Lettera as a workspace solution

[HumbleBotanist]

Hey folks, I know you’re overloaded with feedback right now.

I love Bear, but I need to keep my personal and work notes in separate apps. I suspect this is common for many of us. Right now I use Bear personally and iA Writer for work. iA Writer is great to write in, but it can’t match Bear for note-taking.

All of which is to say: framing Bear as a “shoebox” and Lettera as a focus space for a handful of files probably undersells Lettera’s potential. The more compelling pitch, for me, is Lettera as a file-backed Bear. A way to run a second, isolated workspace, the way Obsidian users think about Vaults.

That’s not a redundant product.

Also, I’ll echo others: keep the branding Bear-related!

[krssno]

@HumbleBotanist

framing Bear as a “shoebox” and Lettera as a focus space for a handful of files probably undersells Lettera’s potential. The more compelling pitch, for me, is Lettera as a file-backed Bear. A way to run a second, isolated workspace, the way Obsidian users think about Vaults.

I couldn’t agree more. I have to admit that at one point a few days ago I actually thought that, as a regular user, Lettera wasn’t really meant for me and that it was aimed more at tech-savvy geeks who are supposed to do all kinds of fancy stuff (f.e. GitHub repository) with it that others don’t understand or don’t know what it is at all.

Of course this subset of potential users needs to be satisfied, but there’s certainly no reason why Lettera couldn’t become an app that also lets you write and manage recipes, letters, notes and other “trivial” matters. Or is there one?

The trick is to strike a balance between the two in an app that offers a wide range of possibilities without overwhelming anyone.

[kirkmc]

@krssno

Of course this subset of potential users needs to be satisfied, but there’s certainly no reason why Lettera couldn’t become an app that also lets you write and manage recipes, letters, notes and other “trivial” matters. Or is there one?

Isn’t that what Bear already is? If you want an app that is similar but works with files rather than a database, then that’s what Obsidian is.

[krssno]

I and others want Lettera instead of Obsidian. I hope Lettera doesn’t turn out to be an app that only someone with a technical background can use.

[kirkmc]

Obsidian is quite easy to use. It only looks complicate because so many people spend time customizing it with plugins. So it’s hard to see it used in a simple way.

[krssno]

No thanks! I want a native app from shiny frog with Panda as editor!

[matteo]

@krssno

I and others want Lettera instead of Obsidian

Honestly becoming another PKM app isn’t what we’re designing Lettera to be. There are plenty of those already, and it doesn’t make much sense for us to move into that space (especially considering we already have Bear).

That said, nothing stops you from using Lettera for note-taking or general writing if it fits the way you work. It’s just plain files on disk, so you’re free to use it however you like, we’re simply not building it toward that use case specifically

[matteo]

@HumbleBotanist

Hey folks, I know you’re overloaded with feedback right now.

You have no idea

@HumbleBotanist

All of which is to say: framing Bear as a “shoebox” and Lettera as a focus space for a handful of files probably undersells Lettera’s potential. The more compelling pitch, for me, is Lettera as a file-backed Bear. A way to run a second, isolated workspace, the way Obsidian users think about Vaults.

It might undersell it, but it’s honest communication, “a file-backed Bear” is a nice way to put it, but we’re not planning to rebuild Bear as a file-based app.

Lettera is going to be much lighter in terms of features (and to be fair, Bear took 10+ years to get where it is now). So if you’re picturing something with Bear’s depth but backed by files, that’s not quite where we’re headed.

Vaults are great, but what’s missing right now is an editor that can work outside a vault, one that doesn’t force you to think about organisation before you’ve even started writing. That’s the gap we’re aiming at.

Where it goes from there, though, will depend a lot on feedback like yours. So I won’t say never, just not as the core idea

[krssno]

@matteo

Honestly becoming another PKM app isn’t what we’re designing Lettera to be. There are plenty of those already, and it doesn’t make much sense for us to move into that space (especially considering we already have Bear).

