Ulysses Mobile is released

Posted by MadaboutDana
Aug 4, 2016 at 09:16 AM

Well, I’ve installed the new Ulysses for iOS on all my machines (iPhone, iPod, iPad 2, iPad Mini 3) and it’s brilliant! Dropbox sync seems to work well, as a matter of fact - it’s very easy to set up, and the documents start populating the library immediately. Stuff I’ve edited in Ulysses but also access through other Markdown editors (e.g. FoldingText) has been correctly synchronised. Let’s face it, all sync services sometimes have problems; the trouble is, just a single, widely read journalist having a horrible time can make it sound as if an entire, globally active system is fundamentally flawed.

But the best thing is the new universal search function, which works really well - it’s essentially based on the “Quick Open” function in the main desktop application, but as a general search engine, is extremely efficient.

Things I still find annoying about Ulysses:
- it doesn’t use standard Markdown syntax (e.g. unconventional use of square brackets for links, non-use of double tildes for strikethrough [in fact, there’s no support for strikethrough at all]); this is something I can see blocking its further evolution, unless a fairly drastic executive decision (or two) is made at some point in the near future,
- inflexible tag support (you can set up filters like anything, even very complex ones; but you can’t - and this really surprises me - simply click on a tag and immediately see a list of all items with that tag).

And the really fussy one:
- it still doesn’t fold text under headings! Okay, you could argue the whole idea of folding is antithetical to Ulysses, which would prefer users to put together text fragments. But it’s a question of preferred working method.

Cheers,
Bill