Recent Replies
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@Denny sometimes it really does feel like it takes a good long while from public release to iron out the kinks, just in time to break a few more things with the next full releaseā¦
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Complicated set-up: guilty as charged! Cruft accumulated over years. Working on it. :)
Links to files: for my own use, rather than sharing. It's useful to have links to files and folders or some project related assets (e.g. Muse boards) in tasks or project overview notes.
Edit in place: it's been mostly about PDFs and a few script files, and again, not often enough to become a real issue. I'm just trying to understand my blindspots a bit better. As you've offered, it's likely just a matter of me paying more attention to UI. There's nothing significantly new about any of thisā I never had any problems knowing that the file I just opened in Editorial would be saved back to its location in Dropbox, but that was all clearly signposted in Editorial's UI (was there a file save/update indicator? I don't remember precisely...). Opening a PDF in Documents offers a dialog to "save to Documents", and (as far as I understand it), ignoring that option allows you to work on that file in its original location, but that's different from using Runestone's Files interface to select a script to edit (no dialog, it just opens, and away you go). We long since been removed from the acknowledgements of when and where a thing has been saved or updated.
Most of the time I get it right intuitively. But whether it's a holdover from the old days of iPadOS when fewer apps were using the iCloud file picker and so had their own UI for file management, the even older days of macOS where saving something was a more manual process, or the variety of ways different modern iPadOS apps signpost editing in place, I still do find myself checking on occasion: "wait, did that just save properly?"
This may also has something to do with the positioning of apps over files. I used to work with files or documents. Editorial (and apps like it) gave me a way of working with my text files stored in Dropbox, and I would also work with those files in completely different applications on my Mac. For better or for worse, since I shifted to using the iPad as my primary computing device back in 2016, my predominant mental model for getting things done has been app-centric. Notes in Drafts, boards in Muse, mind maps in MindNode, and so on. Where the file lived wasn't less important than how easy it was to get that file into the app I needed to use to work on it, and once it got there, that was pretty much where the file remained.
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@patrickrhone Happy Birthday, Patrick!
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@mbkriegh @pratik Sounds like a solid usage pattern. From what I've heard, this is a way of working between Drafts and Obsidian that serves a number of people really well. Haven't personally needed to post (m)any images in my M.b posts thus far, though I'm sure that time will come soon enough. Workflow review soon come... :)
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@pratik Hm. It's easy to send notes to Obsidian, yes. Obvs, being discerning helps avoid cruft. Some of my Obsidian notes start from MarginNote or Omnivore highlights; some emerge from working around the map/graph. I'm trying to cultivate distinct usage; more so than Drafts as a "pass-through"...
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@pratik A lot of people think of Drafts as a tool for capturing text and then routing it to other destinations. I use Drafts as a destination in itself, due to how extensible it is (I've built a number of actions that suit the way I work), and how well integrated it is with i(Pad)OS (my primary working platform. Also possibly due in part to the way I came to Drafts in the first place (Folding Text / Notational Velocity on macOS --Ā» Editorial on iPad --Ā» Drafts).
I use Drafts for two main activities: daily logging (daily notes, workouts, contact notes, other random operational notes that crop up as I goā most of which are automatically referenced in the day's daily note), and drafting things (creative writing, blog posts, Mastodon posts, newsletters etc). There's a layer of "note-making" and knowledge wrangling I can manage to an extent in Drafts but benefits from the tools available in Obsidian (easier back-linking, graph visualisation, canvas etc).
It's really easy to send ntoes to Obsidian (again, that's the kind of activity Drafts was originally designed for). And I can easily link to Obsidian items in a draft if I need/want to. Some people are probably doing everything I do in Obsidian alone, but I'd miss the deep OS integration (Widgets! Scriptable access to calendars and reminders! etc) and the workflows I've already builtā not planning to learn how to build an Obsidian plugin any time soon...
Also, I think the separation of modes serves wellā Drafts remains open constantly; Obsidian is opened for refining ideas (beyond my own writing) and cultivating connections between ideas. In the past, I've done some of this connective work through concept maps, where my concept maps would reference notes or searches in Drafts. Obsidian's more robust for this.
Last thought: the pairing provides a kind of self-sustaining loop. Drafts facilitates my day-to-day momentum; Obsidian is a home for continually refined learning/knowledge; that learning/knowledge feeds back into things I write in Drafts.
I'm enjoying the pairing thus far. Again, while I've spent a lot of time in Drafts, I'm still picking up on Obsidian usage, so we'll see how things evolve...
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@Denny most of the negative coverage I've seen thus far that riles me essentially conforms to "the iPad doesn't meet MY needs, so it isn't a real computer." I can agree with some of the comments on the shortcomings of iPadOS (aside from the kinds of things you're very good at pointing that have been fixed along the way), but there's so much commentary that fails to consider how well suited the iPad might be for perfectly productive use cases other than the writer's own.
As a full-time iPad person, I'm doing my best not to pay so much attention to the naysayers these days, but once again I salute you for diving into the fray to uphold the honour of iPad users everywhere!
