IA Writer in Paper | Hacker News Reader

IA Writer in Paper

ia.net

166 pointsscop81 comments

I love iA Writer and will shill it till I die. One of the few pieces of software to genuinely change my professional and artistic life.

I screamed for a second when I thought this was them releasing an eink device. Something like Remarkable, that would be a day one buy for me.

I tried to get this hacked together with one of those Chinese Android eink tablets, but the save/sync was unreliable (only time I’ve ever lost writing) and the overall experience was poor compared to my iPad. But my soul pants for iA Writer on eink.

Thank you for that enthusiastic appraisal!

You made me wonder "is it really that good?", so I just tried it out and loved it, and I'm grateful to you for bringing it to my attention.

Have a wonderful day, Internet stranger :)

The only thing stopping me from using iA Writer for everything is being able to manually sort a folder. I realise that, being it's just a folder underneath, this would require storage somewhere. But it could be as simple as:

  _index.md:

  - File 1.md
  - File 2.md
  - File 3.md

Since it's a mac app, it could store the metadata in either a file, like you mentioned, or in a userdefaults preference dictionary (plist) that would be stored in the app's library support folder, or they could use core data and just keep a unique identifier for the path to the folder

Did you try FSNotes?

https://fsnot.es

I want it to have basic Frontmatter “dimming”, which ByWord does well.

And Obsidian took a step further by turning into a "Properties" UI.

IA writer is just one of these “human-centric-design” things.

I’ve owned it since the early versions, a one-time purchase, consistently updated through the years. Its way to embrace ai-generated text is to mark it as such at insertion time and to invite you to rewrite it.

As for the printed notebook version, I’m buying it.

I love it too :) so many good memories writing, staring at that perfect blue cursor blinking. The markdown renderer is beautiful too because it still renders a lot of the special characters. Header hashtags off to the left.

Have you tried something like Obsidian? How would you compare it?

For me, they're so different that it's hard to compare them. Obsidian is a great tool for linking, searching, querying, and visualizing sets of thoughts. It happens to have a text editor, but that's not the brilliant part about it. Obsidian's editor feels to me like a method to get data into the note database. Also, Electron.

iA Writer is a one the best text editors I've ever touched. It happens to have tools for linking and searching notes, but that's not the brilliant part. Writer's data management feels to me like methods to navigate around to the note I want to writing. Also, it's a "Mac-assed Mac app", looks and feels exactly like it belongs on my desktop, plays nicely with all other Mac apps, and couldn't be faster or more responsive if it were hand-coded in assembler.

If I want to store and search notes, I'd probably pick Obsidian (although I'm currently using Bear Notes for that). If I want the best writing environment I know of, I'll reach for iA Writer every time.

I use both, and won’t exchange one for the other. Obsidian is a knowledge management tool. iA is on the other hand is a writing tool. I compose my blog posts there, esp. its writing aids are very helpful.

While obsidian is getting more and more of my knowledge, all focused post authoring is happening and will happen in iA.

Not who you asked, but I like and own both, but have found myself moving to Obsidian more and more. I'm not entirely sure why. IA writer now has document linking and I love the typography. I like the editor better.

I think there is something that makes file organization easier in Obsidian. I have a plugin that creates a new note for each given week. And it feels easier to navigate a bunch of files without the descriptions/first few lines of the doc.

EDIT: And this thread has encouraged me to second guess myself about some of these things and there's a setting to remove descriptions in the library. Maybe I'll try picking IA Writer back up!

Obsidian is fantastic except that it’s not a native app (nor is Zoplin). I have made peace with web/electron apps by now except for very intimate affairs like note taking. I don’t know why I still can’t bring myself to use such electron/web mobile/desktop apps to write longer or even short notes/texts.

That software made me fall in love with writing.

I’m a lifelong customer and it’s been one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.

> one of the best purchases

Key word there: purchases. Their apps are pricey, but then you own them. I'll take that over subscriptions every time.

I bought their apps when they came out, used them until I discovered Scrivener. Just checked now and my IA purchases have vanished. It appears they obsoleted older versions.

You might wanna check with their support. I bought iA Writer many, many years ago and still get regular updates.

Scrivener’s one of my favorite apps. I love when I have an excuse to use it. I think that Writer is better at the actual writing process, though.

It’s okay.

Scrivener is deeply embedded in my workflow today and I don’t have the energy to chase after some old licenses.

More power to IA with this unusual notebook though. Am curious to see how it works out.

Been using iA Writer for 10+ years. It's made me a better writer. The way it started highlighting cliches and fluffy turns of phrase a few years ago has been chef's kiss.

I wish it supported .adoc because sometimes markdown just isn't enough.

One thing I battled with in iA Writer is its objection to adverbs and adjectives. Eventually I came to appreciate its position, realizing that they add little value to text.

Ah, I hate that you were downvoted for that. For those who haven't used it, yes, iA Writer tries to steer you away from adverbs: https://ia.net/writer/support/basics/writing-tips/parts-of-s...

