Skip to Content

WriteRoom

by Dan Lurie Jul 1st 2006 at 10:00AM



Despite the fact that I have a shaky at best grasp on my native English tongue, I am paid to write things. Unfortunately for my paycheck, a combination of ADD and a constant barrage of notifications from NetNewsWire, Mail, Colloquy, and Adium conspire to distract me from my duties. Until of course, Michael at binarybonsai posted about a simple little program by the name of WriteRoom.

WriteRoom does one thing, and does it well; it makes you focus on what you are writing by making the entire screen a text field. Merlin Mann at 43 Folders posted a hack a few months ago to accomplish this using Backdrop, but WriteRoom makes de-cluttering your workspace as simple as opening the application. Of course, now that my computer doesn't have anything to distract me with, I find myself looking longingly out the window at a beautiful San Francisco summer afternoon, but thats besides the point. WriteRoom is available as a free Universal Binary download.

View Tags

Related Stories

Categories

Software Freeware Universal Binary

Despite the fact that I have a shaky at best grasp on my native English tongue, I am paid to write things. Unfortunately for my paycheck, a...
 

Add a Comment

Sign in »
*0 / 3000 Character Maximum

18 Comments

Filter by:
G-Man

There is also a very good Windows option to this program called the WestEdit text editor.
It can be found at http://home.online.no/~westerma/WestEdit/

July 11 2006 at 1:24 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
G-Man

There is also a very good Windows option to this program called the WestEdit text editor.
It can be found at http://home.online.no/~westerma/WestEdit/

July 11 2006 at 1:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Todd

Not to take anything away from Jesse, because he and Hog Bay crew have done some wonderful things, but there's a similar app called Doodim that dims everything behind the front-most app. Same thing, but a little more flexibility.

July 03 2006 at 8:58 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
frank d

It's nice to see & hear people wanting to focus on a single task for a change. This has been my point all along in wanting (+) in OS X to maximize the current window. That combined with hiding the dock & turning off other apps, really allows one to concentrate on the task at hand.

The neat thing is, this takes it a step further by going full screen. I love how it has just the right preferences as well to customize the page width & height, text & page colors (for some reason the page was not true black compared to the background) and font-style. Write Room is a true little gem.

July 03 2006 at 8:50 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Daniel

I was inerested enough to go and download this until I saw that is was for OS X Tiger only. I have Panther. I wonder what is in this cool app that can't possibly be run in Panther; it is for just a editing text on the screen, after all.

July 02 2006 at 10:47 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
E Grotz

Brilliant concept -- how to turn a $1500 laptop into a $20 electric typewriter! Maybe I've been around computers way too long, but I'm really loving these "less is more" apps.

BTW, how does one submit story ideas to TUAW?

July 02 2006 at 1:51 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Douglas Shearer

Thanks Tim. :o)

July 01 2006 at 4:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Blake Burris

Congrats Jesse on this simple yet much needed app for writing without distraction. I sometimes take lengthly blog posts into Tofu full-screen mode to digest. Now I've got to work WriteRoom into my routine!

July 01 2006 at 3:49 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Tim C.

http://www.lipsum.com/

July 01 2006 at 3:26 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Alex H.

Douglas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorem_Ipsum

July 01 2006 at 3:09 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Buy an ad here

Hot Apps on TUAW

Tweets

© 2012 AOL Inc. All Rights Reserved.