That seems like a pretty nicely contained GTD program, or at least a way to replace text files for the less grep-able among us.

I keep trying, and trying, and trying Ulysses, and hoping each time that I’ll discover the thing which makes it a killer app. But I haven’t found it. Despite really, really wanting to, I can’t justify the purchase price.

There’s really one one feature that I desperately wish I could have: full screen mode. I keep the demo on my machine because I’m not aware of any other app for writing text which gives me that option. So I copy-and-paste whatever I’m working on into Ulysses and write until I get nervous, and then copy-and-paste back to somewhere I can save it. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And there’s one big, fundamental flaw: styles. I appreciate that the creators of Ulysses want me to focus on the words, but sometimes I just need to make something bold or italic. We’re not talking major formatting here, just some simple visual emphasis, even if it’s just for myself (like a comment which reads, “I know that Charlotte needs to confront Herman, but it’s not flowing right now. Insert confrontational text here.”) Sure, I could use ASCII symbols to do it, but then it’s more invasive and un-intuitive, rather than less.

Does anyone know any other apps which provide a similar full-screen mode, so I can die happy and finally finish my novel?

Jeffrey, I am in exactly the same boat: I can’t afford $75, but I kind of like the Ulysses feature set and I really like full-screen mode. If the app were $30 I’d buy it immediately. It is ridiculously overpriced, considering what you get when you register, say, Mellel for far less.

That is one beautiful “looking” app. Now I wish I had a mac. Do you know of any text editors in the PC world that offer similar features? Looking for simplicity and full screen modes.

(Newcomer to your blog Merlin. LOVE IT.) Having recently demo’d Ulysses myself, I (like Pete) came to the conclusion that the only really must have thing about it, was the fullscreen mode. Thus…in lieu of anything cheaper/proper/better - I have set up a simple TextEdit file - coloured the page background black, chosen favourite font, coloured chosen font a nice terminal green…or nice blood red (depending on mood) - set up margins, font size, line spacing etc - dragged page out to the edges of screen - and VOILA! Looks identical to Ulysses fullscreen (barring menu and TextEdit title bar at the top) - and certainly has EXACTLY the same effect on my writing focus. Works for me anyway - sometimes the simple solutions are best. And fortunately, often the most simple solutions, are….FREE.

I get the feeling Ulysses is inspired by Keynote on the PC. Three panels. RTF-based. Instead of tabbed projects, Keynote uses a tree or outline of documents on the left side. Some nice things Keynote has is a scratch pad, macros, and built-in strong encryption.

I agree with the comments on the price. I live in Euroland myself, so the exchange rate has no bearing here for me but it’s still overpriced compared with other software. (It so happens Keynote is free. Not to say Ulysses should be free; I would gladly pay but not €100.)

I, too, am pretty much astounded by some of Ulysses features, and that full-screen mode is a killer. A novelist friend is planning to buy it (or at least trying to convince himself to shell out $130) just for that.

However, Ulysses is a bit rigid in its implementation, and has some flaws. But the developer has shown his interest in reacting to user comments and adding features very quickly.

Ulysses seems pretty nice, but it’s way too pricey! I think CopyWrite should do the same (though I don’t think it has full-screen mode) and it’s just 30$.

I’m currently writing using TextEdit, but I’d like to have a good app and CopyWrite might be what I’m looking for.

MAJOR warning to anyone who is thinking about trying out the demo: the save feature for projects is disabled, and if you try to create a new project without taking notice of this you will lose everything in your current project. I just lost a bunch of work… Not a good way of impressing a potential customer.

Having played with it for a while it’s certainly an interesting implementation of a strong concept, but the whole just didn’t quite gel for me (though I loved the full screen feature). The asking price is also definitely a bit steep.

I’ve been using CopyWrite for about the last month for NaNoWriMo, and I love it. It’s free for small projects, limited to 5 documents, but other than that it is fully featured. After I wrote five chapters, I went ahead and ponied up ($30 is fair). So far, the app has been great for keeping track of my daily and document word counts, and monitoring my overall 50,000 word goal well with its Statistics pane. I’m excited to try the document versioning out after I finish the novel for the revision process. It also backs up your projects for you into a Zip file, plus exports into RTF. I tried an export, opened the RTF in TextEdit and switched it to Plain Text just fine.

(Another newcomer, great site! I came for the Moleskine hacks, and have been enjoying Quicksilver and Instiki on your recommendations and reader comments!)