Like TextSoap, but for iOS?

I’m a journalist, and I write in Markdown. Before I upload articles to our CMS, I run a series of search-and-replaces on the text, using TextSoap. The sequence is as follows:

  • Convert Markdown to HTML
  • Replace "> with " target=“new”>
  • Straighten quotes
  • append a standard tagline to the end of the article.

I have been unable to find anything on iOS that will let me run multiple search-and-replaces and text transformations in sequence. Sure any text editor will let me run them one at a time, but I haven’t found anything that will let me run them one after the other, with a single command.

I could probably write something with Drafts and JavaScript. But I don’t know JavaScript – or any other coding language. (Been meaning to learn.)

Any suggestions? Is this something Editorial can do?

What about Shortcuts?

I haven’t found anything

I use Clean Text for basic text massaging, but Text Case looks intriguing

We discussed GREP and iOS recently.

I’ll look into TextCase and Clean Text. As for the other options, I don’t do Grep either.

I have both Clean Text and Text Case. One day I should look at how much overlap there is between them.

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Update: I’ve looked into both apps. Neither does what I’m looking for.

I found a Drafts action I may be able to adapt to suit my purpose but it’s going to take a while if it works at all. Lots of regex trial and error.

I liked Clean Text so much on iOS I picked up their companion Mac app to support them, even though I also have TextSoap (and TextSoap Menu) and BBEdit.

BBEdit is still my go-to on the Mac because I’ve used it for so many years and know how to do everything I need super-quickly.

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CleanText looks like a nice app and it may prove useful for other things. Text Case also looks useful — and fun.

On the Mac, MultiMarkdown Composer has quietly — and slowly — evolved into quite a useful tool for no-nonsense writing. I rolll my eyes hard at applications that brag about their beautiful design and distraction free environment blah blah blah. MMC is designed for work.

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BBEdit has built in reflex/grep tools for text massage - what we were talking about.

Yes, but not on iOS, alas!

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Yet we were both discussing macOS just now. :man_shrugging: I was pointing out that BBEdit did awesome text massage in macOS; I don’t think MMC does.

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