FoldingText 0.7
- Faster scrolling.
- Changed theme to typewriter inspired.
- Fixed problems when indenting blockquotes.
- Changed heading indent rule so that subheadings are indented.
- Added menu command to disable span level syntax collapsing. Also removed heading and blockquote level syntax hiding.
- Unsupported, custom themes are likely broken for now, will fix.
I am particularly interested in feedback in the default theme change. Please create and share your first impression, I’ll probably create a separate thread where I describe the whys later. So far I really like it (guess who made it!) but that feeling is not universal here at Hog Bay headquarters.
You can download it from www.foldingtext.com, or direct download here.
EDIT
Here’s some more on the why’s of the new theme:
Our theme is based on the idea: "make it something you could type on a typewriter". The end result doesn't induce designer drool, but it does have many practical features.
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To me it just looks good and doesn't get in my way.
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We can't mess things up too much, it worked for typewriters. I think it also fits nicely into "simplest thing that could possibly work" and the "under promise and over deliver" memes.
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Most any plain text file will look good in it, even if it doesn’t fully follow our syntax conventions. For example the alternative markdown heading style still looks reasonable, even though it’s not recognized as a heading and bolded.
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Using only #'s to denote heading levels works better for many levels. If you are creating a big outline with many levels the #'s are clear a clear indicator.
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The new way of indenting headings avoids the problem where h4 (with many #'s) visually jump out more then h1 that only have a single #. Also the space that we use in the margin is more limited, and text doesn't go offscreen when typing h6.
Longer term (post 1.0) themes will be an offically supported option. So if you must have something more modern feeling you'll get it. But for me this feels like a good default way to work with and display structured plain text files.
2 Posted by Ian Beck on 06 Jul, 2012 08:50 PM
Hey Jesse,
Overall, I like the new default theme (particularly compared to the original default). As I've mentioned elsewhere, I like headers that are the same size as one another and think that persistently showing the hash marks is a better demarcation of type of header. As I play around with this new theme, I'm finding that I don't mind the syntax hiding for the bold/italic/etc. elements as much now that headers are always visible.
I'm still on the fence about headers being indented instead of aligning the left edge of the text with everything else. On the one hand, that's a really nice workaround for the "level 4 headers are far more visually impactful than level 1 headers" issue. But aesthetically my first impression was, "I hope that's a bug". Particularly with lists aligned so that the text is all along the left margin, headers stick out like a sore thumb now.
I also very much like that lists show the actual character you used to create the list. The bullet substitution was another place where I felt clarity was being sacrificed without much to gain for it in the original theme.
With this font, I find it hard to visually distinguish between formatted and unformatted text (in particular it's hard for me to pick out links, italics, or bold at a glance). One potential workaround for that would be to subtly lighten the base font color (a few ticks closer to white instead of flat black), and then leave formatted text black. Or vice versa, although personally I prefer the idea of calling out formatted text with a darker color when working with an otherwise light theme. Same applies for headers; bold isn't standing out very well for me, so darkening them up beyond the body text would probably help out.
Also on the topic of font, I like the switch to a monospace font for everything a lot. Really helps even out the spacing oddities that cropped up in the original theme.
One thing I miss from the original theme was having Markdown syntax characters colored a lighter color than the body text. This is particularly nice for things like links, where there's a relatively large amount of syntax, but all we really care about is the URL and linked text. Coloring syntax characters also helps cue in users a little more that the character is intended for formatting rather than explicit inclusion in the text.
Additionally, for those of us who uncheck the new "collapse syntax" menu option, having the syntax characters draw less focus by default is a nice usability gain by making it quicker to scan and parse the text at a glance.
Ian
Support Staff 3 Posted by Jesse Grosjean on 06 Jul, 2012 09:20 PM
For me the headers make most sense when you think of eventually expanding and collapsing them. With this new indention sub headers really feel “sub” and natural to expand/collapse.
For me bold jumps out well, but I agree italic is hard to see. I’ll try to play around with tints as you suggest.
I’ll also look at adding back syntax coloring for some elements. I agree it’s definitely useful when typing out things like links. I’m less sure about the leading # syntax for headings, but will play around a bit more.
4 Posted by Ian Beck on 06 Jul, 2012 09:32 PM
I could buy that argument. The nested approach makes tons of sense to me logically; it just breaks up that lovely vertical margin down the left side. I'm certainly willing to wait to see how this approach works with folding/filtering. At this point if custom themes were enabled I would probably stick with the nested implementation to see how it felt long-term rather than immediately adjust things the way I did for the Times theme. :-)
I think the reason bold isn't jumping out at me is because this particular font is pretty heavy already. Might partially be the size I keep it at, too (it's probably around 16-18pts).
