PlainText & TaskPaper betas

I’ve just send out a beta for PlainText and for TaskPaper.

The TaskPaper beta is borning, but important. I’m hopeful that it will fix that crash on startup bug that many people are experiencing. If you’ve experienced that bug, please try the beta and see if this version fixes it.

The PlainText beta is more fun. If you can (if you are an iPhone developer I think you can self sign and run it that way) please try it out and let me know what you like/don’t like. The Dropbox sync should work well on any device 3.0-4.0. But I think that app is most appealing on iPad.

WriteRoom for iPhone status

WriteRoom for iPhone was my first real app in the app store. The first release was mostly a learning project. Subsequent releases added unique and useful features such as full screen mode and syncing.

But over the last year I’ve neglected it, and new bugs keep popping up as the iPhone OS gets updated. The end result is a mediocre app with a number of 1 star reviews. A good summary might be:

“A disappointing performance so far on all counts—especially since Jesse showed a commitment to significantly higher standards in bringing out the OS X version of WriteRoom”

I pretty much agree.

Everything good and bad about Hog Bay Software is because it’s just me. I don’t have a boss, I don’t have employee’s, I just sit and type at my computer. This leads to some pretty neat products, but also leads to many lose ends in the business. I never have enough time to do everything that I should, so in the end I’m mostly driven by what I’m most interested in at the moment.

I got hooked on TaskPaper for iPhone, and that work consumed the last year until this Feb.

Then the iPad showed up. For me that changed everything, WriteRoom is an obvious app for the iPad, and I wanted to do it right away. But it turns out that iPhone apps that are scaled up to iPad size just don’t look good (see TaskPaper for iPad as an example). TaskPaper is more about functionality, so I didn’t mind so much in that case, but WriteRoom is all about environment, I needed the iPad UI to be good.

This lead to lots of work trying to come up with a WriteRoom UI that works on both iPhone and iPad. Lots of fun, very interesting, and I’ve always “ only a few weeks away from the finish line”. So I ignore the existing WriteRoom for iPhone issues because I know something better is nearly here.

Then the Dropbox public API showed up. That changed everything again. I’ve never wanted to write and maintain my own simpletext.ws sync service, but there was no other choice. Now I can outsource all that work to Dropbox. But to do this I still need to rewrite my model layer to support Dropbox sync.

At this point (new UI new Model) I’m creating an entirely new app. It’s really fun, really interesting, and WriteRoom for iPhone is languishing as a result. I’m sorry about that, but I think the result will be worth it. I’ll be releasing (soon) an early version of this work as a new free app called PlainText. Once that’s out I’ll be adding a few more features (and taking away ads) to PlainText and will release that as the next WriteRoom for iPad. The price will go up to $9.99 (universal app), but it will be a free update to all existing WriteRoom for iPhone users.

Note A new version of WriteRoom for iPhone was just posted to the app store that should fix sync login issues, but that’s all.

PlainText update

My goal was to submit PlainText by last Friday… missed it. Remember anytime you here a date from me that it’s probably wrong. I’ve once again proved that statement correct :)

Two things slowed me up.

First sync service login issues for TaskPaper and WriteRoom for iPhone were hard to trackdown and fix. Eventually I just redid all of that code in a different way that I hope should fix the problem.

Second porting PlainText from iPad UI to iPhone UI was more problematic then I had though it would be. To get the particular look that I wanted I was doing quite a few hacks to the built in UINavigationController and UISplitViewController. But on the iPhone the hacks didn’t work in quite the same way. So I spent the early part of last week just rewriting my own versions of those tools. Now I have full control and no hacks once again.

New PlainText submit date goal is this comming Friday.

PlainText - Synced text files for iOS (Preview)

A new app for reading and writing text files on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. PlainText is a fast, clean, synchronized text editor. Unlike Notes, PlainText works with Dropbox to instantly sync your changes to your Mac, Windows, or Linux desktop.

• Clean paper-like user interface.
• Organize your files with Folders.
• Dropbox sync with offline and merging support.

Watch the screencast and let me know what you think in the comments.

How is it different from WriteRoom for iPhone?

• PlainText will be free. (Likely add supported, maybe $0.99 in app purchase to turn off adds.)
• PlainText’s mission is “Synced text files”. WriteRoom’s mission is “Distraction free writing”. Over time WriteRoom will get more features, PlainText will remain the minimum interface for synced text files.
• Timing. I’m moving all of my apps to a new Dropbox sync model with a more paper like interface. PlainText is the common set of code that I’m building my apps one. Because of this PlainText will be ready sooner.

Subscribe to this blog or follow me on twitter for more updates.

New TaskPaper for iOS submitted

• Added option to disable live search in document view.
• Fixed scrolling problems in longer documents.
• Fixed new entry type is determined by current selection.
• Fixed login alert and rename alert so that they work on iOS 4
• Fixed locking no longer resets current document search
• Fixed typing “:” into notes no longer turns them into projects.
• Fixed changing keyboard type no longer hides document view.

TaskPaper for iPhone and Bubbles for iPhone updated

A new version of TaskPaper for iPhone is now availible:

• Added undo help and reinserted some lost help pages.
• Fixed bug in TextExpander multiline expansion behavior.
• Fixed crash in tag value searches such as @priority = 1

A new version of Bubbles for iPhone is also now availible:

• Shake to pop all Bubbles at once.
• Bubbles fall slower and with varriable speed.

TaskPaper for iPad is now availible

TaskPaper for iPad is now availible in the iTunes app store.

With this release TaskPaper becomes a universal application that runs natively on both your iPhone and iPad. This is a free update for existing TaskPaper for iPhone users.

I hope you like it, and tell your friends to get it quick. I think I’ll be raising the price soon.

WriteRoom for iPad

Now that TaskPaper for iPad is out I’ll be changing focus to WriteRoom for iPad. This release will be simular to the TaskPaper for iPad release. It will be a free update that turns WriteRoom into a universal app that runs natively on both iPhone and iPad. It will be a free update.

TaskPaper for iPad on the way

I’m now ready to release TaskPaper for iPad. Changes include:

• Added native iPad support.
• Added undo history of document edits.
• Added default tags list to preferences.
• Tag searches are now case insensitive.
• Archive @done adds items to top of list.
• Fixed TextExpander multi-line expansions.

Of course in the app store being ready to release isn’t enough. There’s a bit of a hold up… I’ve been working with the beta Xcode, and apparently there is now a check in place that doesn’t allow me to submit an app built with the Xcode beta. So now I’m downloading the last non-beta release… 13 hours to go.

Once that’s done, then I’ll submit, and with luck TaskPaper for iPad should be in the app store. Late this week? This new release turns TaskPaper into a universal app that will run nativly on iPad and iPhone. It’s a free update to people who’ve already bought TaskPaper for iPhone.

TaskPaper for Mac and iPhone compared

Nice in depth comparison and review from ATPM.