14 Moving to Byword and eternal bliss

For the first time ever, I’m typing a post (this one) on iPad and I will be publishing straight from it. I have done the former several times in the past, but this is the first time I will be publishing straight from my iPad. By tomorrow I would have done the same again, publishing either from my MacBook Air or Pro. Byword, an excellent distraction-free text editor with flawless publishing capability makes this possible everywhere.

Portuguese development duo, Jorge Pedroso and Rúben Cabaço, form Metaclassy, the software development studio that built Byword over five years ago. The programme remains a pioneer to this day. To me, distraction-free editors have often sounded like gimmicks. I did like [Ommwriter](vhbelvadi.com ommwriter), but of late I find myself using it a lot less than before. The app is still excellent, but I instinctively launch Byword. Besides things like line height and colours, the programme lets me customise a lot (albeit sometimes through the terminal) like my favourite typeface for writing and the content width and so on. Byword also has two nifty features I keep always on: a typewriter mode, which keeps the line I am currently typing vertically centred on screen, and the paragraph focus mode which partially greys out all paragraphs except the one I am typing now. There is also a line focus option which I find alienating and therefore do not use. Byword also has spelling and grammar check; I use the former. It also has word and character count displayed at the bottom of the screen without interfering with your writing.

In addition to all this — which may enable some to classify Byword as a glorified version of TextEdit — the programme also provides seamless publishing capabilities to common platform, namely Wordpress, Tumblr, Medium, Evernote, and Blogger. I use four of these five, and this gets me excited for several reasons: first of all, I can publish to my main website, self-hosted using Wordpress, without ever visiting the ugly dashboard. I only ever have to pop in once a month to update security and software and ensure everything is running smooth. Byword even supports uploading media with local references or links to Dropbox etc. Secondly, the same goes for Tumblr, where this site is hosted. Thirdly, for the first time I can publish the same article to Medium as well without hacky code or manual cross-posting. I also have it integrated with Evernote but rarely use it for note-taking that way. Speaking of Dropbox, I have Byword syncing across all my devices with my 1TB premium Dropbox subscription and I save all files as .txt for posterity. Metaclassy has a set of terminal commands ready for anyone looking to change the default save location etc. on Mac or otherwise customise the programme.

I do have two problems, however: Byword does not support going back and editing posts (but, in their defense, they never billed it as a desktop blog management app, so I am willing to let it slide), and the programme does not even let you revert from the publishing menu to make small changes (you have to cancel publishing and re-enter publishing data later). But, on the bright side, it pushes articles to publishing platforms as html, which means I can include Markdown (in which I always write), shortcodes, and html all mixed up as I pen my articles, and Byword publishes it without requiring me to make any edits or otherwise beautify it later at all. And then the elephant in the room: is Byword worth it? In one sentence, I think it is. The programme has zero glitches, in my experience, and it works smooth as butter. Publishing is a breeze, saving and syncing is a breeze as well, it reads a tonne of formats, has a great look and feel that lets you just type and get lost in your work. That, to me, is a good thing. It has saved me a lot of time publishing to my websites, and time alone is worth the price tag to me. But if you need more convincing, consider the fact that Byword is in active development and the entire package (Mac + iOS with two in-app purchases for publishing) costs less than the initial purchase cost of several alternative programmes like Desk, Focused, MarsEdit, or Blogo — which has a subscription-based model. I am thoroughly enjoying Byword like I have enjoyed few applications in the past.