Comments on: Going Full Screen: You, Your Thoughts, And Your Words

By: Rishikesh

Rishikesh — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:02:59 +0000

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By: Aaron Stroud

Aaron Stroud — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 22:01:52 +0000

I prefer to code and compose in Textmate and I usually fire up Think (OSX) to dark out most of my screen. I have a large monitor, so it's useful for blocking out distractions

By: Dustin

Dustin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:24:16 +0000

Ohsin: I’m not sure any program which brags about its learning curve could be considered “distraction-free”!

By: Mohsin

Mohsin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 13:43:52 +0000

Dustin, I’m not sure if such an editor exists, but have you tried Vim? It looks to me this is the editor you are looking for.

Try it out and let us know if it works for you.

The Masked Millionaire, distractions help you concentrate? Now THAT’S strange!

By: The Masked Millionaire

The Masked Millionaire — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:20:26 +0000

I’m forgetful. I like to take care of most things as they come up. I’m able to concentrate with the tool bar and a few other distractions. I actually think at times the distractions help me.

Live From Las Vegas
The Masked Millionaire

By: Dustin

Dustin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:55:54 +0000

Mohsin: DropCloth is pretty cool; I might try it, though the same thing can be accomplished by putting Word full-screen — or Buzzword/Google Docs/etc. running in a browser. What I’d like to see is WordPad (or an equivalent RTF editor) in full-screen, no toolbars, keyboard shortcuts only. It shouldn’t be hard to make — maybe someone has. I’m not sure why there are 10 DarkRoom/WriteRoom clones — surely one feature-less text editor isn’t any better than any other, and of course they can’t distinguish themselves by adding more features

By: Mohsin

Mohsin — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:51:02 +0000

Robin, my point exactly. You don't realize how distracting all the toolbars and windows have been until you experience the completely distraction free simplicity of a full screen editor. Dustin, the closest you can get to having your favorite editor on a distraction free black background is by using it on top of Drop Cloth. Let me know if this setup works for you.

By: Dustin

Dustin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:30:37 +0000

I like the idea of full-screen editors, but the formatting is still a sticking point for me. (And the Stephen Kind quote doesn’t really address that.)

Here’s why:

1) Lists, outlines, and bold or italic text add structure. While separating structure from content might be fine if you’re a content management system, it’s not fine when you’re trying to build an argument, walk a reader through a howto, or explain a complicated concept.

2) I believe in handling things once, when they’re most on my mind. Yes, I’ll revise, edit, re-revise, and so on — but I see no reason to add to the work by re-formatting, too. If I make a list, as I’ve done here, using manually-entered numbers and paragraph breaks, then I have to delete those numbers and convert the list into an ordered list in my word processor or HTML editor. Otherwise, I can’t use external stylesheets, whether on my website, in my word processor or layout program, or at the publishers.

3) For all the things King suggests, like inserting placeholder text when you can’t think of the right thing to write, formatting aids in revision. I will blod or highlight those placeholders, so I know when I review the copy later what needs to be looked up. Without such tools, I’m trusting my brain (!) to keep track of that kind of stuff. Is that the best use of my brain?

Some suggest using markdown, which a) requires some complex machinations to get into a word processor, and b) sort of defeats the point. Why is ctrl-i for italics less desirable than putting /slashes/ around it?

By: Robin

Robin — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:55:15 +0000

Couldn’t agree more. I reviewed Dark Room briefly on my casual blog at http://www.babbleandstuff.com a few days ago. I only discovered it recently but now use it for my blog writing exclusively, and for any other kind of creative writing process as well.

It’s not until you use something like Dark Room that you realise how many distractions even a toolbar on a desktop provides. Even if you’re otherwise undisturbed, the simplicity of simply dark space and text makes a huge difference in comparison to more “capable” word processors such as Word.