You can turn that off. I did at first; all the colors in the English prose I was writing distracted me. I came to appreciate that, though. I realized that I used adverbs and adjectives much more than I intended to, and now they stand out.

Along those lines, I've also realized that I overuse "great", "love", "hope", "literally", and "but". I added those to iA Writer's custom patterns, and now it pesters me when I use those words. Sometimes I mean to, but I literally love to put them in every sentence and hope it turns out great. iA Writer says, hey, you might want to reconsider your word choices.

That sounds like it’s not very useful for fiction, then?

Mark Twain: “When you catch an adjective, kill it.” Stephen King: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs”.

But what do they know about fiction? :)

Stephen King once said, “Ms Rowling seems to have never met one [adverbs] she didn't like"

But what would Rowling know about storytelling :)

I have never even read Rowling, nor have I read King. But such restrictions and imposing of so called “rules”, or what is good what is not, are absurd when comes art. I would urge anyone to not let such decrees by the famous to dictate their style, let alone a software.

Whatever rocks your art. Being especially careful with adverbs and adjectives is common practice among experienced writers. More examples:

“Adjectives are frequently the greatest enemy of the substantive.” – Voltaire

“[I was taught] to distrust adjectives as I would later learn to distrust certain people in certain situations.” – Ernest Hemingway

“The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.” – Clifton Paul Fadiman

“[The adjective] is the one part of speech first seized upon and worked to death by novices and inferior writers.” – J.I. Rodale

“Use no superfluous word, no adjective, which does not reveal something.” – Ezra Pound

“The adjective has not been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.” – E.B. White

“[Whoever writes in English] is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective.” – George Orwell

“Most adjectives are also unnecessary. Like adverbs, they are sprinkled into sentences by writers who don’t stop to think that the concept is already in the noun.” – William Zissner

Obviously you can turn that syntax highlighting off. Add that the majority of writing is non-fiction (I'd wager 99.99%+ of written words). Or least purported to be non-fiction.

The killing of excess adjectives and adverbs is very good for fiction.

Shilling (or not, it’s open source, who cares). I made this: https://github.com/rberenguel/PiWrite

It is not iA Writer in eink, but I got distant inspiration (I used it a lot back when it was released… a long time ago) and could be closer with effort.

Only an external keyboard works? Also how does it survive Amazon’s device update etc? This looks very interesting though!

I guess I could make the on-screen keyboard work with a text area instead of needing an external one, but I never planned on using that, I find “glass keyboards” annoying to use. It would require some serious changes to the system though, since everything is designed for reading input from a keyboard from “stdin”, so to say.

So far has survived fine, and as long as there are no major changes in the browser (long polling and the JS I use have been available for several years from what I have seen in people who investigated its features). It’s a risk I accepted when I wrote it, worst case the docs are in the Pi, and then PiWrite can be used from any web browser on any modern enough device.

I use Drafts,

It can take you to places that you never thought would be possible with AI writer.

I use both. iA Writer is my definite writing app. It's where I write any bit of non-trivial Markdown, to the point I wince when I have to use an old-fashioned word processor. Drafts is exceptional for dispatching little bits of text to other apps through its ridiculously powerful integration and scripting. For instance, if I think of something I want to post to Mastodon, I press opt-F2 to open Drafts, write it, then press F2 to send it to my server.

Writer is a much better text editor IMO. (Drafts is really good, but Writer is stupendous.) Drafts is much better for interacting with or automating other apps. They're both in my dock.

Did you look at the SuperNote? I’ve one, and love it. It seems more hackable than the Remarkable from what I can tell, though the base functionality has been enough for me so I’ve not customised it.

It looks really nice! I have some relatives that struggle with tremor and I hope we will see such devices soon that can filter out the rapid shaking and make it easier for them to take notes

What do you enjoy most about it?

Ya'll may also want to check out Midori¹, a favorite of the journaling community. There's also Northbooks², a small American company. And Nanami Paper³ if you want to try out quality paper in the ultra-thin direction.

[1]: https://md.midori-japan.co.jp/en/products/mdnote-cotton/

[2]: https://gonorthbooks.com/

[3]: https://www.nanamipaper.com/products/cafe-note-b6-slim-grid....

I am not much of a pen-and-paper kinda person, but I recently came across CPG Grey's Sidekick Notepad that made me think twice.

I like how it's designed to be integrated into a digital workflow and the "signaling" aspect of opening and closing the notepad is a nice touch too.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_7N8MFRJkc

Website: https://cottonbureau.com/p/XT9MRF/journal/sidekick-notepad

I bought one of the midori notebooks. It’s so nice that I feel bad about using it.

I've had that happen. I recently bought a few Muji notebooks for $2/piece[1]. They're thin, beautiful, and relatively cheap. I want to use them to doodle with less constraint or self-judgement, but still with a good experience. It's a weird balance between writing in a way that feels good, but also not judging yourself too much because you're using beautiful tools and materials.

[1] https://www.muji.us/products/bind-grid-notebook-9s62?_pos=2&...

Thank you. This is a good resource.

