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Comment by jessegrosjean | Hacker News Reader

I created WriteRoom, take my comments with a grain of salt if you wish. Maybe it's just sour grapes...

Ommwriter is fun and cool. But "pleasant" where WriteRoom is not? Maybe I just don't get it, but for me having just my text on screen without distraction is a good thing. WriteRoom could certainly be better, but the idea of improving the writing/thinking process by adding a new age soundtrack that responds to your keystrokes seems odd and a little wrong to me.

Ommwriter is fun software and has it's place for brainstorming, but I would change the title to "Ommwriter, a better demo then writeroom".

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I'm only a (very happy) user of WriteRoom, but my comments should also be taken with a grain of salt.

I find WriteRoom to be extremely pleasant, in a way that OmniWriter isn't. The experience of OmniWriter is nice, certainly, but it's not any more or less pleasant that WriteRoom. The pleasantness of WriteRoom comes from the obliteration of distractions. I can add nice imagery (which I don't) and a great soundtrack (which I do) on my own.

(To be clear, I don't think anything negative about Omniwriter, but it's not my kind of pleasant.)

I think the gap here is that while WR (and apps of its ilk) may not be particularly 'pleasant' in the sense of sweet-smelling, pretty, etc., pleasantness is not a virtue one really looks for in a tool for work. It's novel but not needful, and I think the fact that it's kind of orthogonal to the many problems of writing means it will have little impact in the long run.

I didn't want to 'hurt' WriteRoom at all with this title, but after all pleasantness is paradigmatic. I am a fanatic user of WriteRoom and after writing a day in Ommwriter I see charms in both apps. The aesthetically pleasing background and interface gave me the feeling of a pleasant alternative to WriteRoom.

Like I said, I'm too close to WriteRoom project myself. I read it as better then crusty old WriteRoom, but see I'm mistaken. I agree Ommwriter is good. I think I better stop reading forums and get back to work, thanks for your note.

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