What Features Would you like in Editorial?

TutorialDoctor

Issue:

I tried to put some major stress on Editorial to see where it breaks, so I repeated a three digit number 100,000 times on separate lines. It hung, so I shut it down, and opened it back up. The app hung for a while but eventually it came up (after it loaded the last document, which was 100,000 numbers),

I rebooted the ipad, and opened up Editorial again. It hung, but after it had loaded those 100,000 I was able to edit again.

Feature:

Allow an option in the settings to boot editorial to the last document OR to a new document. It is convenient that editorial picks up where you left off, but perhaps you want to boot to a fresh page.

Alternative

There is a workflow called "Create workflow Shortcut" that allows you to to boot editorial to a file of your choice using a custom homescreen icon."

Solution

Stop trying to break Editorial! Hehe

(No really, the main request is the option to load a new document on start, or the last document.)

2fifty6

Issue:

Often, when opening Editorial, your place in your folder structure is not preserved, meaning you have to scroll and tap your way back through it to find the folder you want.

Feature:

Either a customizable "frequently used folders" list at the top of the folder list or a separate "Shortcuts" tab in addition to the current "Local" and "Dropbox" tabs.

Alternative:

There's probably a way to create a workflow that would provide this functionality (probably even with a GUI). I'm just not Editorial-savvy enough yet to come up with it.

TutorialDoctor

Yeah, the folder navigation is getting messy, especially when you have a lot of files. Perhaps a solution similar to the one about organizing workflows is the only way.

Correction: there is a sorting icon for folders at the bottom of the folder list.

Now that I think about it, I don't think there is a way to rename a file from the folder, without having to do it in the editor.

TutorialDoctor

Issue

I have made several formatting workflows, but they use inline CSS to format text, and the document looks a bit messy.

Feature

I recently discovered something called Python-Markdown, which extends Markdown syntax to your own custom syntax. If this were integrated into Editorial somehow, we could make our own syntax for extending markdown with other html tags.

Link to Python-Markdown

Alternative

Perhaps there is a way to use the already listed Python-Markdown library, but it seems this would have to happen at the source-code level.

Update:

Saw this in the API:


The list of extensions may contain instances of extensions or strings of extension names. If an extension name is provided as a string, the extension must be importable as a python module either within the markdown.extensions package or on your PYTHONPATH with a name starting with mdx_, followed by the name of the extension. Thus, extensions=[‘extra’] will first look for the module markdown.extensions.extra, then a module named mdx_extra.

extension_configs: A dictionary of configuration settings for extensions.```

TutorialDoctor

Feature

Critic Markup in Editorial.

Alternative

I don't know of one yet.

TutorialDoctor

Issue

Markdown tables are tedious for data entry.

Feature

The TableView view should have options for columns as well. This way we could have cells (editable or non-editable)

barmatal

#Issue

When opening a Dropbox file in a workflow it retrieves the last synced version; there's no way to force sync before that.

#Feature

Possible solutions:

'Force Sync' if the 'In Dropbox' option is selected in the impacted actions
Create a 'Force Sync' action

#Workaround

None that I know of (if anybody know one please share!)

TutorialDoctor

Issue

If you have bunches of workflows, it can be tedious to tag each one individually

Feature

Tag multiple workflows at once

Solution

batch-edit tags

by ole zorn

omz

@TutorialDoctor I've made a workflow to batch-edit workflow tags a while ago:

http://www.editorial-workflows.com/workflow/5820092734504960/BxTcvdKsGgw

TutorialDoctor

Cool thanks ole! That workflow is not searchable in the directory, I see it is unlisted. Could you upload it as listed?

quastdog

Tutorial Doctor:

re: Markdown Tables

I occasionally import (often via Command-C) csv data tables, paste into an Editorial doc and run the Tidy/create MMD table on and...nicely formatted table complete with headers from the csv file.

Pretty quick and easy. If I wanted, I could automate the task using something like Launch Center Pro to grab the file from Dropbox and send it to a new file in Editorial and call the Tidy/create action on it.

If I was building the table within Editorial, I'd do the same - just enter the data as csv.

TutorialDoctor

I tried it, but it didn't work (I have a really long and messy csv file).

I tried making several table generators, but haven't been able to make one that is simple enough to use.

MartinPacker

Shame there's no "like" button here. The ability to extend Markdown relatively easily would be good. For now I'm contemplating injecting HTML (almost wrote JCL :-) ) directly.

TutorialDoctor

Hmm Martin, that gives me an idea of making a "Second Editor" workflow that can interpret custom syntax as HTML tags. I'm sure I'd have to use regular expressions. I am not too comfy with Javascript, but it does seem that would be the best way to do it.

TutorialDoctor

Feature

In-line-variables

Example:

In the editor you can store additional info in a variable and do computations between that variable and another_variable

These variables could be changed via workflows. This way, you can easily alter document content via workflows.

I think this would be a big plus to editorial. Sort of how the [Calca](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/calca/id635757879? app works perhaps?) app works?

I could use this to reference a CSS file in an HTML link as well.

Alternative:

Keyword 2.0

TutorialDoctor

Feature

Full screen editor

Alternative

The Sidebar preview workflow gives a live update of text in the markdown editor. Perhaps some manipulation of this, and a custom UI will suffice? I'd rather it were built in though.

TutorialDoctor

Issue

It's hard to design in the UI view due to the fact you can't zoom out. Also, content dragged too far to the bottom, cannot be dragged onto the view without deleting the whole action and starting over.

Feature

Pinch to Zoom inside of the custom UI action.

shdds

I don't know if this is possible (I just use apps and don't know a thing about developing them), but I would like to see a ios8 widget in the notification center that could display the contents of my *.taskpaper file. Perhaps it can be extended with workflows to show only items with due dates within certain days of today, maybe by exporting my main list out to a separate file and displaying that through the widget.

TutorialDoctor

@shdds
I'm hoping editorial takes full advantage of the new extensions API in IOS8. I haven't upgraded, and don't plan on it, but such a change in editorial would be tempting. Perhaps for now, an edit to my Notification or Event Timer workflow can help?

Notification

Event Timer

TutorialDoctor

Issue

The date picker can pick dates, do a countdown, and be a timer, but it cannot pick from a user-specified list.

Feature

A picker widget (modification of the datepicker) that can scroll through a list

Alternative

For now, a tableView has to be used, but in some circumstances it crashes Editorial.