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Show HN: Distraction Free Reader/Writer (inkpen.in)
85 points by _kushagra on May 29, 2013 | hide | past | favorite | 60 comments



There sure are a lot of these now. There's Koi Writer [1], Dark Copy [2], Light Write [3], Quabel [4], Wabisabi [5], Write.app [6], Pen.io [7], (I like this one), Draft [8], and probably more.

[1] http://www.koi-writer.com/editor/ [2] http://darkcopy.com/ [3] http://gun.io/w/yyhegyfn6 [4] https://quabel.com/ [5] http://www.wabisabi.cc/ [6] https://writeapp.me/ [7] http://pen.io/ [8] https://draftin.com/

Then there's also native apps as well. For Mac, there's Focus Writer [1], OmmWriter [2], iaWriter [3], Writeroom [4], ByWord [5], Clean Writer [6], Writer [7], GrandView [8], and Texts [9] (I like this one)

[1] http://gottcode.org/focuswriter/ [2] http://www.ommwriter.com/ [3] http://www.iawriter.com/mac/ [4] http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/products/writeroom [5] http://bywordapp.com/ [6] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/clean-writer-pro/id478363291... [7] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/writer/id405680527?mt=12 [8] https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/grandview/id432436025?mt=12 [9] http://texts.io

So I guess, whenever one creates a new distraction free writer/reader, I need to know: why should I use this* app?* Your app looks pretty clean and pretty nice, but what makes it better? I don't mean this comment to put your app down as it looks pretty appealing, but I think the key first step when joining such a saturated market is to differentiate yourself.


Perhaps writing a distraction-free writer now becoming a justified form of procrastination for writers!


ObVideo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P785j15Tzk


It's the new Hello World app that replaces the blog engine :-).


I'm a big fan of the open source pyroom[1]. Development has stalled but it's feature complete for me so I don't mind. FocusWriter also looks good, xplatform & open source [2].

1: http://pyroom.org 2: http://gottcode.org/focuswriter


I doubt there's any hope of making money off the project, but it's a great piece of work and something he can add to his portfolio.

Note the prominent mention of nodejs. That is irrelevant to anyone using the app, so adds to the likelihood he is probably hoping to score a job(s) out of his now proven ability to ship products with node.


This. It's a good thing to have on your portfolio. I made something similar (totally local however) a few months back.


To add [Mou - Markdown editor for web developers, on Mac OS X](http://mouapp.com/) to the list. My fav so far.


Just downloaded this. Looks great!


Same here, Mou is great!


Any open source ones?


I have made one for ubuntu, and it's foss: http://uberwriter.wolfvollprecht.de

It's more or less an iA Writer clone but uses pandoc as "backend" which is really powerful.


FocusWriter, listed in the parent as a native Mac application, is open source and works on and has compiled binaries for Windows, Mac, and most Linux distros.


and for Windows I use WriteMonkey [1]

[1] http://writemonkey.com


My fav editor(ST2) coupled with a markdown plugin does the trick for me.


Also QuietWrite.com


Any of these Mac apps has that typewriter sound? I kind of like that sound.


I wish there was a site that listed the most over-done web app and OSS ideas. I'm guessing todo lists apps, distraction free writing apps, css frameworks, weather apps, invoicing apps, etc. would be near the top of the list.


Add CRMs to that list. There are probably more CRM applications out there than there are companies on this planet :)


Don't forget blog engines.


It's cool, I like it.

Couple of points, it's a distraction-free writer but I've been quite distracted by a couple of things, somewhat OCD: The Twitter image isn't updated when you update your image on Twitter. It's also cut off at the bottom for me when I view the link.

Also I was curious about the use of 'twimg', from the looks of it this is a service which tracks and sells user data. Care to comment? I have a tracker blocker which seems to take care of it.

Having said all that I love the output and simplicity and I will be using it (provided the uptime is good- it was out earlier, possibly due to HN?).


The entire workflow of managing more than one write-up needs some more work. Few examples:

- if you come back and try to edit a write-up you'll have to first open the preview then remember the shortcut to edit it, not really another way around except maybe changing the URL.

- if you have more than one write-up with the same name, you don't really know which one you are on right now.

- deleting the write-up is kinda confusing too. and you can't delete on the view mode.

- shortcuts gets mixed up between control and option.

But overall love it and will try to write more with your help!


It might just be me, but the typewriter sounds are pretty distracting. Also, there is a bit of ironic juxtaposition in an app called "inkpen" that sounds like a typewriter. But it's neat, certainly, I just don't know why I'd use it over one of the native offline apps I already have.