We could still do with a bit more balance in the kinds of opinions about iPads that garner eyeballs. Tim Chatten's iPad Pros podcast is doing some good work, but I'd love to see a wider range of people. Some of the more interesting episodes for me have been with guests from outside the tech industryā business owners, writers etc.
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@Denny fair point about the differences. I've ended up on dev beta 7; I was going to update to the most recent public data, but the beta options disappeared from my software update settings screen. Fixed that by downloading a configuration profile (the way we used to do it up to 16.4 or thereabouts). Turns out the profile I selected was the dev beta track, and here I am. Less crashy thus far. A few widget issues, but nothing show-stopping. So far, so good... (touch wood)
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@patrickrhone itās sooo good! Iām a long time fan of Gladstoneās work, but didnāt know El-Mohtar before I found this. They work together really well.
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@pratik Got it. So shall it be.
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@Denny @jean @pimoore I get the appeal of an all-in-one keyboard and cover, but Iāve traded off for a keyboard that packs relatively light and switches between multiple devices easily. These days, if I have a choice, Iām always going to choose a programmable keyboard (that doesnāt need an on-device utility app), and more often than not something split. Being able to set up a non-Apple keyboard in a way that works with iPadOS keyboard shortcuts has been good. And a small split keyboard can adapt well from the desktop to cramped transitā¦ :)
Also: an origami portfolio cover. Iām six months in on a Nedrelow 12.9 portfolio: solid, affordable, allows for portrait and landscape orientation, and looks like itās built well enough to last a good while longer. Iām considering a similar Nedrelow case for my Mini, but I like the way the front cover of the (landscape) case Iāve currently got on it provides a comfortable little grip for my left hand when folded backā¦
Speaking of programmable keyboardsā it occurs to me that the only reason Iāve booted up a macOS machine this year is to flash firmware. Itās a small thing, but a little frustrating that i(Pad)OS used to be able to do this until recentlyā¦
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@jasonekratz Thanks!
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@Denny You're one of a number of people in my timelines/feeds over the past few days espousing love for their iPad Minis. No argument from me: there was a time when I felt like my Mini could be my everything. The 12.9 (or as I think you refer to it: the 13) has spoiled me though. I live on this thing. The Mini tends to come out when I need to pack small and light, or want something unobtrusive (meetings, workshops, etc). Grateful I've been able to swing it so that I have both.
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@pimoore @AndyNicolaides not to over-hype it or anything, but Divinity is AMAZING. Kept me entertained for 2 play-throughs. Ranks as one of my all-time favourite games on any platform, but particularly on iPadOS. That's my kind of gaming right there. :)
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@dandycat enjoyable and rewarding: I certainly hope so! Having access to new thinking/perspectives is an important part of what I do, but itās also to easy to get caught in the mire or make the mistake of feeling the need to stay caught up on everything. I like the idea of the āswell and cutā approach, but Iām thinking about a slower cycling of that. And maybe investing in practices for strengthening my signal filterā¦ In the end, itās all curation, and everything costs attention, for better or worseā¦
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@jsonbecker good to know. All roads lead to categories being the next aspect of Micro.blog usage for me to grokā¦
Searching my own posts is actually probably less of an issue now that Iām settling in with Drafts as my main client for authoringā¦
Thanks!
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@miljko Mmm. re: spamming: fair point. Categories: good to know. I'll continue looking into that. š¤
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@pratik LMAO. Fair. :)
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@pimoore LMAOā re: "horrible": I was being kind. :) It is horrible indeed. And I'm not doing any of that "two spaces for a line-break" business at all! But that's okay: Drafts is where most of the work happens; sometimes the writing happens longhand in Concepts or Muse before transcribing for further editing. I don't spend a great deal of time previewing text in Drafts, but I did create my own Markdown template/interpreter that treats poems as preformatted text. And yes, for the shorter batches of work or documents I've had to send out, Pages has been covered the last part of the process (tidying up formatting).
I'll be keeping an eye on what you discover re: people using Pages for manuscripts...
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@pimoore It occurs to me that while I appreciate Markdown for a few formatting tags, I've essentially cobbled together my own subset of Markdown enabled by Drafts for managing lists, outlines, tasks and wiki-links. The "double space for a line-break" was always counter-intuitive for me. And Markdown isn't that friendly to poets (particularly those poets who don't always stick to the left hand margin...)
I used to use Scrivener for managing manuscripts back in the day when I worked primarily on a Mac. Now I work on an iPad, I'll be curious to see how far I can get with Drafts for my next manuscript, and how I'll manage the last half mile of compiling a single document to send to my editor...
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@JohnPhilpin I have a lot to thank Greg/Drafts forā¦ ;) All hail the mighty tortoise!
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@odd thanks, Odd! Looking forward to settling back in hereā¦
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@patrickrhone thanks, Patrickā hope youāre well!
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@camacho Thanks! Iāll be looking at the bookshelves feature soonā¦ Iām thinking itād be cool if there were a way of connecting that to the media tracking app I use (Sequel on i(Pad)OS)ā¦ š¤ š¤