Ian
5 Posted by Scott on 06 Jul, 2012 11:51 PM
0.7 certainly has a nice looking theme, but I would be sorry to see something like the earlier theme gone. Perhaps keep it as a second shipping option or download? I think the original stands more as a writing theme (and very PlainText-like, which I love), while this one sits more as a coding theme. I understand all the reasoning here for the changes, but having at least one theme that dynamically applies and hides all syntax really makes FoldingText stand apart from other apps.
Support Staff 6 Posted by Jesse Grosjean on 07 Jul, 2012 12:07 AM
The old style theme will come back as an option once themes are public and we have a UI for switching between them. That will be post 1.0, but probably pretty soon after.
Also, I just updated the initial post with more info on the “whys” of the new theme.
7 Posted by Scott on 07 Jul, 2012 12:16 AM
Sounds great.
8 Posted by Max Jacobson on 07 Jul, 2012 03:05 AM
I like the theme! App has improved heaps since I last checked it out. Keep it up :)
9 Posted by Jean on 08 Jul, 2012 03:51 PM
Il like the new theme with the typewriter mood. For me these kind of apps are virtual typewriters. It makes me think Courier Screenplay could be used to display a Foutain theme too…
I’d like the opportunity to keep a font size when you reopen the document once you’ve increased it, with a simple reset to the original size. Useful.
Thanks for the good work. I have translated in french the original “welcome text” and added an extra paragraph of my own telling :
“Place the pointer at the beginning or end of word in italic or bold, other of a link to display and edit markdown syntax. It vanishes as you place the pointer elsewhere. You can use usual TextEdit keyboard shortcuts to style your text: “cmd-i” to italicise, “cmd-b” to bold and “cmd-k” to insert a link.”
Perhaps useful for the beginners. You can get it in the attached zipped folder.
10 Posted by Jean on 08 Jul, 2012 03:56 PM
It looks like my attached file vanished. Try once again to send it. Anyway you can get the two files, french welcome and extra paragraph here during 9 days.
11 Posted by mon10a on 08 Jul, 2012 07:47 PM
Jesse,
Two thoughts:
I would make the headline (#) and list (-) syntax characters lighter. This is probably just a matter of taste, but to my eye they add so much emphasis that they interfere with reading the text. Perhaps it's just this font.
There seems to be a large jump in fontsize when choosing View:Bigger or View:Smaller. Would it be possible to have some intermediate sizes?
mon10a
12 Posted by tommyonline on 10 Jul, 2012 09:16 AM
I like the theme, does what you expect, works very nicely.
That said, my favorite theme is the Writeroom default theme, which once it's possible I will switch it to.
13 Posted by yoroy on 10 Jul, 2012 01:40 PM
Just remember that a lot of people have never seen or used an old typewriter before. I think one association many will make is that this if 'for programmers'.
Nice work, I think this theme matches the bare bones approach of the app as a whole quite well.
Support Staff 14 Posted by Jesse Grosjean on 10 Jul, 2012 04:06 PM
Jean,
Thanks for your translation. I'm not going to include it with the beta at this point, but with FoldingText I am going to try to maintain internationalized versions this time around. Never quite got around to it with my other apps.
Support Staff 15 Posted by Jesse Grosjean on 10 Jul, 2012 04:07 PM
Good idea, fixed for the next release.
Support Staff 16 Posted by Jesse Grosjean on 10 Jul, 2012 04:12 PM
I've tried a bit, and will keep trying. But whenever I highlight those items it looks better for a second, but then starts to look to busy… I always feel an "ahhh" when I turn it back off. I think the default theme is likely going to be very plain looking, but in not to long themes will be public and you'll have full control of how everything looks to your personal taste.
17 Posted by yoroy on 11 Jul, 2012 12:06 PM
Yeah, by decreasing the contrast you may make it less obvious to see, but that calmness gets evened out again by the fact that they are different and thus add more variation ("busy") to the palette.
18 Posted by Ian Beck on 11 Jul, 2012 02:38 PM
Frankly, things look less busy when syntax markers are de-emphasized through color. Currently, there's no visual hinting that the hashes and dashes are not as important as the text (or at least offer different meaning than the text), which makes them harder to ignore and thus more like clutter to my eye.
Not that it matters much. I'm perfectly happy making a custom theme. :-)
Ian
Support Staff 19 Posted by Jesse Grosjean on 14 Jul, 2012 06:12 PM
I’m not sure I can logically explain myself at this point, but for now I definitely want the heading syntax and list item syntax in normal black text color.
Not sure this argument makes sense… but here goes:
For my use I see the FoldingText UI as the final display medium for most of what I want to do with it. I don’t see it as an editor that’s one step in the process towards the goal of generating a final document from markdown. For me it’s more of an outliner for processing ideas (that can also be used to author documents) then the other way around.
Because of that I want the document to look “real” when I edit in FoldingText. ‘#’ isn’t some syntax that means “turn this into a header in the end”, instead it just means “this is a header”. The text is already bolded, the extra syntax coloring of # just seems unnecessary and distracting to my eye. Same goes for list items and the other syntaxes that lead with special characters.
