Editorial 1.2 now optimized for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus and more
Today, June 15, is a big day for fans of Editorial, the powerhouse plain text editor that originated on the iPad in 2013, and then landed on the iPhone last year with the 1.1 update. That’s because the app’s 1.2 update has finally landed, bringing a slew of fantastic features and other long-awaited goodies.
For those who are unfamiliar with Editorial, it is a plain text editor at its core, but there are a ton of powerful features that power-users will love, especially if the user wants to make life easier with automation and workflows. That’s because Editorial integrates Python scripting for Automator-inspired workflows, built-in text snippets, as well as an in-app browser. I called Editorial “the Swiss Army knife of iOS text editors,” and once you try the app out for just a few hours, you will see why — a lot can be achieved with this single writing app.
The biggest and most notable change with 1.2 is the fact that the app is now optimized for the larger screens of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. That’s right — no more suffering through a stretched out version of Editorial, as the app now looks fantastic on your larger iPhone screens. This has been a much anticipated update, and well worth it alone.
Folding sections in Editorial 1.2
Along with that, there are plenty of new features that Ole Zorn has been working hard on for the past year. First off, there is now “Folding” for Markdown sections as well as TaskPaper projects. This allows users to hide contents of a section or project by tapping the triangle next to the header, so you can hide or reveal these parts only when you need it.
Editorial 1.2 Quick Settings
Editorial also has “Quick Settings” available now, meaning that you can tap on the “Aa” button to change the editor-related settings even faster (you had to go to the main app settings previously). Included with the quick settings is a new “Text Zoom” option for changing overall font size and a syntax highlighting mode.
One of the most welcome additions to Editorial is the “Arrange Paragraphs” mode. This was something that you would use other apps for, like Phraseology, in the past, but now it is integrated right inside of Editorial. Document Templates are supported, so you can customize templates and even import photos into the document from the Camera Roll.
A new “Highlight All” menu item will show up when a word or sentence is selected. This will apply the selected words as a search term but without having to show the search bar at the top. The in-editor search has also been improved with new options for replacing occurrences, matching only full words, and more.
Editorial 1.2 browser tabs
The browser tabs in the accessory panel feature a new, more flexible tab UI that will be welcome to most users. By default, only Markdown preview is shown here, but now you can add console, documentation, and browser tabs when you require them. And it is possible to have multiple browser tabs too, just by doing a tap-and-hold gesture on links in tabs. The update also brings new share buttons in browser tabs, 1Password support, as well as HTML and CSS editing with basic syntax highlighting. For those who prefer to use third-party browsers like Chrome or iCab, there is improved support for those, including Opera Mini, Coast, and Mercury.
Among the 1.2 update are several new mode improvements. For those who like to write in Markdown (big fans of it here at AppAdvice), there is now CriticMarkup syntax highlighting, multiple Markdown preview themes, and a plain text mode, syntax highlighting support for the ~~strike-out~~ Markdown extension, and improved support for fenced code blocks.
TaskPaper users can rejoice that the checkboxes are now also available on the iPhone. To go along with that is a new setting for toggling automatic completion dates off when marking items as @done, correctly applied color labels, and a change in behavior of the “gray” TaskPaper color label.
A brand new mode has been added, and will appeal to screenwriters: Fountain is now implemented in Editorial, allowing users to edit and write screenplays with syntax highlighting and even an HTML preview that includes page numbers. Finally, there are a ton of miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes, as well as streamlined changes in workflows and scripting.
This is a huge update for the most powerful and renowned text editor on the App Store, and it has been well worth the wait. I’ve been using the beta versions for the past several months and it’s amazing to see how far Editorial has come since being an iPad-only app. For full documentation of the changes in 1.2, make sure to check out this link.
The Editorial 1.2 update is available for free for existing users. If you don’t already have Editorial, you can get it on the App Store as a universal download for $6.99.