User since day 1 of the launch! Writer and Presenter are my 2 most used apps that I never close. They are both, philosophically speaking, made to make you think and challenge you to articulate better with every single use.

The release notes of Writer 7 literally brought a smile on my face. So did the notebook. Simple oceans like these is truly what human craft is all about.

For anyone looking for a "dark mode" solution: https://www.jetpens.com/Etranger-di-Costarica-Blanc-de-Noirs...

What ink do you use with this? I find a lot of "bright" inks to not be opaque enough.

The product pics include one with a lot of ink names showing examples: https://static2.jetpens.com/images/a/000/073/73994.jpg?ba=mi...

Metallic silver or white gel ink works well. I like silver for being a little more reflective in low light. Or white-out pens, unironically.

I didn’t know anything about ia writer before this post. I love it’s specs but I feel I’m halfway to setting up something similar—and more flexible—in vim.

I hadn’t spent more than 5m in vim a year ago. Now it’s like a superpower for writing. I’ve got ProseMode that makes it look pretty, custom linting rules through Vale (eg it flags if I try to say ‘amazing’), and lots of other stuff. At this point I even use it for all my work writing.

In any case, it makes me feel good that’s there’s software out there letting people reach the same heights.

I use this sometimes and it's pretty nice: https://github.com/folke/zen-mode.nvim

I think the Ensō[*] version of this would be a single piece of paper and a pen filled with ink which disappears after 10-15 seconds.

Does anyone know if such ink exists or if there's a way of making one cheaply/safely? I want to build prototype and record a video.

(* Ensō is a stream of consciousness writing app I built some time ago, hence my very clever idea: https://enso.sonnet.io)

Get yourself a buddha board :) you can basically do something like that.

I don't know about on paper, but I have seen (videos of) people writing (chinese) calligraphy on pavements with water and big brushes, which fades in a few minutes as it dries.

I thought the pictures were blank white. Which kind of person photographs a pure white product on a pure white background?

Photographer is the word you are looking for.

This is witty, true, a direct response, and a hat tip to photography nerds like me.

Much appreciation!

I hope everyone is signing up for the newsletter so they release this. I think I would pay $50 as a one-time gimmick, because I genuinely love iA Writer. Though, if I was to use this as a normal product and buy multiple times, I think I'd be looking for a $20 price range.

I just have to say, after I discovered the ultra-thin and very fountain-pen friendly Tomoe River paper, I've not looked back: https://www.galenleather.com/blogs/news/tomoe-river-paper

This looks like good paper. I hope it doesn't bleed or feather like most with fountainpen ink.

I like the idea.

In case anyone was wondering, the text is from Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa.

Seems a bit "twee" or whatever the word is, is it embossed into the paper or just very faint lines? And why show only Japanese handwriting when you are putatively, willing to sell it to people who will write in English?

My experience is that no demographic cares about paper quality like the Japanese.

Mine as well—and not only paper but writing implements as well. I don’t use pens or pencils much anymore, but I still get a kick out of browsing and trying out the vast selection in large stationery stores in Japan. (I live in Yokohama.)

Japanese book printing and binding have long been top-level, too. I used to help edit dictionaries for Japanese publishers, and I ended up collecting several hundred paper dictionaries from around the world. The Japanese dictionaries had the clearest printing, the thinnest and most opaque paper, and the strongest and most flexible bindings.

Given how many extremely high quality, end game, niche items I've ended up buying from Japanese companies, I'd agree.

From my (very brief) foray looking into the "high-end penmanship" hobby, Japanese notebooks seem to be some of the most highly regarded, so it makes sense to me.

They've got a Tokyo office so they're probably interested selling to that market too

Misread as "AI writer". I thought it is another competitor

Does everyone experience episodic, like, dyslexia when they try to read thru and think too fast? I always had this when test-taking as a student.

Yeah it happens to everyone, I read "AI winter" in the title

Im not quite sure what this is. Its it just a piece of software, an e-ink reader or paper? They needed to set up what this is before talking about its features

It's some paper bound together with some glue. For almost everyone it has feature parity with something you can buy for a couple of $/€/£ in many shops. You'll write the same stuff in both.

It’s a physical paper notebook.

Looks nice, but wouldn't hurt to know the price. At least a ballpark.

Given all the pompousness and dripping exclusivity I'm guessing a bit under $100 ... ?

A $100 notepad? Gimme a break.

Given Baron Fig and Leuchtturm charge a premium (and are $20-30), I’d guess one of these would be under $30 if they had enough interest to produce large enough quantities. The price really depends on quantity.

So they took 10 years to reinvent Whitelines?

One of my favorite products -- been using it for note-taking, journaling, and miscellaneous stuff for almost a decade now!

This is a new, unreleased product, iAノートブック (iA Notebook).

If they follow their app pricing model, it will cost €13,55 more in my country for absolutely no reason.

As soon as I've paid for one version of iA, I seem to always need another. Keep it up!

Been loving the android app until recently, it's started to fail auto save :(

Took me a couple of minutes to realize this is not an AI launch.

Is it acid-free / archival grade paper?

informative title... how about: "Notebook with almost invisible guidelines"

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