Tag Archives: workflows

Using Scrivener + TextMate + WordPress

Posted by on April 30, 2011 2 comments

I’m pretty impressed with the simplicity of using Markdown as a writing format. It’s concise, simple and powerful. However there are a few features about using a workflow like this.

First, why not the browser?

Just exactly right now I wanted to change this into a header and in the browser instead of writing, I’m thinking about clicks and menus and markup to make that happen. Even with a great tool like TextExpander for the Mac it’s a distraction. With Markup it’s a few key strokes. That’s why I use Tiddlywiki as my development notebook instead of WordPress. I can simply write FASTER. I probably should take a stab at putting Tiddlywiki’s parser into a wordpress plugin, but who has time right?

Another problem with the browser is speed. Saving, updating, waiting, sometimes on my host can be slooooowww. With TextMate I can get instant previews. So writing on a native app is quicker and more responsive.

But what could go wrong?

The main problem I have with Scrivener + TextMate + WordPress is that invariably as I move through the pipeline I want to make changes. I discover formatting anomolies. Places were I needed to add an extra return, or a spelling mistake I didn’t catch in Scrivener. Then as I read it, I want to make minor tweaks in the text to polish the prose.

The real issue

Is that these changes are not easily transported backward through the pipeline. That means my long term record needs to be handled in the final target, and the first couple of steps are only about initial production.

I suppose I could just use TextMate, but it does not organize nor archive information the way Scrivener does (it’s real strength). So there you have it.

Pros:

  • Scrivener is powerful for organizing text and references
  • Textmate is responsive and quick with formatting and previews

Cons:

  • Changes in the later stages are not easily converted back through the pipeline.

Workflow Scrivener to TextMate to WordPress

Posted by on April 30, 2011 No comments

Markdown Test

I’m writing this in scrivener to then test converting it with TextMate for posting in wordpress.

The general idea here is to use a very simple markdown language that makes writing simpler and easier to read without having to go through all the problems of html conversion. The other idea is that if you only have the plain text, the document is still extremely readable. They use a new acronym called WYSIWYM – What You See Is What You Mean.

I agree that one problem with HTML is that the source is often very, very difficult to read. The interjection of tags and elements can make a document difficult to decipher. Even Scrivener suffers from the over complication syndrome. Literally they create a span for an apple space. Really?
Is that necessary?

References

Here are a few of the websites I found that lead me to try this workflow.
1. Practically Efficient.
2. Ice To the Brim.

The author of Ice To the Brim also uses a really nice piece of screencasting software called: ScreenFlow by Telestream. Looks really impressive.