Welcome!
This is the community forum for my apps Pythonista and Editorial.
For individual support questions, you can also send an email. If you have a very short question or just want to say hello — I'm @olemoritz on Twitter.
First Look at Editorial 1.1
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Even though I've never promised an actual release date, and the above was indeed more of a "teaser", I guess it's obvious that I wanted to have the update out a lot sooner myself. I'm really sorry if the delay got some of you worried about the app being abandoned, but I can assure you that this is absolutely not the case.
In hindsight, I probably should have released a smaller update a while ago, and I'll try to learn from this. Being a solo developer, I can change plans pretty quickly when I get excited about a new idea, and while I'm very grateful for that freedom, I'm also well aware that it can make the whole process somewhat unpredictable, and perhaps less trustworthy.
Especially when working on new features (vs. incremental improvements/fixes), it's often very hard to predict how long it will take, and more importantly, if it'll work out at all.
For example, when I worked on Editorial 1.0, I spent about two months on experimenting with an entirely different method for creating workflows. In the end, while the system was more flexible in a lot of ways, it turned out that it was also more difficult to wrap your head around, and that the UI wouldn't work at all on the iPhone... It looked pretty cool on screenshots though, so if I had worked on this "in the open", I'm pretty sure that a lot of people might have been disappointed when I decided not to pursue this idea.
After I released Editorial 1.0, my first priority was getting Pythonista ready for iOS 7. Even though Editorial got a lot more attention then, the update for Pythonista was more important because the then-current version had pretty severe compatibility issues on iOS 7 that didn't exist in Editorial because I could already test it on the betas.
Shortly before releasing Pythonista 1.4, I started working on a pretty big new module. I didn't plan to include it in that update because I wanted to get it out as soon as possible, but I was (and still am) pretty excited about it. While I initially only thought about it in the context of Pythonista, I started seeing a lot of potential for this in Editorial as well, and I quickly made a lot of progress initially, so I figured that it wouldn't push back the release by more than a few weeks.
As it turned out though, there were a lot of little details/bugs that took quite a bit longer to figure out. Both Editorial and Pythonista are "platforms" in a way, so I have to get some things (mostly) right the first time, because people then start building on them, and I can't make radical changes that would break existing workflows or scripts.
Anyway, the thing I'm actually talking about is a Python module called
ui
that'll basically allow you to create custom user interfaces. It's not just a module, there's also an integrated visual editor for setting things up without code, and in Editorial there's also a way to build UIs around workflows, without having to write Python at all (though you can also mix and match). Before you get the wrong idea: This is in no way a complete wrapper around UIKit or some kind of Cocoa bridge, so you won't be able to do a all the things you could do in a native app, but it provides a (hopefully) easy-to-use and pythonic way to create UIs that look and feel "at home" on iOS, and it's possible do some relatively advanced stuff with custom drawing and touch handling.For Editorial, I tend to think of this as a "plugin" interface that allows the creation of workflows that are nearly indistinguishable from native features. Obviously, this won't be for everyone, and there will definitely be a learning curve, but given what I've seen this community come up with, I'm pretty confident that it will enable some people to really push the limits of iOS text automation (and others to reap the rewards via shared workflows).
I didn't want to announce this sooner because I faced quite a few challenges getting memory management and a couple of other technical details right, and frankly, I wasn't sure if I could pull it off – but at this point, I'm pretty sure this can work well, and it's been in beta testing for a while now.
I've hinted at a couple of other improvements, both here and on Twitter, notably TaskPaper support and an iPhone version.
While these are also relatively big features, I already started working on them before 1.0 was released. I mostly pulled TaskPaper support out of the initial release because it seemed a little bit like a rip-off and I didn't want to dilute the Markdown focus of the app, but given that the official TaskPaper app for iOS is no longer available, and a lot of plain text folks are looking for alternatives, I think that it makes sense to include it now. I've tweaked the implementation a little bit since I worked on the original version, but overall, it wasn't a huge change, and I mostly "resurrected" code I had already written. It's similar with the iPhone version – this was quite a bit more work, but I definitely wasn't starting from scratch, and 1.0 had a lot of the pieces already in place. My current plan is to release it as a universal app (free update) and raise the price (for new users) to $6.99, but I'm still thinking about it, and I might make the iPhone version a separate app instead (this is basically just a business decision, it doesn't affect the actual development very much).
At this point, the things I've talked about are pretty far along, but some polish is still missing, and I need to work a bit more on the documentation. The same applies to Pythonista 1.5 – because of the platform characteristics I mentioned before, I think that it makes sense to release the updates for both apps (more or less) at the same time, so that the feature set/API of the custom iOS modules is in sync.
I hope this has clarified a few things, but feel free to ask any remaining questions you might have below, I don't have a lot of surprises left anyway. ;)
Finally, here are some more screenshots of the work in progress (click on the thumbnails for the full size):
This is very simple workflow-based UI, there's an embedded workflow that is run when the selected button is tapped:
...this is a more complex Python-based UI that implements a calculator popover. Since the code fits on one screen, you can also get a rough idea of how the
ui
module's API works:...and finally, a few screenshots of the iPhone version:
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Oh shit. This is fucking amazing! and you are a GENIUS!!
