Too much history with Microsoft taking over companies and implementing their Embrace, Extend, Extinguish policy. I will not support them.
I have 1Writer installed, but never use it. Iām happy with Byword and see no reason to go elsewhere because its easy-to-use and meets my needs.
Iām thrilled the Mac/iOS developer community builds so many apps that do the same things differently. With few exceptions, everyone can find an app that does what they want, the way they want to do it.
I have Scrivener but I really stopped using it for the most part after subscribing to Ulysses just over a year ago. Scrivener is just a little too kitchen-sink for me in both user interface (even the new version, which I own) and capabilities, and I was never able to use it as comfortably as other apps. I use it in conjunction with OmniOutliner Elements (though Iām thinking of auditioning replacements, including the Outlinely app, or an outliner service like Dynalist or Checkvist.)
For quick-and-dirty writing I really enjoy using IA Writer in both Mac/iOS, an app which Iād probably still be using if Ulysses didnāt exist.
In olden days (before 2015) I wrote almost entirely in BBEdit, in conjunction with the outliner Opal (which has its roots and the same developer as the old Mac app called Acta [and later Dyno Notepad]). I still love BBEdit - itās a fast and bombproof text editor - but I got used to the niceties of WYSIWYG when using Markdown (with customized colors/backgrounds) in Ulysses.
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Ulysses ā power and organization, able to temporarly glue different sheets together, fuse different sheets into one sheet,XL markup, both iOS and Mac, the time I have spent learning how to use it, Send sheets to WordPress posts/pages with images included. (Final adjustments with WPās editor), distraction free mode, statistics several kinds, put notes into sidebar, auto backups and more
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Drafts ā snatch ideas, decent organization with workspaces and tags, actions galore,
I am messing around with DevonTTG. Jury outā¦ May go 
ā¦ for my wants and needs.
Iāve never tried iA Writer but it seems to match most of what Ulysses has. Have you seen any difference between Ulysses and iA Writer? What were the factors that got you to switch from iA Writer to Ulysses? Iām curious!
Very different apps.
IA Writer is much more narrowly focused than Ulysses. The devs are quite strict about enforcing just two themes - light mode and dark mode, and until this year you could only use the embedded (excellent) Nitti Light commercial font. (This year they included their version of the open-source IBM Plex font, which they made into a duospace-font anyone can download.) There are minimum and maximum font sizes you can use with the app. As I said, the developers are quite strict about how the app should be used - that can be a very good thing when you want to sit down and write, but a bad thing if you prefer another font or font-size, or color for text or background color.
Ulysses lets you choose any font you want, any size, any color, and background color, special formatting (eg bold/italic/color choices) for Markdown code, and more. Ulysses lets you tweak themes, download themes created by others, or make your own themes from scratch.
In Ulysses I break up text blocs, reassemble them, and compile them into single document pdfs. This is not how IA Writer works. With Ulysses I have separate folders for individual projects, and you can add in-line notes that donāt get printed, along with image attachments in a sidebar view. IA Writer does none of that.
IA Writer is a text/Markdown app whose appeal is that itās no-nonsense and fast. Itās a step up from text processors.
Ulysses does much more, but also allows for lots of dawdling and twiddling. Iāve wasted a lot of time creating/tweaking my favorite themes. Hereās the themes I mainly use in light mode and in dark mode. The above doesnāt look too customized, but you can see more customizations below:
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3 (night mode)
And hereās the same text in IA Writer in day mode, and in dark mode
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I also use Ulysses extensively. I like your thems 2 and 3. Is there a way for me to download them for my use?
Thanks. Iām actually not finished working on that theme (itās all one theme, in light and dark modes), but Iāll keep you in mind when I do finish, hopefully in a couple of weeks.
Iāve spent too much time theorizing about what I want, and that is the 4th iteration of a theme Iāve been working on since the summer. (See, one of the advantages to IA Writer is that it keeps you from this stuff!) Iāve gone back and forth on how much color to use, and when, and itās changed the more Iāve written with the app.
When I feel comfortable with the theme Iāll definitely let you know. The font, by the way is Iowan Old Style Roman, which I started using this year after reading that Steve Jobs personally directed its inclusion into MacOSX and iBooks.
I might end up switching it, though, to the heavier, free Bitter font (pic1, pic2), which is more readable on-screen and seemingly easier on the eyes, at least in my tests in BBEdit. Itās a free download from Github or GoogleFonts.
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Can I decide to start a document in Devonthink and then edit with Ulysses with the changes synced back?
Mostly yes. DevonThink supports the MultiMarkdown flavor, while Ulysses default files use a slightly modified (and customizable) Markdown syntax called Markdown XL (although you can change your file to write in Markdown as well - see this blog post).
Note that some of the custom features of Ulysses - including the sidebar notes, I believe - require the doc to be in Markdown XL.
If youāre looking to do basic Markdown writing to save in DevonThink there are lots of free alternatives like MacDown and Typora, and more powerful apps like IA Writer. Ulysses is really designed to be the storage and management vehicle for writing, so I wouldnāt really recommend spending the $$ on it if youāre just putting everything into DevonThink.
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I agree with the below information, after all my searching I have decided on IA Writer and Word (for more formatted writing) and store everything in DTTG.
I had the opposite experience. Wrote a documentation set that was several thousand pages in FrameMaker, and just loved it. Fantastic program. Unfortunately, Adobe didnāt know what they had and it never got ported to OS X. I ran it in Classic for a while, and then even in SheepShaver. Eventually I rewrote the entire documentation set in Markdown, the text is in a database program with macros to generate the HTML files, and a bit of a homebrew preprocessor to generate cross page links and TOC pages and indexes.
Maybe Iāll just write plain text in DevonThink if relevant and longer stuff in Ulysses. Interesting @Steve, Iāll have to take a look at those apps. I like that Ulysses is both for iOS and Mac.
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Your money, but if I was ultimately saving my docs in DevonThink Iād instead look at IA Writer 5 or Highland 2 for long-form, multi-section/chapter Markdown writing. I own them, and were I not saving everything in Ulysses Iād be using them regularly.
Here are a couple of decent overviews from macosxguru:
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I found that I started writing in Ulysses but then exported to Google Docs for table support and automatic saving for a short project Iām working on. Maybe iA Writer will be able to provide the features I need. Iād rather get away from Ulysses because of the propriety format.
Have you looked into TableFlip? Itās awesome, the most pleasurable way Iāve found working with Markdown tables.
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Propriety? Isnāt it plain text with your choice of markdown styles?
Yes, butā¦thereās a lot of additional metadata that it can store for you. But the text itself can be instantly and easily exported by moving the doc to an external folder.
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Scrivener, for a lot of reasons, but the top two are typewriter scrolling and the audio controls that make it so easy to transcribe an audio file, including adding timestamps.
Yes! I used to dictate text as audio an then transcribe my own dictation within Scrivener. I could start and stop with keyboard shortcuts while typing. Very useful.