Writing for the Web

The Internet offers writers and bloggers access to millions of potential readers, and tools like WordPress are vital in the war of Internet words. Visual editors in blogging software allow for some form of control over visual appearance of the writer’s text, but HTML is required to attain any form of visual uniformity. The most glaring issue with HTML is that writers are not web designers, and while HTML tags are relatively easy to understand, they muddle the flow of text and force the writer to break his or her concentration with awkwardly long and obstructive tags.

Enter Markdown

What if you could replace

<a href="www.google.com">Google</a>

with a simple

[Google][]

This is the goal of Markdown, a writing syntax created by John Gruber and Aaron Swartz. Downloading a simple script allows the user to convert a Markdown file into an HTML document, easily upload-able to most sites and blogs. Instead of resorting to bulky word processing files, Markdown allows the writer to store work in simple text documents. This simplicity allows the writer to focus on the writing, not the messy formatting. Markdown syntax is incredibly simple; however, working from a mobile device such as an iPad makes accessing the important symbols such as “[” cumbersome. Writing Kit offers an excellent solution.

Writing Kit for iPad

Writing Kit is designed for the researcher, someone who needs to consume massive amounts of Internet data and effortlessly insert references into his or her writing. Writing Kit has a quick research button, that provides dictionary definitions of common words, supports all of the major read later services and even provides its own reading list. The fully integrated browser permits inserting links with a single long press, and it’s never been easier to insert pictures or links into an iPad text editor.

Writing Kit is meant for Markdown, so what good would it be if it handled it poorly? Fortunately, it’s never been easier to use Markdown, even with little to no knowledge of the syntax. There’s a built in cheat sheet that offers an overview of all that Markdown has to offer, and the keyboard toolbar allows you to insert Markdown elements automatically, with a single tap. Popup boxes allow you to enter all of the pertinent info and create an inline link.

The only thing that seems to be lacking from this awesome app is the ability to insert reference links. The picture and link options only allow for inline elements. Fortunately, Writing Kit makes up for this shortcoming by offering TextExpander support, and it’s incredibly simple to create a reference link snippet.

Reviewing your work is simple because Writing Kit allows you to browse by header, providing a hierarchical view of the document. This is an indispensable feature for lengthy works. A built in preview allows you to check the appearance of your work, and there are several in-app fonts to choose from.

Sync

Dropbox sync is simply a must for my workflow, and Writing Kit has worked out most of the bugs present in its initial Dropbox sync release. Writing Kit now allows the user to select which Dropbox folder is synced, but it must be relinked to Dropbox to change sync folders. Since I keep all of my writings in the same folder, it’s no problem for me, but some may prefer the option to easily change sync folders. The method of syncing Dropbox documents is still a bit strange and requires the user to hit a refresh button in the document menu. This can be confusing as it’s not always clear if you’re overwriting an existing document of saving your current version. This is only truly a problem when editing the same document from different sources within a short amount of time.

Sharing

A writing app with cool features is pretty meaningless if there is no way to export documents, and fortunately this is where Writing Kit excels. Documents can be exported as both source code or file in both HTML or Markdown. Documents can be emailed, copied to the clipboard, opened in external apps, or even sent to Omnifocus. The sharing options are simply phenomenal. Personally, I prefer to copy the HTML source code to my clipboard and paste it directly into the WordPress application, but there are much cooler and geekier ways of posting your content with Writing Kit’s export features.

Conclusions

From beginning to end Writing Kit is a blast to use. It rewards those who take the time to long press everything, and there are more features than can be mentioned in this post. The app is perfect for those who are intimidated by new writing syntaxes, because its toolbar provides a quick and easy way of inserting Markdown elements. One of the only gripes that I have with Writing Kit is the inability to easily insert reference or implicit links. There’s also a bug that occasionally prevents the user from scrolling to the bottom of the document page when the keyboard is present. But these issues are minor, and the productivity boost that Writing Kit offers far outweighs these minor issues. I can’t wait to see where Writing Kit goes from here, and if the past is any indication, the developer will continue to bring new and exciting features to this already excellent app. Writing Kit is available on the app store for $4.99.