You’re right that this isn’t a sandbox limitation, it’s purely a design choice in how Lettera’s sidebar works.
In Lettera, the sidebar represents a single folder, 1:1. Because of that, dropping something into it can only mean one of two things: copy or move it into that folder. There’s no concept of “reference this folder but leave it where it is.”
iA Writer’s sidebar is built on a different model: it’s a generic space where you can reference folders and documents that live anywhere (likely via aliases under the hood, as you guessed). That makes iA Writer more of a shoebox app, whereas Lettera is a document-based app. The window is a folder, and what you see is exactly what’s on disk in that location.
Both are valid approaches; they’re just different philosophies. Ours keeps a strict, predictable mapping between the sidebar and a real folder on your drive.
You can pick any folder! And not just one, you can have as many as you want. Just open a folder via the “File → Open…” menu or drop a folder in the Lettera dock icon.
I like the way you’ve chosen to implement this. To make your choice more obvious, I would make it so that opening a single file does not open as a tab within the already opened Lettera window. Presently, when I open a single file, it opens as a second tab, which makes it appear to be living in the Lettera workspace. The only obvious way to know that it isn’t in the workspace is that the sidebar has disappeared.
I would expect to see a sidebar showing the opened file’s containing folder, this seems most intuitive to me. If I open a file that’s part of a project folder, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to have quick access to the other project files and folders. This is how Typora works. As it stands I have to jump through hoops to get at my project files.
I see some people here prefer it how it currently is, so make it an option.
What is a project folder and how does it differ from a regular folder? Actually the current implementation (where a sidebar is displayed only when opened from a “lettera” window with a sidebar) is the most logical and the one with the least potential for confusion.
This means that Lettera can still be used just like good old Panda, which is useful for people who simply need a viewer and editor that they can open from the Finder but aren’t interested in managing files within Lettera.
When I open a single file, either from finder or dock item menu, either the opened file is in a open "workspace or not, this single file is always opened in its own window without sidebar. What exactly are you doing?
But what if I want to access multiple folders, but not each in different windows? That’s quite a messy way to work. Plus, I have to navigate to the folders, rather than having commonly used folders in the sidebar.
Plus, if you merge all windows, then it gets even messier. Click one file, you only see its folder in the sidebar. If you opened a file on its own, then you don’t see its enclosing folder. (And, if you don’t merge windows, you can’t display the sidebar to see its folder.)
Then Lettera seems to be the wrong tool for you. Its concept is pretty straightforward.
I guess it depends on each of our mindset, which in turn has been shaped by other programs. Not even iA Writer offers what you expect from lettera. In iA Writer you can create different locations in what’s called the Organizer. In iA Writer’s library on the other hand you can only view and browse the folders and files of a single location. They don’t appear there merged together.
You can add as many folders as you want to iA Writer’s library, and you can browse any of them whenever you want.
The problem with Lettera is that the display is vastly different according to whether you’re browsing its iCloud folder, an ad hoc folder you’ve opened, or a single file. It is inconsistent and confusing to anyone who works on more than one file at a time.
You probably mean the organizer rather than the library. The saved locations don’t appear merged together in one file browser which is called “library” in iA Writers terminology.
As I said then Lettera is the wrong tool for you as it doesn’t meet your expectations. However many users so far like the concept.
I took a quick look at Typora and it seems to work the same way as Lettera. I wasn’t able to open one folder first and then drag and drop another one into it.
I’d never used it but I just downloaded Typora. Unlike Lettera, it is not using an iCloud folder. While it only opens one folder at a time, if you click at the bottom of the sidebar, you can access recent locations, which makes it much easier to switch locations. There is also View > File Tree, which gives access to a hierarchy. This said, the apps in not very user-friendly. To change fonts, you have to alter a CSS file…
Yes, exactly. Your problem isn’t actually that Lettera doesn’t do what you suggested but that the many windows are bothering you.
Here’s a possible workaround that might help you. However this requires that most of your work folders are contained within a common parent folder. You can then open that parent folder in Lettera and use the context menu in the Lettera’s sidebar to open the desired subfolder in its own tab.
I guess some people might store files like that, but I have multiple clients I write for, so my work folders aren’t in a common parent folder for various reasons.
This said, I don’t see a context menu in Lettera’s sidebar, other than New file, New Folder, etc. There are no navigation options.
