Please -- Give an Option to Hide Markdown
This is a brilliant, beautiful app, and I am not going to punish you with my rating. But please hear me out.
There are a great portion of writers attracted to Ulysses because they desire an aesthetically pleasing minimalistic environment *while* writing.
For many of those writers, viewing markdown characters at all times is legitimately distracting.
Apps like Spaces, Bear, Obsidian, have all proven that markdown can function just as well when hidden. It provides all the same technical functionality as when always visible. And while certain types of writers, like journalists or bloggers or researchers, clearly benefit by always viewing markdown characters because their aim is publishing, and that information is as constantly important as the words themselves, for many creative writers like myself, viewing the coding characters at all time for simple things like bolding and underlining and italicizing and titling is not only unessential, but actively distracting from the creative flow.
All I ask is that the Ulysses team can respect my right to choose in this specific regard. What is not a distraction for you is a distracton for me, and users like me. I understand your preferences differ from ours, but please have enough respect for this section of your userbase to give us a toggle to write as Ulysses intends for us to write -- distraction free.
There are a great portion of writers attracted to Ulysses because they desire an aesthetically pleasing minimalistic environment *while* writing.
For many of those writers, viewing markdown characters at all times is legitimately distracting.
Apps like Spaces, Bear, Obsidian, have all proven that markdown can function just as well when hidden. It provides all the same technical functionality as when always visible. And while certain types of writers, like journalists or bloggers or researchers, clearly benefit by always viewing markdown characters because their aim is publishing, and that information is as constantly important as the words themselves, for many creative writers like myself, viewing the coding characters at all time for simple things like bolding and underlining and italicizing and titling is not only unessential, but actively distracting from the creative flow.
All I ask is that the Ulysses team can respect my right to choose in this specific regard. What is not a distraction for you is a distracton for me, and users like me. I understand your preferences differ from ours, but please have enough respect for this section of your userbase to give us a toggle to write as Ulysses intends for us to write -- distraction free.
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Ulysses for writers who are disorganised!
I am really loving this app, because finally, I do not 'lose' my work! I have thousands of hours of writing in various places, but because of my neuro-diverse brain, I rarely remember where they are stored.
This app is a 'clean slate' and I can find what I've done to date, all in the one space. I have previously struggled with Scrivener - paid for courses in it, and still struggled. Ulysses is what I need to write from hereon in!
This app is a 'clean slate' and I can find what I've done to date, all in the one space. I have previously struggled with Scrivener - paid for courses in it, and still struggled. Ulysses is what I need to write from hereon in!
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Response from developer
We would like to thank you for your kind words. We are delighted to hear that our app can help you keep your work organized and easy to locate. Enjoy writing! — Kayla
Ulysses is a great app, until you need help
I have a MacBook Pro that crashed from a bad logic board. I got a new laptop and transfered my data to w/o much of a problem. I opened Ulysses the next day and found over 6 months of crucial work missing. I contacted Ulysses who apologized and referred me to the FAQ. I responded back that I still could ot find the data files and FAQ was not addressing my issue. A representative responded that it was likely a problem with Apple's iCloud service. I then contacted Apple's iCloud Tech Support and after being on the phone with them for over an hour, Apple's tech said it was an app issue because they could not find any Ulysses files anywhere in their cloud. I sent a note to Ulysses on Apple's findings and now I find myself 'Ghosted by Ulysses' and all my work 'still' gone. As the old saying goes, Ulysses is a great app and a good company right up to the point that you need them. If you need anything past a form letter, you're on your own.
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Response from developer
We are terribly sorry for the trouble that you are experiencing and for not responding. We are currently unaware of a case whereby we did not respond to you on purpose. Please contact us again at help@ulysses.app and we will definitely take a closer look into this — Kayla
A serious app
I am one of the app world's biggest critics. And I'm a professional technology critic. And I love this app. It works. Really well. As in, it helps me to write, instead of being a hindrance. I think because the developers are actually serious about what the app is designed to do. The subscription is reasonable. And it plays nicely with what it needs to in terms of writing and publishing.
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Response from developer
We are delighted to hear that you like our app as much as we do! Our developers have put in a lot of time and effort to develop such a simple design and intuitive interface. Enjoy writing! — Kayla
Ulysses iCloud is the Dream Team
Ulysses has facilitated the writing of over 200k words. Being able to write on my phone and on my computer has been phenomenal. I've never had any issues with reliabilty or glitching, but my partner was using Ulysses for years and lost some of their content due to a syncing issue... so they've left Ulysses for Pages. I'm sure to back up every few months, but Ulysses interface is just too perfect for me to find an alternative. I can see how it might be precarious because Ulysses isn't responsible for the actual data... that's an iCloud thing, so it assumes communication between the two is perfect. Still, I don't ever want to use another writing app... so I'm willing to forgive Ulysses a lot.
