Workflows are at the heart of Editorial: they define the app’s nature, its automation and inter-app communication capabilities, and its unique proposition for iPad users. Workflows are deeply intertwined with Editorial’s feature set and they’re completely open to user customization.Even though I don’t post to my blog nearly as much as I would like to, everything I write is written on my iPad. When I first got the iPad a couple years ago I wasn’t sure exactly what I would, or could, use it for. Early on I got a wireless keyboard and the iPad became my blogging device of choice. Things just keep getting better when it comes to writing on the iPad. Byword had been my go-to text editor for a long time. I was overjoyed A couple months ago when they added the ability to publish directly to my blog. i no longer had to copy and paste into another app. That always felt nasty. Now a new app has come out that raises the bar even higher, ensuring I will never have to copy/paste to get stuff from one app to another.
Editorial is by far the coolest way to write on the iPad. I love the Drafts App because of its ability to move text around and create customized workflows using iOS URL schemes. Editorial takes that same idea to the next step. It uses Python code which I find intimidating because I’ve never used it before. However, only a couple days in and I have some awesome blogging workflows already set up and working perfectly.
Editorial makes it extremely easy to add any link you might want. I highlight a word in my post and with one tap I can search for that word on Wikipedia or google. Find the page I want to link to and with another tap it is added to my txt file in Markdown syntax. Editorial also makes it extremely easy to add footnotes,[1] and lists. There is also a pretty cool comparison tool to see what changes have been made in your document.
The only thing I haven’t figured out how to do better with Editorial is actually post to my blog. No problem, I hit one button and it sends me back over to Byword and I can still post from there. Editorial is one of the most impressive pieces of software I have ever used on any computing device. I never thought this level of customization would be available on the iPad, but now that it is here I can’t wait to see what awesome workflows people come up with.
➔ Reinventing iOS Automation: Editorial Review
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Some people don’t like footnotes, but as you can see, I am a fan. ↩
Filed Under: Editorial, iOS, iPad