Editorial
👍 0 👎 0Editorial is a powerful editor for writing plain text, Markdown, TaskPaper, and Fountain documents. In addition to the editor itself, Editorial comes with a comprehensive automation toolkit for snippets, document templates, and custom workflows, including Python scriptability.
Getting Started
If you're new to Editorial, here are some tips to help you get up and running:
To create a new document, tap
≡
to reveal the file browser, then tap+
at the bottom. You can also use a swipe gesture to show the file browser.Swipe left to show the Markdown/Fountain preview and the in-app web browser. You can open multiple browser tabs to do research while you're writing.
While editing a document, tap on its title to show the outline (list of headings), and to rename it. Using the outline, you can navigate long documents more quickly.
Tap the wrench button to view the list of workflows – these are the heart of Editorial's extensive automation system. A couple of default workflows are already there, but you can customize this list by creating your own, or by choosing from the bundled collection of extra workflows (tap More Workflows at the bottom of the list).
In Markdown and TaskPaper documents, you'll see a little triangle next to each header – you can tap it to fold (hide) a section. When a section is folded, its word count (or task count) is shown next to the title. Tap the word count label or the triangle again to unfold a section. You can also unfold everything by tapping the triangle button in the top-lefthand corner.
Snippets allow you to insert commonly used pieces of text by typing abbreviations – for example, type
wbr
to insert "With best regards", orppp
to quickly paste the clipboard without using the editing menu. You can view (and edit) the list of snippets by tapping the lightning key on the extra keyboard row. The default snippets also include some helpers for Markdown formatting, e.g.llnk
to insert a link.You can move the cursor by sliding your finger anywhere on the extra keyboard row.
A lot of keys in the extra keyboard row have multiple mappings. For example, you can tap and hold the
>
key to select<
.
What's New in Editorial
The following are some of the highlights in the most recent updates – to read all the details about bugfixes and scripting/automation improvements, please refer to the Release Notes section in the documentation.
Version 1.3
Native support for the 12" iPad Pro screen resolution.
Split-screen multitasking (requires iPad Air 2 or later).
Updated Python interpreter (2.7.5 => 2.7.12) and lots of new and improved modules (e.g.
numpy
/matplotlib
, revampedphotos
module,objc_util
, and more).Improved Python console with syntax highlighting, better support for multi-line statements, and a zoomable image viewer.
Errors/exceptions in Python scripts are now printed to the console instead of showing a simple alert, so you can read the full traceback.
The workflow editor has moved to the accessory panel, and the Python/UI editors are opened in separate tabs.
Improved UI editor with undo support and a more compact inspector panel (for Custom UI and Python Script workflow actions).
Fixed a couple of UI readability issues when using the dark theme.
Version 1.2
Improved support for iPhone 6 and 6 plus.
Folding for Markdown headers and TaskPaper projects.
Quick settings – By tapping the
Aa
button, you can quickly access editor-related settings, including a new Text Zoom that makes it easier to change the overall font size (instead of adjusting font size settings for headings, paragraph text etc. separately). You can also switch to a different syntax mode (Markdown, TaskPaper...) from here.Document templates allow you to customize the New File menu. Your templates can include placeholders for things like the current date/time or clipboard content, similar to snippets. Actually, each template is a full-fledged workflow, so you can incorporate more advanced logic if you like.
Improved in-document search and a new Highlight All option in the editing menu – this allows you to quickly highlight all occurrences of a selected word within the current document without having to type anything into the search bar.
The accessory panel has a completely new UI and the in-app browser now supports multiple tabs.
Sharing in the browser and preview now uses the standard iOS share sheet, and you can even use the share sheet in your own workflows, using the Share Text/URL action.
There's a new collection of bundled workflows that you can easily add to your list – just tap on More Workflows at the bottom of the "wrench" menu to see what's available.
Several additional Python modules enable new kinds of automation, including access to iOS Twitter accounts and Reminders.
The new HTML to PDF workflow action allows you to generate PDF documents from websites or HTML code.
Feedback
I hope you enjoy writing with Editorial. If you have any feedback, please send an email to editorial@omz-software.com or visit the Editorial community forum. You can also follow me on Twitter:@olemoritz.