Still working on WriteRoom 4, and a quick question

Checking in to report that I’m still working away on this. Been a while, taking longer then I expected, but making progress I think.

Over the last month or so I’ve got to the point where I’m no longer working on the core editor, and am instead deciding how the app will actually look and work. Rough going at first, but I think I’ve settled on a UI approach that will fit in the features that I’m trying to add while keeping the app “Distraction Free”.

I also have a quick question… I’ve implemented a parts of speech highlighter (similar to what iA Writer popularized), but now that it’s there I can’t really see that it’s very useful. I’ll probably leave it out of the app, but before I do that I wanted to here what people thought. Is there any reason to see the parts of speech highlighted in your own writing process?

I have seen some writing suggestions along the lines of “find all the adverbs and cross them out”. So I guess could be used for that, but what about a general highlight any part of speech… is that useful?

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Seeing adverbs highlighted would be useful. Highlighting sentences that end with a preposition would be helpful.

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“I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day… fifty the day after that… and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s—GASP!!—too late.”

Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

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I generally don’t find tools like this to be useful, and I’d say they don’t really fit how you design your apps. I’d vote for leaving it out.

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This seems like cruft.

I’ll just re-up my request to bring back the effortlessly elegant look and feel of version 2.x

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Gosh that sounds like a distraction to me, suggest crossing that off the feature list. Or make it a plugin.

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I like the plugin idea. I can definitely see that being a killer feature for some people, but I personally don’t see much of a need for it.

Thanks for all the feedback, leaving it out for now.

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