A critique of minimalist word processors

While looking for a replacement for Ecto (which I've used for years, but which has now become unacceptably unstable), I stumbled upon this attack on WriteRoom and the Zenware movement (which I've written about at greater length):

For just twenty-five dollars (say it with me: twenty! five! dollars!) you can purchase the most uncomfortable writing experience of your life. Every single useful option is buried under so many unnavigable menus that the extremely limited amount of customization allowed (color, font, plus a load of small tweaks) is hardly worth the effort. There are no toolbars, only one kind of statistic, and certainly no clock or other means of keeping track of time. Switching between documents is anything but intuitive, and a pain to do even once you’ve learned how to do so. It is a stiff, unyielding program, although I will admit that it does have a scrollbar....

Because everything I’ve said applies to its imitators – and, usually, worse. WriteRoom has set an infuriating trend among fullscreen editors – minimalism to a fault. A word processor should bend to the will of the writer, not force them to just “deal with” what they’re given. I’ve had a more customizable experience writing on a typewriter.

In short, fullscreen editors are awful and take refuge in their own “minimalism” to dodge the fact that they have virtually no features whatsoever. FocusWriter is the exception, a perfect example that minimalistic doesn’t mean featureless. Please, “distraction-free writing software,” get your goddamn act together. Give us something that adds to the writing experience instead of crippling it.

 

Comments

[Klintron]

I like FocusWriter, but see also Merlin Mann's critique of zenware:

http://www.43folders.com/2010/10/05/distraction

"Which in this instance amounts to saying, a) selling people a prettier way to kinda almost but not really write is not, in the canonical sense, “nice”—but, far worse, b) leaving your starry-eyed customers with the nauseatingly misguided impression that their 'distraction' originates from anyplace but their own busted-ass brain is really not 'helping.' Not on any level. It is, literally, harmful."

[Alex Soojung-Kim Pang]

That's an awesome rant.

[Benoît Perrier]

Hey,
Looks like someone hasn't used the tremendously good Writemonkey http://www.writemonkey.com
It gives you a live word or character count, a clock and useful stats. You can set a goal length (let's say 3000 characters) and it lets you know how far you've gone.
You can also set a time window to write in (let's say half an hour) and it indicates you how close you are to the deadline.
It also perfectly interprets markdown, outputting well-formed HTML.
As for the Open/Save mechanism : how complex is a command + O or a right click and "open with" (or even having it as your default editor) ? Seriously, I couldn't work without it and it truly improves both my productivity and my concentration.

[Alex Soojung-Kim Pang]

I hadn't heard of WriteMonkey either, but I'll have to take a look at it.

The WriteMonkey Web site's use of Courier font is a nice example of how an older technological look has now been appropriated and reinterpreted for new purposes-- in this case to hearken back to a time of simpler interfaces and creative writing tools.

[Andrew Curry]

I like OmmWriter:

http://www.ommwriter.com/

No whistles, hardly any bells, but a clean white writing space.

[Chris]

WriteMonkey seems to become my new word processor of choice :) Have looked for a WriteRoom equivalent for my home PC, and this seems to fill out that void. Great stuff!

[awkisopen]

I've restarted my blog after about a year of neglecting it. I never knew I was mentioned here! I'm glad someone else found my rant cathartic :)

I'm going to try WriteMonkey right now.