Author

Author is vastly different than note taking and/or long form, minimal writing apps that we've seen in the past. Whereas Ulysses, Bear and others have touchpoints that appeal to the minimalist style, Author really ups the ante with a radical departure from convention. Two key differentiators are apparent: how it handles headings and how it creates "Defined Concepts". The headers work as headers normally do but with a twist: a 'Wiki' style quick collapse and drill down. Super handy for outlining and/or quick consolidation, down to the root level. And the implementation of it is so fundamental to the program, it must be pointed out, early. "Defined Concepts" are the real star of the show; they allow a superb amount of linking between themselves, much like tags but even more like tags in a mindmap; even to the point that it has mapping to visually show those links. The underlying mantra of this program is the thought leadership exhibited by its creator, Frode Hegland. From what I glean reading his works and website, they believe in 'Augmented Text' a metaphor perhaps of how can simply do MORE with words and text, something I utterly believe in. Hence why I use Ulysses, Bear, BBEdit, et al. All minimalist programs these days are really good; Author is the only one I've seen that takes a completely different approach to it.

Who needs another word processor. But this one has some nice features that save some time. For example, if you want to see al the places in your document you discuss a certain thing , you can highlight some text, and hit command f to see each sentence that has that text in your document. You can also quickly see the outline of your document from the headings you have used by squeeze-pinching the track pad. So it has some litle shortcuts that save time. It has more advanced features too, like built-in fucntion to insert book reference from a search window where you can search by title/author of the book. For my work, the content has to eventually end up in Word to share with collegues or format for publication. Copy-paste is free, but there is also an upgrade to this app to save in Word format (and several other formats). I haven't tried it yet, but it looks like it can easily save to a WordPress blog. So bottom line, this has some really cool features, but doesn’t yet replace Word for my work documents.

Author is a truly new concept in writing. Following the lead of pioneers like Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson (if you don’t know who these people are, you need to do some research!) this is a powerful tool that requires some learning. Do watch the videos to understand the concepts that are implemented in Author. You will soon learn to leverage these features and concepts and will wonder how you lived without them! Designing a tool like Author is a delicate balance—how to implement the features with a holistic and clean approach such that the software doesn’t get in your way. Compare with large and complex systems like Word and you will find Author a breath of fresh air! I’ve been working in software and user experience for over 40 years and an application like this does not come along often. I also don’t write many reviews—most software isn’t worth reviewing. Try it, spend some time, and you will be rewarded :-)