Optima is the new contender for best text editor for OS X

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If you combine Markdown markup with WYSIWYG and Zen mode in a text editor, add a stop word check from Glavred and add a minimalist design, you get Optima.

Optima won't give you the variety of design tools available with Word or Pages. But he does not set such a task for himself. For Optima, the main thing is the meaningful work on the text, its content and structure. The editor's job is to provide the writer with maximum focus without unnecessary distractions on endless toolbars or switching to view mode to remove the Markdown markup that interferes with the readability of the text.

Content and structure

You need to mark up and format the text using the formatting bar.

Logically, this is really more convenient, because when working with text, the cursor is more often at the bottom, and not at the top, where the formatting panels of text editors are usually located. But I did not have a chance to test this statement in practice, since I use hot keys, which are not so many and which are easy to remember.

Headings

1. Cmd + 1 … 6 - choice of heading style.
2. Cmd + 0 - standard paragraph.
3. Cmd + Shift + B - quote.

Styles

1. Cmd + B - bold font.
2. Cmd + I - italic.
3. Cmd + minus - strikethrough text.
4. Cmd + K - insert or remove a link.
5. Cmd + Shift + Backspace - remove the formatting of the selected text.

Lists

1. Cmd + L - bulleted list.
2. Cmd + Shift + L - a numbered list.

Additionally

1. Cmd + D - transition to the "Zen" mode and back.
2. Cmd + Ctrl + F - full screen mode.
3. Cmd + G - check "Glavred".

Zen Mode

Zen mode helps you focus on the paragraph you are editing while shading the rest.

Check for stop words from Glavred

If you are familiar with the info style and agree with its philosophy, then you probably use the "" check for stop words. Previously, you copied and pasted text on the site. Optima does it for you, displaying results as you write if the option is enabled.

You just need to place the cursor on the highlighted word, and you will see the result immediately.

Development plans

Users are waiting for updates to already full-fledged applications, so expecting them from the beta version is doubly reasonable. This is what Alexey Novichkov, the developer of Optima, told us about the further development of the editor.

Next month

1. Bug fixes and improvements.
2. Beta version for Windows.
3. Printer. Prepares the text for publication: places the correct dashes, quotes and non-breaking spaces (the latter are added after prepositions and conjunctions so that they wrap along with the next word and do not hang at the end of the line). For those who write to your mailing list or website, Optima offers a "Copy HTML" feature. It gives text wrapped in tags and so on. The typographer will complement this function.

Future (minimum two months)

1. Library. A library is a list of notes organized into folders. New creations are automatically added to the library - no Save or Save As. But it will still be possible to open external files.
2. Autosave. After the beta was released, it became clear that it was necessary to automatically save the text, because it was excruciatingly painful to lose the results of the work.
3. Synchronization. At a minimum, Optima will learn to automatically save files to Dropbox. This is useful when you work with two computers - work and home. Well, it's not scary to lose text if your computer breaks down. Dropbox comes before iCloud because it works on both OS X and Windows.
4. Spell checker and word count. Perhaps export to DOCX will appear.

conclusions

I have been using the Optima text editor for two weeks and have not noticed a single bug. In my opinion, the design of the application is simple and nice. Checking for stop words helps to more consciously approach the editing of the text, and all together contributes to stable focus, which is so important in our time. So I seriously thought about moving from Ulysses III.

By the way, while the application is in beta testing, everyone can try out the new contender for the title of the best text editor for OS X for free.