This is the first article in the series Online Blogging Platforms series.
As I started writing for 78P, I started becoming dissatisfied with the layout of the WordPress text editor. As a total noob, I kept finding myself distracted by all the poorly drawn icons and lack of portability. It ended up taking me way more time to write than I actually had to write! This doesn’t mean that WordPress is an ineffective text editor (it has actually improved a lot since I first started), it simply means that it wasn’t for me. That’s where my search began.
I downloaded a few Chrome extensions to play around with, and ultimately my favorite was Writer for Chrome. It had a minimal style without feeling too lonely (I know, I’m weird) that fit my tastes perfectly.
The Pros
Here’s what I love about Writer:
- Style- As I mentioned earlier, Writer is nice and simple. It’s basically a blank canvas just begging for a good story. The text and margins are nicely scaled and you don’t have to do more than 1 or 2 clicks to either continue editing or write a new story. This I enjoyed.
- Subtle Customizations- I love customizability, but sometimes it can be a little much. I have found that the perfect balance is a strong base with meaningful tweaks to enhance the experience makes for a powerful product. This is what Writer provides. You can choose font size, text and background color, and even keypress sounds! Note that these aren’t distracting tools. They feed into the purpose of focusing on content while maintaining a calm, personal environment.
- Export- Writer does allow the export of documents into several clients including Dropbox, Google Drive, and Evernote. A useful feature if you’re intending your writing for a larger audience than just yourself.
- Portable- I do about half my writing at home and half on the go. I have a Nexus 7 that I write on, and my wonderful wife picked up a super nice bluetooth keyboard for me for Christmas. I was surprised to find that Writer’s site actually scaled well on my Nexus 7 in landscape mode. Combine that with my bluetooth keyboard and I’m an unstoppable writing machine!
- Offline- To follow up on the portability, Writer recently went offline as well. I have the wifi version of the Nexus 7, and while I’m very rarely in a wifi-free (not to be confused with free wifi!) zone, this feature is handy to have around. I’ve added the website bookmark to my homescreen for easy access!
- Goals- I only started using goals when Jeremy politely informed me that I had been undershooting our word goal for my articles! (That’s what he gets for bringing a blonde on to the team!!). Using the small target on the top left of the client, you can set either word and/or date goals. When your goal is met, you’ll be rewarded by a herald fit for King Arthur! However, it does not tell you the difference in velocity between an African and European Swallow.
The Cons
It’s not all bunny rabbits and butterflies with Writer. It does have some limitations and minor annoyances.
The export feature is handy, but I would love for it to be a “sync” feature instead of an “export” feature. I’d love for it to be able to talk to the various services, and have them talk back to writer. It’d be way more powerful if I could start on Writer, edit in Google Drive, and finish back up on Writer without losing data.
While it does format nicely on my Nexus, it’s hardly “tablet friendly”. If you need to navigate the settings from mobile, the buttons are small, and it takes several taps to finally get the right option. I haven’t found myself doing much tweaking outside of the initial setup, but I thought you should know. I think either a mobile optimized site, or a standalone app would be lovely to see, but with the offline mode functioning on mobile, it’s a fair trade off for me personally.
It’s also worth mentioning that there’s no formatting within writer. No markdown. Nothing. It’s not a deal breaker for me since I find my copy/paste into WordPress to be a critical editing step, but you might like to see how your post is formatted in real time.
I earnestly hope you give Writer a try. You can download the Chrome extension here or simply visit their web page,and don’t forget to bookmark it an add it to your homescreen on you tablets!
What do you think? Are you going to give Writer a try? What do you use to bang out blog posts?
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