Click here to download Nebulous Notes »

With AirPrint support coming to iPads (and iPhones) this week, Apple is sending the message that the iPad means business. More and more, users are finding their iPad as an indispensible tool for getting things done.

Every day I get emails from users of Nebulous Notes talking about all the different ways they use it at work. I've compiled some of the common use-cases below, including two new ones based on the printing:

Make informal hand-outs

You might ask why a plain text editor should go above and beyond on printing. My goal is to provide enough formatting features for basic printing tasks, so that you don't have to copy-and-paste your text into a separate WYSIWYG editor every time. If you want to print informal presentation hand-outs, or you want to print drafts of your novel, you can do it all within Nebulous. One bonus feature is that you can seperately customize the first line of your document with text alignment and larger font-sizes to give a nice title to your print-outs.

Print basic announcements

Nebulous Notes is also handy for printing simple announcements that don't need too much formatting. There is enough formatting functionality with Nebulous that you don't have to leave the app for another editor just to get landscape orientation and larger fonts. With Print Preview, you can also see what you'll be getting without wasting paper.

Take notes in meetings

A user emailed asking for larger font-size choices and nicer sans-serif fonts. Her reasoning is so that it's easy to take notes quickly without having to squint or hunt around in the text. Also, sans-serif fonts look better on screens, further helping to reduce eye-strain.

Collaborate on shared notes in Dropbox

Dropbox is the gold-standard in cloud-sharing services. So if you have a small-startup or your department isn't large enough to have its own file server, Dropbox is the way to go for collaborative editing. The official Dropbox app for the iPhone and iPad don't currently let you edit documents, and so Nebulous is the way to go.

Track items in a logbook

One of the interesting features of Nebulous is its short-cuts. A popular one is the timestamp, which when pressed, prints out the date and time (in a format you can customize). I often get emails from users who use Nebulous for keeping log books or making daily entries.

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Click here to read about the rest of Nebulous's features.

That's it for the latest update. I'm working hard on the next update. If you want to help keep indie developers like myself in business, please spread the word by forwarding this article, rating my app on iTunes, and following me on Twitter.

Click here to download Nebulous Notes »

The main additions in the 4.2 update to Nebulous Notes are printing and Syncing Lite.

I use text editors everyday, for everything from drafting blog posts to editing code, which is why Nebulous Notes has evolved into what I've been calling "Your everyday, everything text editor." It seems like everyday I get an email from someone using the app in different ways, such as displaying guitar tabs to editing web pages.

Below is my design thinking on selected features:

Proper Printing

This will be automatically enabled once Apple releases iOS 4.2

Over the next couple months, many apps will start using the new printing API in iOS 4.2. However, what you're likely to see is just a minimal implementation of printing, and users will have to adjust their expectations from what they're used to on the desktop.

First, I think out-of-the-box printing is useless without a print preview. Especially if you're printing on the iPhone or iPod, it's unlikely your app's view will have a one-to-one representation to what will appear on paper. And so I suggest generating a PDF first before users decide to use paper. Doing this has the added benefit of letting users export a PDF version of their work, which they can then send for printing later in case AirPrint is not available.

The second necessary addition is layout customization, such as page numbers and content formatting. When I imagined how users would actually use printing in Nebulous Notes, I came up with the following kinds of end-products:

• Quick hand-outs
  
• Physical drafts of stories to be edited by hand
  
• Shopping lists
  
• Presentation supplements

And so I gave users some control over basic settings such as line-spacing, font-size, and page orientation. I also added a bonus feature that lets users customize the first line of their document separately so as to provide a nice-looking title or header. Now, I'm not going to pretend people expect Nebulous to produce the same kind of output as a typical word processor, but I want them to at least have some capacity to make their print-outs nice-enough to share.

Syncing Lite

When the flood of Dropbox-enabled apps hit the market, many of them tried to duplicate the same exact syncing methodology that Dropbox provides on the desktop. But you have to change your assumptions for mobile. Whereas desktop users are always connected, mobile users are often disconnected. Even if you are always connected to bandwidth, Apple restricts how much computing you can do in the background. So mobile users may go hours if not days without having an opportunity to fully sync.

In addition, the file-management paradigm is different for mobile. Whereas desktop users are accustomed to editing files in memory without saving until they're ready, mobile users want to keep everything cached in case they switch out of their app or turn off their device. And so you really shouldn't have a "Save" button on mobile, nor should you automatically upload changes that users are in the middle of working on.