To avoid any misunderstanding: I am not thinking of an app that is marketed as PKM, but rather an app that in its minimalism offers all kinds of possible uses. Just as you’re suggesting right now. Given that, according to your own statement, Wiki links will most likely be added, the only thing I can actually think of to make the app complete in this sense is properly implemented tags. You haven’t categorically ruled that out yet. So I am not expecting to see Bear in a new look. Also I am not referring to PKM in the sense of what is currently available on the market. I just mean a basic feature set. If then every user can use the app for whatever purpose they want then that is exactly why it is perfect. Because it doesn’t dictate anything and makes everything possible.

[kirkmc]

@matteo

what’s missing right now is an editor that can work outside a vault,

I have to disagree. There are quite a few good Mac markdown text editors with this approach that are not designed for developers. What you can bring to the table is more attention to typography, and, of course, wysiwyg markdown, which no one does well. (Ulysses’ hybrid approach is, IMHO, even worse than plain markdown with code.)

[matteo]

@krssno

I just mean a basic feature set. If then every user can use the app for whatever purpose they want then that is exactly why it is perfect. Because it doesn’t dictate anything and makes everything possible.

Then we agree, that’s the end goal

[ctietze]

There’s no reason to make Lettera harder to use. If anything, in an ideal world, it should only get more intuitive from here on out

[tpw]

@krssno I had a email dialog with @zowiewho the Marketing Mgr for Bear & Lettera. I had a similar question to understand why Lettera since there are many writing tools out there.

Her response to me is below and it was the aha moment for me. I presented tools like Pages, Notes, Scrivener, DayOne, Diarly, etc.. I hadn’t thought about those apps as owning my data and although Pages reads/writes to a file you can’t read or write to it without the Pages App. Same is true with MS Word.

The file-based part matters more than it might seem at first. Pages, Bear, Notes, DayOne all own your content in some way. Your files live inside them. With Lettera, your files are just files, sitting in a folder in Finder, readable by anything, forever.

This changed my thinking especially when you can use an Editor (app) that hides all the Markdown (MD) language in order to just focus on your writing. I have spent lots of time writing with Pages and it’s quite powerful and just like MS Word, most users don’t use all the features they provide. The frustrating part for me has been working through all the features to just do simple things. Sure, once you figure them out it seems to work well and can offer some very rich outputs but your time is worth something and it’s got me thinking that maybe Lettera will keep my world simpler and I get to control how I organize my writings. I’m not talking about writing notes or journal entries as I have been using Bear & Diarly respectively. I want an app to help provide structure for those assets. I could use either app for writing stories, hobby documentation, birding field notes but sometimes it seems like I end up forcing these into a structure that may be a bit unstructured.

Lettera will provide me with a great MD editor and allows me to organize my files on any device or storage options and although MD is the syntax behind it all, I never have to see it (and I’m a retired software engineer/architect). MD is a format that is compatible with other tools including Bear & Diarly so if I wanted to import them or copy/paste I could. Since MD isn’t an official industry approved standard (good & bad), I may have some tweaking to do after importing but the openness and flexibility it provides me is much better than trying to use the text from an MS Word or Apple Pages file.

You mentioned it (MD) being just for a tech folks and that may be where it started and has been living for quite some time but it’s also being used by academics writing papers and independent journalists that may have to be flexible as they aren’t tied into a publisher or media’s tools.

I think tools like Lettera may just open the MD format & usage to more communities and platforms in the future.

I’m looking forward to its production release.

-tom

[kirkmc]

@tpw

The file-based part matters more than it might seem at first. Pages, Bear, Notes, DayOne all own your content in some way. Your files live inside them. With Lettera, your files are just files, sitting in a folder in Finder, readable by anything, forever.

This is incorrect. You can save Pages files in RTF or DOCX; Pages doesn’t “own” them. You can open Word files with many apps, including Pages. And with Scrivener, you can export the files as individual RTF files, but its goal is not to be a single-file editor.

