In search of a Plaintext Workflow

In search of a Plaintext Workflow #

Lots of activity this month in the blogosphere relating to those searching for a “future-proof” format for their digital workflow. Plain text is cool (again) and Markdown is king.

I joined Svbtle after years of not-blogging (a wildly fluctuating busy:lazy ratio was the culprit) because of its simplicity and support for Markdown.

I’ve also dusted off my copies of Ulysses 3, Scrivener, FoldingText, SublimeText and Markdown Pro in search of a the One True Markdown Editor. I’m writing this post right now in Ulysses, if you care to know. I’ve tried Texts just tonight too - pretty - but I’m nervous about not seeing the Markdown code.

I preview and publish everything in Marked 2. You should too.

I’ve forced myself to switch from Omnifocus (still my favorite task management app of all time) to the excellent TaskPaper, despite the shaky uncertainty of iOS support (which, if I have to be honest, isn’t a deal breaker. I hated managing tasks on my iPhone, but it is nice to check things off or store a quick task in an inbox of some sort when I’m away from my Mac.) I’ve even implemented the marvelous PlainTasks on the Windows version of Sublime Text, so I can work on my tasks when I’m on that platform.

I’m teaching myself more about Python, so I can manipulate TaskPaper files and build interesting new ways of replacing some of the workflow things-I-used-to-do with Omnifocus. This part is slower and honestly - not that important. Too much fiddling with systems leads to a loss - not a gain - in productivity.

So: why all this noodling around?

Because I believe in the democracy of plain text. I love how plain text can be manipulated in whatever scripting language or text editor you prefer. My facetious search for the One True Editor illustrates one thing: that there isn’t one. The plenum of options exist because there are so many ways to work with plain text and your workflow will be different than mine. Or, if you’re like me, it will start like someone else’s and then evolve into your own thing.

You don’t need to be one of the cool kids running PopClip, TextExpander, Keyboard Maestro, Ulysses, Marked, BBEdit, MultiMarkdown Pro all on a MacBook Air or using some crazy Pythonista/Editorial workflow with Launch Center Pro on your fancy iPad.

You could just as easily write all the Markdown and Plain Text goodness you would ever want on a, well, gosh Commodore 64 or Windows Vista machine. I’m not sure you’d enjoy that, but you sure as hell could. With plain text, the playing field is leveled.

It’s about the content and the style, not the editing environment. You don’t need a full-featured word processor in order to write the hell out of something. Open notepad and start writing. Mark it up with some Markdown and publish using any number of MD compilers.

Anyway - for the one of you reading this, I plan to chronicle some of my findings here. I’m not sure I’ll be as useful to you as some of the giants upon whose shoulders I now stand, but I’ll give it a shot.

You may also see some posts about film production and editing. I do that too, when I’m not switching text editors.