Great job! Most recently I have just been using Google Docs for writing out my blog posts before syndicating them to Medium and Tumblr; I might give this a whirl. The biggest problem I see is that I'm very heavily integrated in the Google ecosystem, so for things like jotting down quick ideas and documents to share with others (esp for collaboration), I'll probably continue to use Drive.

The biggest complaint is that I don't see the usefulness of the sounds. Most people probably listen to music while they work, anyway.

Either way, those are my only complaints. The simplicity and great shortcuts make this a great app!


Great app! I could use the additional features, as I've been using the plain text mode in the browser so far.

"data:text/html, <html contenteditable>" in the browser's address bar, that is.


On Emacs: http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/FullScreen

On a Mac, with Aquamacs:

  (defun writeroom ()
  "Switches to a WriteRoom-like fullscreen style"
  (interactive)	
  (when (featurep 'aquamacs) 
    (color-theme-initialize)
    (color-theme-charcoal-black)
    (aquamacs-autoface-mode 0)
    (aquamacs-toggle-full-frame)
    (scroll-bar-mode -1)))
And then do

  Alt-x writeroom


I find the top navigation bar to be distracting. It even gets in the way of the actual text.

http://scrot.it/350


This is actually quite cool. I could see this being a nice replacement of pastebin-type sites when sharing significant amounts of text.

My two suggestions would be:

-Add a few more pre-set color themes, perhaps with font selection too. (Maybe copy some from Textmate and/or Sublime Text 2.)

-Allow other forms of login maybe, perhaps with Google accounts?


Pretty nice, one thing I'd say is that the preview view should respect the user's theme setting. If I'm using the dark colour scheme, go to preview what I've been working on and suddenly have a bright white screen thrown in my face it puts a not insubstantial amount of strain on my eyes to adjust.


The theme-changer/audio/fullscreen options up to the left don't seem to work.

I had a double take when I opened the sidebar. After digging through my bookmarks I found that it reminded me of Scratchpad's (http://scratchpad.io/example) sidebar.

Overall, pretty cool.


Browser/OS?


Google Chrome 28.0.1500.20 dev, Mac OS X 10.7.5


Do you have localStorage disabled?


Nope.

EDIT: From what I can tell, the textarea is over the div.settings

Add a z-index to your .settings rule.

eg:

    .settings {
      z-index: 99;
    }


ScratchPad looks very nice and useful. Is there any such Mac app? Doing just this and no bells and whistles?

@OP: Your app is not reachable. Looks liked it's HNed.


Is this coded on top of ZenPen http://www.zenpen.io/ ?


Looks nice. I currently use Draft for writing like this, primarily because it lets me write at work. Login with Twitter isn't permitted on our network (one thing that pains me, otherwise I might write straight into drafts on Medium) so I'll probably stick to Draft for that reason.


You just need twitter login if you want to delete your posts later.


This looks cool! We made something similar - http://blog.functionspace.org/news/2013/5/8/a-beautiful-read...


Nifty little app! I am sure I will stop using notes or open up text wrangler to jot down a few things every now and then. I like the simplicity (great shortcuts) which makes the whole thing, elegant.


Can you articulate how this is different / better than writespace?


lag in fullscreen while scrolling on a moderately powerful linux desktop in firefox.

i'm not sure how to give you more input on the subject of my experience with the lag, but i'd be glad to.


Can anyone recommend a Markdown editor with Markdown code on the left and a preview on the right? OS X or Windows. Doesn't have to be free.


Mou is pretty good (and free)! http://mouapp.com/


MarkdownPad http://markdownpad.com/ is neat and does the preview thing, split screening your editing. (requires Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Client Profile, which it comes with and installs if you don't already have it. Windows XP, Vista, 7, and 8.)


Take a look at my comment above. It does what you want. I am not sure why I was down-voted!


Dillinger. It's open source, so you can also run it locally or on your own server. It's also a web-app, so it's cross-platform, too, of course. http://dillinger.io/


This one is a web-based editor which you can embed wherever you want. It's basically a replacement for WYSIWYGs:

http://epiceditor.com/


http://code52.org/DownmarkerWPF/ does this as well. It's both free and open source.


Nice! One thing I would like with something like this is to be able to add custom CSS to the preview


[deleted]


There is a mute button at the top.


I miss http://tiddlywiki.com/.


This is neat! My favorite feature is the typewrite sound effect as I type.


Not being able to load it is certainly distracting as well.


Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to inkpen.in


I use notepad and it works great.


It's down.


Sorry, it's back.


It's down again?


and again




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