However, Bear, Nots, and DayOne all use databases, so they don’t have “files” as such.

As I said in another thread, there are literally dozens of markdown text editors. Some designed for developers, others for people who write any type of document. Markdown is quite popular among people who don’t want to have to worry about formats and compatibility.

[tpw]

@kirkmc yes, that’s true but Word can’t read a Pages file directly so if I wanted an open standard (Word & Pages are not) I may as well use RTF but even that isn’t an official open standard nor is MD. The flexibility that RTF and MD provide are greater than .docx and .pages.

How much importing and exporting do you want to do. It is true, I can spend all my time using Pages for my writing and it will certainly work just fine and I may never need to share the content with anyone else and even then I could simply use a PDF.

The bottom line is trying to understand the benefit of Lettera over all these other apps of which some are free.

You mentioned earlier that typography is one thing you’re looking for, would that really be a game changer for you?

What do you think the real benefit is to you that Lettera will bring that would make you want to use it over all the other writing tools you are already using?

I’m wanting to give this a try over using Pages for example but I may find myself still using Pages for some of my writing, too soon to tell.

-tom

[kirkmc]

RTF is not a true open standard, and Apple’s RTFD is even less open. But it is generally accepted as if it were. Markdown, on the other hand, is open, though there are various versions that added things not in the original spec.

I have used iA Writer for a very long time to write articles. (I’m a tech journalist and write a couple hundred articles a year.) I’ve gotten tired of having to view markdown code when I work, and what I want is the wysiwyg markdown of Lettera, as well as some varied font options. I write in a monospace font, and edit in a serif font. iA Writer’s fonts are beautiful, but when I preview files in the app in a different font, I can’t edit the preview.

There are no other text editors that fully embrace wysiwyg. Ulysses tries, but it’s not fully wysiwyg, and its files aren’t individually accessible.

[tpw]

Agree, I don’t want to learn the MD syntax and have no need to see it. Even though Markdown is not an official industry standard format, John Gruber did something that caught on and is adopted by many developers and companies. I won’t go into all the benefits as you probably know them well but doesn’t Bear provide a decent wysiwyg UX and other note taking or journaling apps?

I know these note-taking and journaling apps aren’t necessarily great for what you’re doing but they can be used just like I could use Bear (notes) or Diarly (journal) for my writings. Sometimes I just want to try another tool because they just aren’t a natural fit if that makes any sense.

i.e. TAGS with Notes seems like a natural fit but not 100% with Journaling which is more date-time driven although I use them.

With writing, I want all the noise removed and typewriter mode to simply focus and not be distracted.

Just curious, why do you use a monospaced font for initial writing?
I don’t write as much as you so always interested in hearing from others.

-tom

[kirkmc]

Bear doesn’t work with files, it’s a database. I don’t trust databases for work. Files are important, because my articles often go through edits and revisions, and I’m not about to export and import files into something like Bear, or Obsidian, which I use to store notes.

As for monospace font, I find that it’s easier to see my words. It’s quite common in journalism, going back to people who started with typewriters. Also, whenever there is code - mostly links in what I write - it’s easier to read them. It also gives you a better feel for how long sentences and paragraphs are, since short characters take up the same amount of space as longer ones (like an l compared to an m). I also don’t justify paragraphs, so no words get broken.

It’s a question of habit, I guess. I’ve written a number of computer books, and publishers always work in Word with their own stylesheets, so that’s a different process. But most of my work these days is articles, white papers, screencast scripts, etc.

[tpw]

yea, sounds like you’re one of those that would subscribe to MD vs proprietary formats that the major publishers use and have been for decades now.

Good point about the monospaced font, I may try that at least while initially writing, makes sense.

-tom

[IdeaSandbox]

I want to know if @zowiewho is looking for a marketing intern with 30+ years of marketing experience!