GoGoGadgets

So most likely many of you have heard of Ommwriter. It came out and was all the talk for a few days because of it’s very strange approach to writing. No one can deny that it is quite different from almost any application. Granted it has the normal full screen mode used in WriteRoom and Pages but it really separates itself with music. Thats right, directly off the install Ommwriter plays music to you. Everyone immediately said “WOW THATS SUPER CRAZY!!” But its really not….

Think about it. If you like doing a lot of intense work where you try to zone yourself out of distractions to help yourself work what do you go to? Maybe you quit your Twitter client and Facebook, maybe you hide your desktop with Deskshade or Camouflage, and maybe, like me, after you do all that you turn on music. I always try to go for something without vocals just so I don’t get distracted by someone talking. And thats exactly what Ommwriter does.

I do want to mention this application is still in beta, I’m sure many changes will be made before that label is removed.

Loved

The first thing you notice after you start it up is it eats your entire screen.

No questions asked. That is your only option. It starts off with the surreal snow and dormant tree scene giving you two more options with a blank white background and a textured grey(my personal favorite).

Along with that you notice a few other things.

A light tune starts to play and when you start to type if you’re not a loud typist, you hear a subtle clank every time you tap a key. Both of these options are customizable between different tunes and completely off.

Along with sound options you have font options.

Being a font fanatic and typographic enthusiast the majority of the time I open a text editor the first thing I do is change my font. So being given only three choices it’s quite abnormal. You have a single Serif, Sans-Serif and Cursive font, that’s it, and then the option to make the font small medium or large.

Resizing the text box.

In most text editing or document forming applications all you can change is the window size. Depending on the application this can change how the text is laid out. Or if you’re using Word or Pages it can just give you more grey space beside your text. One very cool thing about Ommwriter is that in your giant full screen window, you’re actually typing in a text box. That means it is completely resizable and movable however you so desire.

The last thing that I completely love about Ommwriter is the keen attention to detail.

Not only are their beautiful fade transitions when using ALT + TAB to switch apps and when minimized. But it has a gorgeous custom scroll bar and changes your highlight color to somewhat match the background.

Hated

There are a few things that while using this application I found to be a major nuisance.

First off I am a bad speller.

And while I know exactly what Ommwriter is going for with the not cluttering your writing space with the obnoxious red lines under text, the simple fact is that means one thing. Before whatever I’ve written can go anywhere it has to pass through another text editor just to be spell checked. I would really like to see a hidden option that would just search through the document highlighting errors as when I told it to. I do want to mention it has an interesting autocomplete feature that applies when I tap the escape key hovering over an unfinished word. But in no way does this act as a full feature spell checker.

The cursor.

Everyone is used to the flashing vertical line that determines exactly where the next letter you type is going to land. After using Ommwriter I respect that vertical line. If you’ve been paying very close attention through the last few screen shots the cursor has been changed to a gorgeously minimalistic underscore looking flashing line. And while it looks great it makes it hard to judge exactly where you are typing or deleting.

As you can see thats not exactly what you would normally expect to be deleted. Although that’s something that just takes a few days to get used to it definitely threw me off at first.

Spaces.

This is something that I know wouldn’t affect every user out there, and it’s not really a huge issue it’s just strange. I noticed that I had been using Ommwriter in the first space. I used ALT+ TAB to get out of the application, sent a message in Adium, went down to my second space to check my NetNewsWire, tried to ALT + TAB back to Ommwriter but ALAS! It didn’t switch my space. I had to manually move up to my first space and then ALT + TAB into Ommwriter again! Which just seems like a waste of time.

Compatibility.

Normally when you use some sort of word processor you are planning on getting what ever you are writing out. Ommwriter doesn’t allow you to print. Although this doesn’t surprise me it seems worth it to add, email it, or post it to the web you have to be able to rely on the fact that wherever it goes it will work. This is where the issue appears. By default if you click the interesting save button and just click save it is a new .omm file. Obviously proprietary to Ommwriter. But not all is lost! In the save dialog you also have a single option to save as a .txt file which is obviously as universal as you can get. Yet with no formatting, again which is to be expected. This means along with throwing the text into Pages, Word, or Bean for spell checking you also need to make sure everything is formatted correctly and saved appropriately.

Find and replace.

This almost goes hand in hand with the spell checking functionality but because of my time with the application I decided that it needed the mention. For some reason about half way through typing this up I realized that I had been typing “Omniwriter” instead of “Ommwriter” I was fully aware and have no idea how I got this confused with a non existent product from the Omni group but obviously I needed to fix this. Because Ommwriter doesn’t have the capability to find and replace I had to Cut all the text past it into Smultron just to find and replaced and the move it back into Ommwriter.

Other thoughts

A few other things worth mentioning but not in an entire paragraph:

1. Ommwriter has an awesome looking word counter at the bottom of the page.
2. Textexpander seems to work perfectly inside of it along with cursor placement.
3. The minimize button does not minimize it to your dock it is really more of a hide button.
4. Growl notifications still appear about the Ommwriter window.
5. The normal CMD + S short cut does not work to save the file.
6. Using CMD + O opens whatever file you happen to have selected on the hidden desktop at the time.
7. Global shortcuts work perfectly and automatically hide the window.
8. There is no clunky auto numbering system.
9. There is no crazy awesome menu when right clicking the dock icon.
10. AGAIN this application is still in the glorious beta days so I’m sure improvements will be made.

Verdict

Although this application has a few short comings, I have faith in the developers to improve upon these as needed. Although I’m not exactly sure how to check for updates. But all disadvantages aside the seclusion of writing without being distracted by the blue glow of the Tweetie icon really does inspire you to sit down and just write for as long as you so desire.

I will continue to use Ommwriter on a regular basis and give it a:

Rating 3.5 of 5

About Bob

I'm a cool guy :) Honestly I wish I could say more. If you knew why I couldn't you would think disgraceful things about a company many of you hold very dear to your life. It really wouldn't make any sense but you would hate them. I can tell you that technology is my life. It's what I love to do. Which is why Jason and I started all of this.