[Poll] What macOS writing app would you use if you could?

Software
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XyWrite is remembered fondly by me and other journalists who worked in the 80s and early 90s. It was a terrific word processor for DOS in its own right, designed to be compatible with ATEX minicomputer-publishing systems popular with newspapers and magazines at the time. It had many of the virtues of iA Writer, Ulysses, MultiMarkdown Composer and other markdown composers of that ilk today: Fast, uncluttered, keyboard operated.

Also, in the very early 80s, word processors were dedicated desktop machines that did nothing else but word-process. They were not general-purpose machines. And the people who typed things into those machines were called “word processors.” This is something remembered only by movie buffs today; the main character of Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours” was a word processor.

George R.R. Martin famously continued to use WordStar until very recently, I think on a DOS machine that he kept running just for writing. He had another computer for internet access. Writing on DOS kept him from being distracted by teh internetz. This may well still be his setup.

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2017-08-18 10.01.49.jpg2010×2585 1.42 MB

I still use the technique of printing to PS.

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Wow. 21 steps to “laserprint” :grinning:

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ed is on every Mac. You can run it from terminal. TECO is even older (1962) and is still available. In fact, I’ve got it for download http://almy.us/teco.html

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I used to rock word perfect. I knew all the codes and I could fly in that applicaiton. A long time ago.

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I use it primarily on macOS. It’s nice to have it available on iOS too, but 95% of my use is macOS.

I haven’t used Texshop beyond opening it and poking around. Texpad seems like a more modern and complete app. It’s preview updates are nearly instantaneous as you edit the LaTeX document. It has code completion, citation completion, structured outline, essentially all the things.

I don’t think so. Texpad doesn’t use any magic files or embedded things in the .tex, etc. files. Having said that, I think if you give Texpad a try, you’ll find that you’ll want to do all your editing in it.

Texpad’s developers are very responsive and have been quick to answer my questions over the past seven years that I’ve used it.

Not at all. Always happy to talk LaTeX :slight_smile:

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When you must use your own macros that have been stored externally as packages, I believe that you will not be able to translate to iOS from macOS. By example, I have a package that defines this function

\newcommand*{\putfig}[2][...]{... \includegraphics{...}}

I use this to put figures at width factors. I use this with a \usepackage{jjwgraphix} preamble call. The package resides in the right place in the TeX directory on my macOS install. AFAIK, this same approach cannot be translated to TeXPad on iOS.

I used to use Texpad. I don’t any more. I prefer the macOS look and feel of TexShop to the sometimes non-standard (for macOS) approach that is taken by Texpad. Also, while I at one point appreciated the directory listing panel, I found it became useless for the nesting approach that I use in my directory structure and for the way that I do my \include statements. In a nutshell, the directory tree in Texpad works only when your main document directly calls \include or \input, it does not work when that call is part of a user-defined set-up + input function. Finally, I have no intent or interest at this point to develop LaTeX on my iPad. In short, I need to work on a full sized monitor with an ergonomic keyboard for LaTeX. Otherwise, I’m wasting my time in frustration rather than production.

In the end, this is a matter of YOUR personal preference. By counter point, I know that @JohnAtl swears by Texpad instead.

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JJW