These considerations rule out automatic syncing. And many of these Dropbox-enabled apps leave users incensed when revisions don't get synced until days later or their recent changes get overridden by the remote copy. Most of the auto-syncing apps simply crash because of how complicated it is to distinguish between changes the user is currently working on, versus changes the user wants to commit locally, but cannot upload yet, versus changes the user hasn't quite downloaded yet.

On the other hand, users really like the concept of automatic syncing, and I think that's what makes Dropbox popular. Manual syncing requires users to actively manage revision conflicts and make a decision whether to download or upload every time they want to commit. This is especially cumbersome in the limited screen real estate on mobile.

This is why I implemented what I call "Syncing Lite" which is a compromise between total revision control and automatic syncing. Syncing Lite works by creating two views, the remote and local view. This makes it clear to the user what's on their device right now versus what's up in the cloud. In a way, this is like the typical two-pane FTP view. However, in Syncing Lite, the local view is also an auto-save view, thereby representing all your recent edits in "memory."

When the user opens a document, the app checks the cloud to see if there's a newer version of the file, and gives you an opportunity to overwrite your local copy with the remote copy (this is really the only part of the process that I would consider "syncing"). Then, while you're editing, your changes are automatically saved locally. And when you're ready to commit your changes, you can hit the Upload button.

A macro toolbar that feels right

One idea I borrowed from iA's Writer is to have a customizable toolbar above the keyboard that blends in with your stock keyboard. Originally, I had it designed using the UIKit's standard toolbar button, but then the macro bar stuck out like a sore thumb. I wanted to make a macro bar that blended in with the interface. I also designed two different keys, one for the iPad, and another for the iPhone. Unlike the iPad, the iPhone's keyboard keys are designed to thumb out when you tap on them, so that you can confirm that you tapped the right key. I also replicated the satisfying keyboard clicking sounds.

The reason for making a macro bar in the first place is that common characters used in text editing often require going to the second keyboard page (tapping ".?123" and then "#+="). You can customize the macro bar with any string of characters you want. I think programmers will appreciate having handy access to keys like { } and [ ].

The right-kind of tab support for programmers

As a programmer I've come to appreciate the handy conveniences of evolved desktop editors. In particular, I like multi-line tabbing, whereby you can select more than one line and indent all the lines at once. The "tab" character was a frequent request to Nebulous, and rather than simply adding an "insert tab" key, I went one step further, and gave them the multi-line tabbing they're used to. And to boot, I added multi-line untabbing.

Appropriate fixed-width fonts

I received an email months ago saying that the fixed width fonts in iOS aren't uniform enough. I was initially skeptical, and I opened one of my source files with the built-in "Courier New" font and it looked fine. But then I received an email from another user, and he noticed this particularly with guitar tabs. So I downloaded the tabs, and lo and behold, I noticed the same problem. I then Googled "best fixed width fonts" and added a few of them into my app. As you can see above, it works like a charm now.

Word-wrapping toggle (work-in-progress)

Now, I'm not quite a snobby designer yet, where I can only implement features if I can implement them fully. It's okay to implement experimental features, so long as you don't pretend they're complete. You should also give users the ability to work-around and control the features.

Given the tools available in the iOS SDK, there's no easy way to turn off word-wrapping in TextViews. You could make your own TextView, but that would be a lot of work and open up new bugs (compared to Apple's rock solid UITextView). You could also automatically resize the TextView as the user types beyond the width of the window, but with large blocks of text this could create a significant performance dip.

So I went ahead and let users decide where to wrap the editor. They can set it to 64x the screen width for all I care. This is a compromise that I think the power users will appreciate.

A word count system that is fun to use

Creative thinker Roger von Oech sent me a link to this article Welcome to the Decade of Games, along with the question, "Does Nebulous have any game possibilities?"

And the answer is YES! Nearly every product has some kind of game possibilities. And so I transformed what was initially going to be a plain word-counting system, and added goal-setting. Users can set a target word count to achieve, and watch see what % they've completed. I also worked hard to make a sleek-looking status bar. Being a former video game designer myself, I am keen on how important it is to have satisfying feedback mechanisms

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That's it for the latest update. I'm working hard on the next update. If you want to help keep indie developers like myself in business, please spread the word by forwarding this article, rating my app on iTunes, and following me on Twitter.

Click here to download Nebulous Notes »

So I was initially bummed when I saw Daring Fireball mention a competing iOS text editor with Dropbox syncing. But then I was inspired to make my app better. What I saw in that competitor was an app that was desigend to be "loved." I've since been working to make my app measure up to what I see as being Apple's standards for quality apps. This is a work-in-progress (does it ever end really?), but this latest update shows I've made significant progress.

