Ensures that if a device isn’t secure it can’t access your apps. It’s Device Trust for Okta.
Ole Zorn:
Editorial 1.1 will require iOS 7. I know that some of you won’t like this, but sooner or later, it’s inevitable, and all iPad models that run iOS 6 also support iOS 7, so this doesn’t mean leaving any older devices behind. iOS 7 is so different from its predecessor that it’s a lot more difficult to support older versions than it was with previous upgrades.
I’m especially a fan of the last point in the “New Features” list. Editorial’s looking good on iOS 7.
David and Katie are joined by Federico Viticci of Macstories.net to talk about writing on the iPad and the newest text editor with built in automation functions, Editorial.
Mac Power Users is one of my favorite podcasts. Thanks to David and Katie for letting me talk about Editorial and my book.
After the launch of Editorial, several readers have asked me whether there was a good way to browse workflows shared by other Editorial users. While Pinboard has provided a good temporary solution with bookmarks and tags, you’ll be happy to know that developer Ole Zorn has launched a beta of the Workflow Directory, which will be deeply integrated with the next version of Editorial.
Right now, you can search for specific workflows in the Directory or view Staff Picks and Recently Added workflows; select a workflow, and you’ll get the usual preview page where you can tap a button to add someone else’s workflow to your Editorial library.
With the Workflow Directory, the default behavior of Editorial’s sharing feature is changing: shared workflows will be posted online but won’t be listed in the Workflow Directory unless you manually publish them there. This means that, when unlisted, only people knowing the direct URLs to the shared workflows will be able to find them. This is exactly what I’m doing with the extra workflows included in my Editorial book.
The best part of the Workflow Directory is that it’s got an API to programmatically search workflows, download them, and get descriptions. It returns data in JSON, so, if you bought Writing On The iPad, you should be able to adapt one of my existing workflows that use the request module to work with the Workflow Directory API. Zorn has already made a workflow to search and download workflows (as usual, meta).
My first book is now available on the iBookstore. It’s an extended edition of my Editorial review that comes with:
You can read the book on your iPad, and it’s $2.99 for a limited time.
Get it here.
Editorial is a text editor for the iPad that supports Markdown, syncs documents with Dropbox, comes with a snippet system to speed up typing, and – a feature that truly makes it stand out from similar apps – is powered by workflows and scripts to automate writing, editing, and publishing. Editorial is developed by Ole Zorn, an independent software developer based in Germany. Editorial was released on August 15th, 2013; prior to the public release, I had been testing the app since late November 2012.
“Writing On The iPad: Text Automation with Editorial” contains my review of Editorial with an in-depth explanation and critique of the app’s numerous features and workflow tools. My goal with this book is to provide a convenient, portable resource to learn more about Editorial, how the app changed the way I work on iOS, and how, through Editorial’s automation, scripts, and workflows, it’s possible to turn an iPad into a powerful tool for writers.
Originally, my Editorial review was here published at MacStories.net on August 15th, 2013, when Editorial for iPad was released on the App Store. However, following many readers’ suggestions due to the length and scope of the review, I decided to offer an iBooks version of it. “Writing On The iPad: Text Automation with Editorial” contains the original review reformatted for iBooks, plus 20 extra workflows and 5 additional videos. You can consider it a “Director’s Cut” edition of my Editorial review, now available in a multi-touch interactive book made exclusively for the iPad and iBooks.
The exclusive workflows included in the Extras chapter are:
Alongside converting the review to the iBooks format and including new content, I also updated screenshots for Retina displays, created galleries to group multiple screenshots together, and annotated some screenshots to better describe the user interface of Editorial. The videos have been enhanced with textual overlays for comments, and I’ve created a glossary for common terms used throughout the book.
I consider this the best version of my Editorial review. Thanks to iBooks’ interactivity, clean layout, and embedded rich content, I hope that you will enjoy a pleasant and convenient reading experience that should help you in getting started with Editorial and understanding the capabilities of advanced workflows and iOS automation – an area that is often underestimated, but quickly growing among the iOS power user community.