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Dishonest
I really loved this app.
I bought a complete 'Lifetime' license.
Then they switched to a subscription model and broke the agreement.
They inrtoduced version numbers but lifetime IS lifetime.
What really stings is that I told many of my professional colleague, even strangers about the app. Company with low ethics. Now with IA writer - a bit different but quite happy.
I bought a complete 'Lifetime' license.
Then they switched to a subscription model and broke the agreement.
They inrtoduced version numbers but lifetime IS lifetime.
What really stings is that I told many of my professional colleague, even strangers about the app. Company with low ethics. Now with IA writer - a bit different but quite happy.
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Response from developer
We are sorry you feel that way. However, there seems to be a big misunderstanding here: The pre-subscription version of our app (now called “Ulysses Classic”) is a completely separate app and you can continue using it as long as you like. It will forever be yours and we are not forcing anyone to take out a subscription. You can re-download it anytime from the “Purchased” section in the App Store, provided you are using the same Apple ID you initially bought Ulysses Classic with. In case of any questions or if you need further assistance downloading Ulysses Classic, please don’t hesitate to contact us via help@ulysses.app —Andrea
A year in and pleased to renew
I've switched almost all my writing to Ulysses and am delighted with the App. It's fast, focused and friendly. The new 'Projects' feature looks promising but I'd prefer it not to be tied to iCloud syncing. The ability to locate projects in other folders would help those of us using or needing other backup strategies. The only feature I miss (or would like to see) is the ability to create custom Markdown codes; for example to allow the creation of super- or sub-scripts. If I use .ulxz format Markdown (which has other benefits) I don't appear to be able to embed HTML so have to post-process my HTML output with custom scripts to embed the desired HTML. This isn't onerous, but there's room for improvement and hence 4/5 stars. It's fianlly worth noting that the few times I've had to contact Ulysses they have been very responsive and quick. Recommended.
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Keep Returning For Specific Projects
My daily driver notes app is different app, but for whole projects I always keep coming back to Ulysses - now with the introduction of the 'Project' tab upgrade it has become the essential workspace away from my daily scrappy notes. Calm. Fluent. Accumplished.
Response from developer
Thank you for your review. We are thrilled to hear that you like our projects feature as much as we do! — Kayla
growing disillusioned
I used to LOVE Ulysses. It was really a perfect environment in which to write. It was “minimal” (as every text editor on earth likes to tout these days) but there were still plenty of powerful tools beneath the surface.
But I've grown to dread every update, knowing that some feature or interface element I know and use regularly may well disappear or be changed.
Most recently, the toolbar lost the ability to hide itself, replaced with a “focus mode” must be manually enabled and disabled, and that leaves the sidebar obscuring the text I’m trying to view. Now I'm using four-key shortcuts to actively manage things that once just stayed out of my way until I needed them. I'm working a lot harder to use Ulysses and I resent it, especially since I'm renting the software and essentially paying to have it endlessly tinkered with. (And for all this, they STILL don't properly support Fountain, which is a plain-text type of Markdown specifically designed for screenwriting -- instead pointing users to janky output styles that try, badly, to fake script format.)
Frankly, a lot of this smacks of change for the sake of change, and Ulysses UI is always a moving target.
But I've grown to dread every update, knowing that some feature or interface element I know and use regularly may well disappear or be changed.
Most recently, the toolbar lost the ability to hide itself, replaced with a “focus mode” must be manually enabled and disabled, and that leaves the sidebar obscuring the text I’m trying to view. Now I'm using four-key shortcuts to actively manage things that once just stayed out of my way until I needed them. I'm working a lot harder to use Ulysses and I resent it, especially since I'm renting the software and essentially paying to have it endlessly tinkered with. (And for all this, they STILL don't properly support Fountain, which is a plain-text type of Markdown specifically designed for screenwriting -- instead pointing users to janky output styles that try, badly, to fake script format.)
Frankly, a lot of this smacks of change for the sake of change, and Ulysses UI is always a moving target.
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Dyslexic Revelation
It's great. If you have any kind of processing difficulties or struggle with structuring your work this will really help your enjoyment of writing. I find it impossible to create coursework in a linear stucture and learning how to use this programme has been such a relief. Its so easy to use, Markdown XL is a breese, don't let it put you off. For essays I'd often work on multiple word docs or mindmapping softwares and have to bring them all together later. I'm only sad I've found it just for my last piece of academic writing, it would have made my 9 years in academia so much more enjoyable. I'm excited to use this programme everyday and the app developers are getting a credit in my thesis aknowledgements. I LOVE IT. Try it out. move beyond word and pages, there is so much more writing freedom and focus in a programme like this.
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Response from developer
We would like to thank you for your kind review and for the time you have taken to write it. It is great to hear that you thoroughly enjoy using our app and decided to use it for your final uni work as well. We appreciate it very much! Happy writing! — Kayla
