I meant to ask what app do you use for long-form writing?
I bought Affinity and have really, really tried to love and learn it! But some things just doesn’t click, and having been used DTP software since the Aldus PageMaker and FreeHand days, shortcuts and ways of doing things couldn’t just be re-learned.
Even though I created a couple of folders in Affinity, I eventually had to go back to the Adobe suite… 
Some things become second nature, and it requires too much work to alter that.
However, I love that there are options, and I hope that Canva makes the best out of this!
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Lately I’ve been dabbling with Paper for the actual business of putting words on the page. The ergonomics are superb, and it reminds me a lot of what I enjoyed about Writeroom.
I use Bike for outlining, and since both Paper and Bike use the same subtle typing animations, moving back and forth feels effortless. Ever since I noticed the feel of those animations in Bike, I’ve been slightly disappointed in other editors. That’s actually what prompted me to do the rounds and try out a bunch of them, but none other than Paper are so delightful to use. I’m just waiting for the lifetime price to fall back in line with iA Writer before I consider purchasing it.
Ultimately, though, everything ends up in Ulysses, which really shines when it comes to editing and publishing. Putting each paragraph on a separate sheet is quite useful both when reorganizing for flow or making bigger structural changes, and I’ve my style sheet is dialled in to the MLA guidelines.
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I tried Paper too. I like it, but I can’t justify the price. 
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Paper? Paper by WeTransfer | Simple Sketch App ? - Trying to see which app you’re all talking about.
No, it is this one.
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Weirdest home page I’ve come across! Downloaded to see what it’s about, but I doubt it’ll stay long.
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It’s a beautiful app
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Wow. He wrote his own Markdown editor and processing tool. Madness and props to him.
I think stunts like this are almost ac developers rite of passage. 40yrs ago I wrote a text editor in Z80 assembly language because the built in one was missing features and basic was too slow to write av text editor in.
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The price was fine for me when it was a hair less than iA Writer, since I don’t care about iA’s blogging features. The fact that he’s been developing it for ten years at this point also inspires a lot of confidence.
Most markdown editors other than iA Writer and Ulysses have lived and died during that time. Byword is withering, Typora doesn’t have mobile support, etc., etc. As far as I can tell, iA is the only real comparable, so that’s the price I’m shopping at.
ETA: for those interested, we had a thread over in Software last month discussing the app, and the developer dropped in to explain his rationale.
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Yes, I had read his rationale. I appreciate his forthrightness and the way that he has approached his app. The problem is that I don’t judge the value of an app on its emotional and inspirational appeal. That is fine for those willing to pay for that kind of experience. I, however, pay for apps that help me get my work done as efficiently and effectively as possible. That does not always mean the most features; in fact, it often means the opposite. I applaud the developer for the way he handles the trials and the free version. He is an example of a thoughtful, extraordinarily talented developer with integrity. But, while I appreciate the developer’s approach, I can’t justify that price for a markdown editor.
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I accepted that live preview was contrary to iA Writer’s approach, and just asked them for an option to render the markdown codes in a lighter shade to make the words (you know, what you’re actually writing) easier to read, but they were adamantly opposed to that, too.
Their attitude is less commercial software developer serving users and more fine artist haughtily dismissing the ignorant philistines.
There’s a lot to like and even love about iA Writer, but because of that issue I can’t stand to use it for anything that requires a lot of markdown formatting.
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This is me, exactly. If they would do that and add the ability to collapse headers, I’d do a lot more writing in iA Writer. But, alas, I don’t see them making changes. That’s fine; it is their application.
I wish Paper could be purchased as a “reasonable” one-time purchase with the option to upgrade with new feature releases or, as needed, with new OSs.
Fine.
I’ll lower it to iA Writer price for a few days.
Seems like there are quite a few fans on MPU. 
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They say collapsible headers and a navigable outline with drag and drop reorganization in a side panel (which they’ve had in the Windows version for years) are difficult or impossible to do in a native Mac app.
That’s one of the upsides of Electron. I have all those features in Obsidian right now.
Unfortunately, the mobile app is not up to par, and many plug-ins don’t work on mobile.
Alas, the travails of tech geeks. My friends are oblivious to all of these traumatic problems. They go about life blissfully ignorant, happily using default apps from MS, Apple, or Google. Perhaps I should join them. 
As I think about it, I mostly have. 
I know some people feel that way, but I completely disagree. I love the mobile version and it’s one of my favorite apps on my phone. It has almost all of the features of the desktop app and most of the plugins work.
BTW, they’re actively working on improving the startup time and planning to add a quick capture mode. Obsidian Roadmap - Obsidian
The startup time is currently the biggest downside, though it’s pretty much a nonissue for me since I got my iPhone 15 Pro Max. That doubled my RAM to 8 gb, so most of the time Obsidian stays open in the background and starts instantly. And even cold starts are twice as fast now.
I use Obsidian Sync and have my vault pinned in iA Writer and 1Writer for quick capture, but find I hardly ever use them.
Oh, and BTW, don’t miss that the Paper dev just granted your wish above. 
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Would that be for a one-time purchase with the option in the future to pay an upgrade price as features are added and or as needed based on new operating systems? I would like the look of your app. More importantly, I like the feature set. It is extraordinarily well done.
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I have collapsible headers with drag and drop reorganization in NotePlan, a very fine Markdown editor that runs native on the Mac.
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