Forum Archive

What Features Would you like in Editorial?

TutorialDoctor

I'll go first:

Issue

My workflow bookmark list is getting long. And tapping the three dots is not ideal when the workflow icon is right next to it.

Feature

Add a drop-down menu option to the bookmark bar that allows us to tap a label and display grouped bookmarked workflows vertically.

Alternative

Or perhaps the UI module can solve this?

Solution

I was able to do this with the UI module!

omz

You could achieve something similar quite easily, and you don't even need a custom UI, just a Select from List action. Here's a quick demo:

http://www.editorial-workflows.com/workflow/5250502627426304/JCmwgKElKG8

You can change the list of workflows by editing the Select from List action, but note that the workflow names have to match exactly. When you add this to your bookmarks bar, the list popover's arrow will point to the folder bookmark, so it looks similar to what you'd expect if this was a native feature.

TutorialDoctor

Thanks ole, I think we posted our workflows about the same time. It didn't take that long. I made two. One with a bunch of text editing workflows I made, and another with a collection of file handling workflows from the public workflow directory.

I will be adding more soon.

One thing, if the bookmark is the first on the bookmark list, the popup is centered. Perhaps it can be aligned to the left side of the screen?

TutorialDoctor

Here is another:

Issue

My documents are getting bigger, and all of the text I am not currently working on is distracting.

Feature

A program named FoldingText for the Mac allows you to collapse a section under a header down by tapping on the hash mark next to the header.

Alternative

  1. I've just discovered the details tag for html that collapses text, it only in preview mode. Would be nice for the editor.

  2. I've just created a workflow that helps me focus a little bit better called Text Focus, it doesn't work in the same was as the feature I described, but it helps me focus better.

  3. Just made my first basic version of Folding Text

Some new Ideas

I have been messing with the UI designer, and it seems I can use delegates to edit text in the editor. So perhaps I can hack it somehow to fake Folding Text. We will see.

jaganat

A feature that would greatly help my workflow is the ability to bookmark folders

2fifty6

Hey all! I'm new to the forum and relatively new to Editorial, having only started using it extensively since the addition of Taskpaper functionality. There's one big feature wish that comes to mind every time I work with a Taskpaper file on my iPhone, so I thought I might as well mention it here and see what comes of it.

Issue

Taskpaper documents include handy checkboxes in the iPad UI but not in the iPhone UI.

Feature

Include the checkbox functionality in the iPhone UI as well. (If screen space is an issue, maybe it could double as the grabby area you tap and hold to move a list item.)

Alternative

1. An alternative already exists (the recently added swipe-the-margin technique), so I'm sure there are more pressing features to add than this. But I've found the swipe technique to be kind of finicky: you have to have good aim, timing and swipe technique in order to avoid selecting text or pulling open the preview screen (both of which really add friction to quickly processing checklists). Whenever I open a Taskpaper file on my iPhone after using it on my iPad, working with it just feels more cumbersome.

2. Might there be a way to use custom UIs to achieve this now? Having not yet explored the custom UI functionality, I don't know if that even fits in the scope of what the tool's designed to do, but it's a wishful-thinking thought that's crossed my mind a few times. Insight, anyone?

TutorialDoctor

@2fifty6

I have seen some stuff in the API that has gesture support. It's Python stuff, so I shy away from it, for now. I have used a bit of Python in 2 of my workflows though.

I would like to work on more Custom Actions, which are better for re-use than just a Python script. I haven't delved into workflows for Taskpaper yet, nor for iPhone-specific workflows (much needed I know).

TutorialDoctor

Issue

My workflow list is very long. It would be easier to find workflows if I could organize them better.

Feature

A "Sort By" option for the workflow list.

  • Sort by Date (old to newest or newest to oldest)
  • Sort by Name (alphabetical)
  • Sort by Size ( not too necessary)

Alternative

N/A

Solution

N/A

john

Issue

When typing with an external keyboard, sometimes a.) the keyboard add-on gets in the way of the text and b.) the text will get far below where, comfortably, I'd like to be looking.

Feature

Some kind of "typewriter scrolling." I'd really like the ability to center the currently being edited line, and have it stay in the same place as I type.

Right now, the only real way to accomplish something like this is to have the software keyboard pulled up as I type. This, of course, isn't preferable. Though it does get the text to stay in one place, the flashing "shift" buttons etc. is sort of distracting in the thick of it.

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:

```Python-Markdown provides an API for third parties to write extensions to the parser adding their own additions or changes to the syntax. A few commonly used extensions are shipped with the markdown library. See the extension documentation for a list of available extensions.

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 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.

gebloom

Solarized text mode would be wonderful.

TutorialDoctor

Issue

I indent sub-lists in a Taskpaper document but when moving the top level item, the sub lists don't move.

Feature

Sub-lists move with their parent list item. Marking a parent list item done should mark all sub items as done also. Once all sub items are marked done, a full project should be marked done.

Alternatives

Perhaps regular expressions can be used to do this.
I did create a "UI Outline" workflow for moving lines.

Solution

N/A

hotzenplotz

I'd like to get an export to PDF feature. Being able to just mail out print-ready docs would be incredibly useful for me. I tried the solutions given in this forum but none of them worked satisfactory. It seems to me iOS already has this built in it, so maybe it could be easily implemented. Some competitors make use of it (e.g. 1Writer). Very important: the generated PDFs should respect the page boundaries I set in the template.

I'd also like to be able to use multiple md-templates by just switching between them. Three slots for templates would be enough for me.

Interfacewise it should be possible to hide the top bar as well. The bar could then slide in together with the file selector when one swipes from left to right.

Thanks.

TutorialDoctor

Issue:

Quite often, I find myself needing to repeat the current workflow under a condition. I've posted a hackish way using the sub-workflow action but...

Feature:

Access to sub_workflow() in the API via Python would be useful.

Perhaps a workflow.sub_workflow() function?

Or maybe a workflow.run_workflow('workflow_name') function?

Alternative:

Here is my hack:
Loop Workflow

Notes:
At least if there was a parameter for the sub_workflow that allowed you to specify which workflow to run! by name! that might be okay too.

TutorialDoctor

Feature

Emulating keyboard key events via python (or even an action)

Useful for triggering workflows or snippets.

roosterboy197

I would really appreciate a setting to make folders sort alphabetically within the list of files (Mac style) instead of at the top (Windows style). I find the latter incredibly rage-inducing.

TutorialDoctor

Feature

Add multiple actions at one time to workflow (instead of one-by-one)