I have been trying out a new plain text writing program/app—writing envrionment, they call it—which is the third incarnation of the long-on-the-bloodied-edge Ulysses, which has had as its ambition to serve creative writers and their particular needs, quite different needs than, say, programmers, for whom plain text is the obvious medium.
Whether I can write and keep poems primarily in plain text remains to be seen; I’ve found so far I’m writing more prose poems, which might be an interesting, might be an unfortunate, collateral effect.
I have been for the most part quite productive with it, especially once I adjusted my working habits to exploit it, which I have found for the most part natural, such as the ability to accumulate parts of a project (in sheets, for the initiated) for assembly in a master document. This project-based approach is no different than that maybe even invented by Ulysses 1 (and now done well by Scrivener and a new one I just discovered, Storyist), but it’s all about the UI (and the UX), as they say, and Ulysses 3 has made working this way about as seamless as possible, by which I mean all your text is just available, ready at hand. The speed with which one can move in the program is among its chief virtues, and it’s ultimate utility-over-beauty is going to depend on its full export capabilities, coming soon we are told.
My 1.0 experience has been good but not been without issues. I did have some crashes, one resulting in some apparent data loss—fortunately I was working in two programs simultaneously and had it preserved; I’ve had multiple issues with text exporting as expected; I’ve had sync/iCloud problems with Daedalus Touch.
But just this morning a 1.0.1 bug-fix update was issued that promises to fix these instabilities, and yesterday DT was updated as well.
Also, for those not willing to plunk down $40 on something sight-unseen, there is now a Ulysses Demo (download link).
So I say try it, and then if you’re hooked I say buy it. But then I’m always looking, maybe to a fault, for the transmutation of base materials, with style.