I hope that you’ll like what I’ve done. This is a new experience for me, and I would love to receive your feedback either via email or Twitter.
Once again: my new book is available here, and it’s $2.99 for a limited time.
I had a feeling it was only a matter of time before Rob Trew started playing around with Editorial. Rob is the author of some of the most amazing scripts for OmniFocus and mind-mapping that I’ve ever used, and now he has created an Editorial workflow to turn a Markdown document into a tab-indented list that can be pasted in iThoughtsHD. In iThoughts, you’ll end up with a nicely formatted mind map that respects the indentation of the original document. This is just another example of Editorial’s flexibility in the workflow system and Python scripting.
Side note: I still have to check out iThoughts’ new Mac version, iThoughtsX. I’ve just been too busy finishing an eBook and submitting it to Apple.
Great demonstration of Editorial’s scripting capabilities. First, a workflow to fetch a random article from Pocket:
I’ve made 3 workflows; two for the authentication (Pocket Auth 1 & 2), and one that fetches a random article from the user’s unread queue and opens it in the Editorial browser. The Pocket authentication only needs to run once.
And then one to post on App.net (which could be nicely chained to my Post To WordPress workflow):
If you’re an App.net Developer, you can post to App.net directly from Editorial. I integrated this workflow into Federico Viticci’s Post to WordPress workflow, to post new articles to App.net in addition to Twitter.
Side note: I’m keeping track of Editorial workflows I find over at this Pinboard tag.
Update: I have turned this review into an interactive book with additional & exclusive content. You can find it on iTunes, on sale for a limited time. More information is available here.
Ole Zorn knows how to push the boundaries of iOS. His latest app, Editorial for iPad, redefines the market of text editors for iOS, and, in many ways, sets a new standard for iOS automation and desktop-class apps. Editorial makes me want to work from my iPad.
Before I get to the details, allow me to offer some backstory to properly contextualize Editorial and the process that led me to its launch today. I have been testing Editorial for the past eight months (since late November 2012, when I received the first beta build), and I’ve seen the app go through numerous iterations and changes. At one point I wasn’t even sure Editorial would come out anymore. Editorial has become the essential part of my iOS workflow, and it only seems fair to have a proper introduction.
Ole Zorn is finally talking about his upcoming new app, Editorial, publicly on his website:
I tweeted earlier today that I’ve registered the name for a new app in iTunes Connect. It’s called Editorial, and I’ve actually been working on this for over a year now.
At its core, it’s a Markdown editor for iPad, but you can also think of it as a Pythonista spinoff, or a workflow automation tool, not unlike Automator.
I say “finally” because I have been testing Editorial since November 2012. All my reviews have been written and edited with Editorial; I have built workflows that, for me, make working with text on the iPad better than using Sublime Text 2 on my MacBook Air. When I’m on my Mac, I miss Editorial’s automation and editing features. And if I haven’t posted a screenshot of my iPad’s Home screen in a while, it’s because I had Editorial in my dock and I couldn’t share it.
Ole Zorn is the developer of Pythonista, which I have written extensively about. I can’t wait to share more about Editorial.
Gabe Weatherhead is a good friend who writes and makes great stuff. Together with Erik Hess (MacStories readers may remember his particular iPad workflow), he launched CriticMarkup, a new project I’ve helped testing for the past few weeks.
Essentially, CriticMarkup is a plain text syntax for marking up text in editorial reviews. For someone who writes in Markdown and works with a team on a daily basis, CriticMarkup is the missing piece of a puzzle that required using clunky software like Word for Mac to do any sort of change tracking or markup. CriticMarkup feels like an extension of Markdown in that it allows you, through a simple and easily understandable syntax, to insert additions, deletions, substitutions, comments, and highlights into plain text.