I’m still not sure about how to handle spanning syntax (such as for bold and italic). It does seem to make more sense to me to highlight that so that it will be more obvious to the user what’s happening… and it doesn’t really bother me since I have that syntax hidden most of the time anyway.
Anyway, not a very clear argument, but that’s how I see it now.
20 Posted by matt.m.crider on 20 Jul, 2012 12:04 AM
Jesse,
Of course, I'm going to be the contrarian voice in this project. But, typewriter is a step backwards. What next? A computer that looks like a calculator? Perhaps, an abacus?
Still NOT loving the persistence of syntax when not on the line. I can't describe - though I tried in a prior thread - how silly it seems.
Why everyone is so enamored with the syntax being viewed, when you can get that in other software, is beyond me.
In my opinion you are moving – and quickly – in a direction away from where you started. What held such promise for someone like me is beginning to take on the old familiar feel of disappointment.
Where, oh where, can I find a compact file structure (i.e. ascii) that has simple formatting without the syntax showing? Folding Text had such promise in the beginning and oh how I rejoiced. But, alas, it was too good to be true........AGAIN.
I have suffered through several instances of you removing my favorite features from software. Why do you tease me like this?
I know you don't believe it, because you are surrounded by geeks and yes-men on this forum, who no doubt will surely come to your aid and pummel me and flame me, but if you went in the direction you were first going you would have much greater success.
I'll keep following your progress, but I think I've lost my hope in this software.
Matt
(P.S. Surely, you'll say, "Hang in there, Matt, we'll have this-or-that feature, but just not yet. Feel free to bring your request up again after I get fill-in-the-blank done." Yep, I heard that one before too.)
Support Staff 21 Posted by Jesse Grosjean on 20 Jul, 2012 08:51 PM
Matt, I welcome your comments and feedback, the 0.9 release even includes folding a feature that you long ago asked for in TaskPaper.
But things like "you are surrounded by geeks and yes-men on this forum” don’t help. The truth is I can only implement what I understand and believe, and in the cases where I do something different from what you want, it’s because after lots of thought that’s my view of the system and how it should work.
22 Posted by matt.m.crider on 24 Jul, 2012 04:22 PM
Jesse,
'Geeks' wasn't a pejorative. Most people who know me think of me as a Geek. I'm a quant, but in areas other than text and layout. So, no offense was intended.
But, I stand by my point. You are surrounded by people who think like you. People who think like me give up trying to influence. So, I'm speaking for those who won't.
Here's a suggestion. Why not make two products? I could help you with the parameters of one that people like me would want. The bottom line is that there is NOTHING like the way you gave hints of going, but the way you are going now, there are other software packages that have similarities.
Of course, it's your software – not mine. And, you have reasons for going the way you want to go. You're very accomplished and not a novice. But, I do think your direction is not the optimal path. But, of course, you'll disagree.
So, I'll stick around and protest now and again (without flaming) and hopefully I'll get a version or a preference selection or something that will make this a great product for me and those like me.
Matt
Support Staff 23 Posted by Jesse Grosjean on 25 Jul, 2012 03:26 PM
Longterm a very slight maybe. We see FoldingText as a productivity platform. But also the underlying technology is very flexible and another platform of sorts that we hope to be building things off of long into the future. At the same time, at this particular moment we have zero products released on it… so we’ve already got plenty to do right now without thinking about other products.
Jesse
24 Posted by Inge Hofmann on 02 Sep, 2012 11:47 AM
Just downloaded the Beta yesterday and want to give my feedback.
The feeling was mere joy, when I opened the file this morning and the headers held so much text for me, and in such an unobtrusive way! No waiting for clicks to take place, it is just there, instantly. Great! Very motivating to write along!!
I don't like the # sign. Perhaps it's my being German and we don't use it usually - it seems slanted to me. A plus sign + would be straighter and fit better with the font itself. More balanced. I read from the posts that there was a version without visible code in headers, that might be the best.
As for the feeling of being able to hack away writing instead of
empathising with a wordprocessor software to make it do what you need in order to be able to write something,
this is it, FoldingText is supporting the process of creativity, you are on the right track! Thank you!
Inge Hofmann
25 Posted by Inge Hofmann on 02 Sep, 2012 11:51 AM
N.B.
I would love it enclosed in Scrivener!!
:-) Inge
26 Posted by Jean Lespinasse on 02 Sep, 2012 02:23 PM
Hi Inge,
The # signs are the standard Markdown syntax signs for headers. To read:
http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax
FoldingText is Markdown compatible and I don’t think it would be a good thing to add confusion in changing the syntax rules to have to translate to use the text in other applications.
Jean
27 Posted by Inge Hofmann on 02 Sep, 2012 09:55 PM
Thanks for the information! Being compatible is important, I agree.
Inge