Some apps wot I have made for writers
If I ain't writing, I'm coding stuff to help me write
When I’ve not been working on the next Steam World novel over the past six months, I’ve been getting to grips with Swift coding. I’ve created a few apps, mostly for my own needs, that I hope other writers will find useful too.
Scribomatic
Scribomatic is a writing tool designed to help you get across the line with your first draft. It disables editing functions, most importantly the delete key. This means that you can switch off your critical left brain and just write. The most important thing I’ve found with writing novels is getting words on the page, it doesn’t matter how badly spelt they are. If you spend time faffing with editing, you make way less progress, and it’s much harder to get into flow.
To help further, the font changes colour the more consistently you type. Red for less than 20 words per minute, orange for 20 to 30 words per minute and green for over 30 words per minute. More incentive to keep typing and not stop to think or edit (not that you can).
I’ve also added some handy-dandy planning and tracking features to help keep you on target with your writing goals. I’m using it extensively for the first draft of my new novel and find it really helpful.
Check out Scribomatic on the App store.
Screenwriter
Screenwriter is, unsurprisingly, a screenwriting app. It allows you to write and edit screenplays using Fountain markup, and export professionally formatted PDFs. I’m really proud of this little app, and it has some really useful features, including:
a quick edit bar, which allows you to build slug lines in a few taps
preview and export of formatted script
scene navigation while editing and previewing
versioning
formatted text export for import into Final Draft
iCloud sync
Check out Screenwriter on the App store.
MagicWiki
MagicWiki is a simple wiki and notepad app. I’m proud of this one, as there was a point where I thought I’d never get it right. It certainly proved a point I’ve made many times over the years, to make something simple often requires great complexity. Still, with a lot of perseverance (and swearing) I got there, and I’m really pleased with the result.
It does everything you’d expect a lightweight Wiki to do:
Automatic creation of pages with [[WikiLinks]]
Text scanning and auto-linking of existing pages
Insert and resize images
Organize articles with tags and get intelligent tag suggestions based on content
Keep important articles easily accessible in favourites
Built-in journaling with a calendar view
Format your content with simple markdown syntax
Search for articles by title, content, or tags
iCloud sync
Check out MagicWiki on the App Store.
Accessibility Checker
This little app is my latest creation. In my professional work as a content designer, I’ve already found it incredibly useful. It’ll scan any web page or website and give you a detailed WCAG report of how you can improve it for accessibility. If you care about making your web content accessible to everyone, it’s $15 $10 well spent.
Check out Accessibility Checker on the App Store.
Prism Chat
This is a little AI chatbot that has a neat little twist. When you ask a question, it’ll provide answers from different perspectives, which, as a writer, is really useful. You can branch your chat into different views as you ask questions related to that point of view. It uses ChatGPT3.5, and you get lots of free queries a month (you’re welcome!). If you find it useful, you can add your OpenAI API to use ChatGPT4.
Check out Prism Chat on the App Store.
Noku Puzzle
OK, this isn’t writing related, but we writers have to keep the old grey matter regularly exercised. And Noku Puzzle does just that! Again, this took some time to figure out how to replicate the website functionality in an app to make the puzzles, so, yeah, I’m chuffed with it.
And I still think it’s a ruddy great idea, even if no-one else seems to…
Check out Noku Puzzle on the App Store.
Well, that’s about it for now. I hope you find some or all of these apps useful. I’m always keen to improve them, and have ideas for development for all of them, but I’d love to hear any feedback you might have.