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i'd pay 12$ for this thing
seriously,u can add it as iap... -
Wow. This is very impressive. Can't wait to try it out.
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@omz Thanks! I could have a lot of fun with this on long plane journeys. (I've had quite a bit of fun with 1.0 on plane journeys already.) :-)
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Looking beautiful, man! You take as long as you need. I had faith in it all along, given your hints on Twitter and all, but I know a lot of people will really appreciate this status update. And this is beyond what I was imagining. I'm very excited to try the new features. Hopefully all continues to go well. Once I started using Editorial, I was surprised it was only $4.99. $6.99 is plenty fair, especially comparing to Pythonista,a price (I think it's $6.99 right?). I would be willing to pay for the iPhone app separately, of course I won't argue with a universal :)
So, as of now, if things go as planned, are you planning to release 1.1 and the iPhone version at the same time? Or is it too early to tell? Thanks, and however long it takes, we're all looking forward to it. Cheers!
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Thankyou!
Great update.
With Editorial I am this " " close to having the Schedule-Diary-System that I've been after since my first Sol-20 computer days in the prehistory of personal computing.The TaskPaper includes in Editorial will finally give me the S-D-S and the other things hinted, and shown, above in conjunction with the creative workflow authors in your "ecosystem" will give me the closest thing yet to my very own DynaBook!
After a 38 year wait since my first personal computer I can wait a day, or two ;) more for perfection.
Thanks again for a great product!
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So, as of now, if things go as planned, are you planning to release 1.1 and the iPhone version at the same time? Or is it too early to tell?
Yes, that's the plan.
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Ole, thanks for the update on the status of Editorial. I understand this isn't something you can comment on in the absolute but do you see this next iteration of Editorial being released in the 0-3 month period or the 3-6 month?
For my money the developments look exciting and overall it feels like more of a V2 release than a point upgrade. The business decisions are yours to make but it's my belief that if the application is fundamentally the same experience across both iPhone and iPad it should be an aptly priced universal App but if you've had to customise the user experience to each platform then it is fair to price them individually. Fantastical 2 is a great example here of a company that provides great value even though each IOS platform is an individual purchase. But there are a number of text editors on the market that provide iPad and IOS Apps that are fundamentally the same but still charge a seperate fee for each. These always feel like a company milking it's customer base.
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I understand this isn't something you can comment on in the absolute but do you see this next iteration of Editorial being released in the 0-3 month period or the 3-6 month?
Definitely 0-3 months.
it's my belief that if the application is fundamentally the same experience across both iPhone and iPad it should be an aptly priced universal App [...]
The overall UI isn't radically different on the iPhone, but there are a lot of little details I had to tweak to make it work on a smaller screen, especially in the workflow editor.
Though I tend to favor universal apps as well, you could also make the argument that users who only own one device would pay for something they don't need... Of course, there are examples of apps where porting it to a different screen size is trivial (e.g. most games), but that's really not the case here.
Still, I've made Pythonista universal (it was initially iPad-only as well), and it's quite likely that I'll go the same route here.
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Have you considered naming both of the new versions 2.0.0? That way, Pythonista and Editorial would be matched in version number and it would be obvious that the APIs should be similar.
Just a thought.
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@Ole Your are fucking awesome man... I love you so much... Thanks once again take your own time and give me a bug free results...
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Wow! I'm impressed! As someone who normally lives in Vim (and MacVim) on Mac/Linux systems (with the full power of the command line & scripts for filtering available), Editorial is like a godsend, being able to write Python tweaks/filters for text editing on iOS. And having an iPhone version is going to greatly simplify some things for me, not having to make do with lesser apps on the smaller device.
At the risk of delaying things further, this seems like a large enough milestone that you could quite reasonably rename them to Editorial2, Pythonista2, charge anew for them (as universal apps), and use the occasion to switch over to Python 3.x. Sort of make a clean break all around. Keep up maintenance/bugfixes on the 1.x versions (if needed), since they both work well on iOS 7 (and folks can stay with them if they're happy), but have all new work/features/etc going into the new v2 versions.
Either way, there's a bunch of folks who'd cheerfully use a "buy Ole a drink" IAP button, or, if Apple won't allow that, maybe a bonus/premium button that gives us some themes or whatnot in return. I understand a title of the "what price will fly" dilemma, but you I think you should get more money for Pythonista and Editorial.
Take all the time you need. ("As long as I can have it tomorrow" Ha! *anxiously waiting*...)
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Quick status update: I've just submitted Editorial 1.1 to Apple for review. \o/
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Yay!
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Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
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btw... Did "TaskPaper mode" make the final cut (oh please say yes...)
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@Bricoleur Yes.
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If you're interested in all the details, here are the full (pre-)release notes for 1.1:
http://omz-software.com/editorial/docs-prerelease/ios/editorial_release_notes.html
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TaskPaper, TextExpander, contacts, oh my!
iPhone, sub-workflows, and so much more.
I'll be able to complete workflows for all my Schedule-Diary-System needs now;
Out of the Park, omz.