elsewhere in life, it turns out, I’m willing to cede a little bit of control in exchange for a big reduction in faff.

 

 

Paragraft is a halfway house between a word processor and plain text, tuned for touch based productivity. It gives you basic control over your formatting with the minimum of fuss. Use it for an easy way to write up notes while on the move and share those notes in a neat and tidy format with your clients and colleagues.

• Edit your documents using plain text with simple markup for creating headings, bold and italic text, bulleted lists, numbered lists and horizontal lines.
• Preview stylings with a quick touch.
• Share your rich text documents by email, PDF or print.
• Organise your documents with a powerful and easy to use tagging system.

Feature List

• use simple keyboard shortcuts to apply italic, bold and list formatting – this approach is much faster than selecting text and using menu or button options
• use swipe left and right gestures to create headings and adjust heading levels or, for lists, to adjust list levels
• use tags organise your set of documents – you can also search through all your documents by name or contents
• create and share rich text emails from your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch
• adjust size and style of fonts for editing and printing / emailing – these setting are independent so you can easily edit with a jumbo sized font and share with a tiny one (or vice versa)
• embed links, with friendly link text, in your document simply copy and pasting from Safari, Mail or any other app
• import plaintext files from other apps such as Mail or Dropbox
• (partial and improving) support for importing Markdown files from other apps such as Mail or Dropbox
• export plaintext files (with Markdown markup)
• choice of smart quotes or straight quotes
• create rich text email signatures
• (for advanced users) option to insert HTML into Paragraft document, e.g. to display images or have fine control over stylings

Paragraft: less than a word processor, more than plain text.

A Review

‘Paragraft gets iOS Markdown editing right‘, says Brett Terpstra of the Unofficial Apple Web Log. He doesn’t like my icon and thinks some of my design decisions are a bit wonky. But overall, he’s very positive. (17 June 2011)

• Since Brett’s piece was published, three new versions have been released (v03, v04, v05). In v03 the icon was much improved and there were a fair number of refinements to the user interface. v04 brings support for inline links, full text search, user interface improvements and a few other extras. v05 makes improves the interface for tagging and brings in a range of other refinements.

Screenshots

 

 

 

Current Status

v0.1 of Paragraft was submitted to the App store (early May 2011) and went on sale 9  June.

v0.2 of Paragraft was submitted to the App store (early June 2011) and went on sale 12 June.

v0.3 of Paragraft was submitted to the App store (late June 2011) and went on sale 2 July.

v0.4 of Paragraft was submitted to the App store (mid August 2011) and went on sale 20 August.

• Paragraft v04 Release Notes – v04 brings support for adding hyperlinks to documents, improved Undo and Redo, full text search in documents, bug fixes and assorted refinements.

v0.5 of Paragraft was submitted to the App store (early June 2012) and went on sale on 17 June.

• Paragraft v05 Release Notes – v05 brings an overhauled interface for filtering the document list using tags and a wide variety of user interface refinements and bug fixes.

v0.51 of Paragraft was released on October 19th 2012.

• Fixes to introduce issues running under iOS 6. Tweaked to work with the iPhone 5 and the latest iPod touches, devices with taller displays. Bug fixes. Auto title feature: if you’ve started a document, the app will offer you a title derived the first paragraph.

v0.60 of Paragraft was released on October 3rd 2013

• Archive and backup documents to a zip file. Selective restore of files from archives. Waste bin (aka trash can) to reduce risk of accidentally deleting (forever) precious documents. Backwards delete. Out of line (or endnote) format hyperlinks. Fixes for issues for iOS7 users. ‘Keep with next’ for PDF output so that headings hang on to the text following them and aren’t stranded lonely at the foot of a page. Various bug fixes, minor feature tweaks and stability improvements.

The app works beautifully on iPod touch, iPhone and iPad. It doesn’t work on older iPhones and iPod touches and you will need to make sure you have recently updated your version of iOS. (If you’ve not plugged into your Mac or PC for a while to sync with iTunes, do that and it will update your iOS version.) Why is this, you ask? Apple keeps adding lots of goodness to its iOS and Paragraft takes advantage of some of the newer features. Sorry if you have an older device and are left out this time.

Feedback

If you would like to give me feedback on Paragraft, suggest new features, or test future versions before releases please get in touch using the form below.