No autosaving. That's the wrong way to try to be minimalist.
WriterdeckOS
21–30 of 118 posts
Re: WriterdeckOS
#22Nice idea, however, here is a satire piece about writing and writers which I find relevant in this context: https://medium.com/@Justwritet/you-are-not-a-real-writer-if-...
Re: WriterdeckOS
#23I like the idea of a distraction-free writing environment. However, when I'm writing, I find I sometimes need to do research. I suppose for the best writing flow I should block time for research and time for pure writing. However, if I discover I need to look something up, a hard block on internet access would be a problem. Of course it's a slippery slope from researching something on Wikipedia to navigating to relat…
> However, if I discover I need to look something up, a hard block on internet access would be a problem. When I'm in "writing mode", I forbid myself from doing quick lookups, because I can almost never stick to the "quick" part of the process, and end up chasing rabbits. Instead, I just put something like (verify) or (research to confirm yay/nay) while writing, and move on to what I can do in the moment. Then much l…
The old timey trick is to write “TK”, for “look this up later”. It’s not a common letter combination so it’s easy to visually or automatically scan for. Example:
> The moon is TK miles from earth.
Write away, don’t get distracted by the details, and catch up afterward when you’ve shifted to editor mode.
Re: WriterdeckOS
#24I like the idea of a distraction-free writing environment. However, when I'm writing, I find I sometimes need to do research. I suppose for the best writing flow I should block time for research and time for pure writing. However, if I discover I need to look something up, a hard block on internet access would be a problem. Of course it's a slippery slope from researching something on Wikipedia to navigating to relat…
The solution is simple -- switch to another device!
Our minds are hard-wired to build habits via physical association. Having a single-purpose device very much fits with how our minds work. If we want to do research, then go to a research enabled device. If we want to focus on writing, then open the writing focused device.
Re: WriterdeckOS
#25The idea of a low-distraction laptop OS is a good one, but I'm not sure that this is necessarily the best approach. If I mentally model such a thing myself, I end up with something that looks a lot like Classic (pre-OS-X) Mac OS. It's simplified and has just enough presence to properly host graphical applications. No taskbar, no notifications (or associated drawer), no self-populated launcher menu. File manager is sp…
Not exactly this but found a similar experience recently by throwing Linux lite on an 15-year-old thinkpad with a physical wifi switch.
Was for my kid in this case. Loaded a few education-friendly games and then disabled the wifi. Now it’s a simple, focused, and relatively safe box.
Could easily do the same for writing or any other activity.
Re: WriterdeckOS
#26No autosaving. That's the wrong way to try to be minimalist.
Yea, that’s something that stuck out to me as well. Seems like auto save and version control could be done in a minimalist manner whist improving QOL
Re: WriterdeckOS
#27While I don't have a use for this, I do like the idea of purposeful modes in computing. Obviously there is a lot you can do with shortcuts and preferences, but its nice to have a limited to base to start with.
I think this is even more important with a mobile platform since for one, battery and processing power is at a premium, and two anything with notifications could take you out of your desired "mode" if you don't wrangle them properly.
Something I've always wanted in a smartphone is to be able to boot into a "camera only" mode. There have been many times where all I need my phone for is as a camera, and I don't want it wasting resources/battery doing anything else. If this mode were light enough, it could boot up in the same amount of time as a normal digital camera, allowing your the phone to be truly off while you're not taking pictures. I do often take a digital camera with me, but sometimes I don't want the bulk or maybe I didn't initially plan to take a lot of pictures.
Re: WriterdeckOS
#28I had a good laugh. Why does anyone want this? Put Linux on your laptop and nuke the network stack. Done.
You're clearly not the intended audience but that doesn't mean no one could want this.
Re: WriterdeckOS
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> However, if I discover I need to look something up, a hard block on internet access would be a problem. When I'm in "writing mode", I forbid myself from doing quick lookups, because I can almost never stick to the "quick" part of the process, and end up chasing rabbits. Instead, I just put something like (verify) or (research to confirm yay/nay) while writing, and move on to what I can do in the moment. Then much l…
The old timey trick is to write “TK”, for “look this up later”. It’s not a common letter combination so it’s easy to visually or automatically scan for. Example: > The moon is TK miles from earth. Write away, don’t get distracted by the details, and catch up afterward when you’ve shifted to editor mode.
I apply this to writing as well as coding. To keep the flow, I leave TODO: notes, and later I search for the TODO: and see what needs attention.
Re: WriterdeckOS
#30a single fucking screenshot would go a long way to convincing me this is real. considering I lost an hour yesterday trying to use an open source library that turned out to be vibe coded non-functional slop, I have to ask for evidence that the project is real and functional be presented front and center
E.g. https://old.reddit.com/r/writerdeckOS/comments/1mu299a/ Not sure why such over-the-top presentation, marketing, and community building, for what is basically auto-logging in to a text editor.
You just reminded me how much better old reddit was