Here are the additions:

A macro toolbar that feels right

One idea I borrowed from iA's Writer is to have a customizable toolbar above the keyboard that blends in with your stock keyboard. Originally, I had it designed using the UIKit's standard toolbar button, but then the macro bar stuck out like a sore thumb. I wanted to make a macro bar that blended in with the interface. I also designed two different keys, one for the iPad, and another for the iPhone. Unlike the iPad, the iPhone's keyboard keys are designed to thumb out when you tap on them, so that you can confirm that you tapped the right key. I also replicated the satisfying keyboard clicking sounds.

The reason for making a macro bar in the first place is that common characters used in text editing often require going to the second keyboard page (tapping ".?123" and then "#+="). You can customize the macro bar with any string of characters you want. I think programmers will appreciate having handy access to keys like { } and [ ].

The right-kind of tab support for programmers

As a programmer I've come to appreciate the handy conveniences of evolved desktop editors. In particular, I like multi-line tabbing, whereby you can select more than one line and indent all the lines at once. The "tab" character was a frequent request to Nebulous, and rather than simply adding an "insert tab" key, I went one step further, and gave them the multi-line tabbing they're used to. And to boot, I added multi-line untabbing.

Appropriate fixed-width fonts

I received an email months ago saying that the fixed width fonts in iOS aren't uniform enough. I was initially skeptical, and I opened one of my source files with the built-in "Courier New" font and it looked fine. But then I received an email from another user, and he noticed this particularly with guitar tabs. So I downloaded the tabs, and lo and behold, I noticed the same problem. I then Googled "best fixed width fonts" and added a few of them into my app. As you can see above, it works like a charm now.

Word-wrapping toggle (work-in-progress)

Now, I'm not quite a snobby designer yet, where I can only implement features if I can implement them fully. It's okay to implement experimental features, so long as you don't pretend they're complete. You should also give users the ability to work-around and control the features.

Given the tools available in the iOS SDK, there's no easy way to turn off word-wrapping in TextViews. You could make your own TextView, but that would be a lot of work and open up new bugs (compared to Apple's rock solid UITextView). You could also automatically resize the TextView as the user types beyond the width of the window, but with large blocks of text this could create a significant performance dip.

So I went ahead and let users decide where to wrap the editor. They can set it to 64x the screen width for all I care. This is a compromise that I think the power users will appreciate.

A word count system that is fun to use

Creative thinker Roger von Oech sent me a link to this article Welcome to the Decade of Games, along with the question, "Does Nebulous have any game possibilities?"

And the answer is YES! Nearly every product has some kind of game possibilities. And so I transformed what was initially going to be a plain word-counting system, and added goal-setting. Users can set a target word count to achieve, and watch see what % they've completed. I also worked hard to make a sleek-looking status bar. Being a former video game designer myself, I am keen on how important it is to have satisfying feedback mechanisms

--

That's it for the latest update. I'm working hard on the next update. If you want to help keep indie developers like myself in business, please spread the word by forwarding this article, rating my app on iTunes, and following me on Twitter.

Today I'm announcing the release of Nebulous Controller 2.1, the very very simple Dropbox file system for your iOS apps. Here are the broad strokes of what it provides:

1. A file manager for users to log into Dropbox and open a file
2. A simple programmatic interface to upload files

After init'ing it, all you have to do is run the following:

[self.navigationController pushViewController:[NebulousController shared]];

Here's the interface:

- (id) initWithConsumerKey: (NSString *) key consumerSecret: (NSString *) secret; - (void) hide; - (void) setHandler:(id<NebulousFileHandler>) handler forType:(NSString *) mimePrefix; - (void) setEnableNewPath:(BOOL) enableNewPath; - (void) setNewFileTypeLabel:(NSString *) newFileTypeLabel; - (void) setUploadDelegate:(id<NebulousFileUploadDelegate>) uploadDelegate; - (void) uploadFile:(NSString *) localPath toCloudPath:(NSString *) cloudPath; - (void) setToSaveAs:(NSString *) presetFileName fromLocalPath:(NSString *) localPath; - (void) setSaveAsDelegate:(id<NebulousSaveAsDelegate>) saveAsDelegate; - (void) clearSaveAs;

This is currently in use with Nebulous Notes, which has become a fairly popular text editor for Dropbox. Since releasing it two months ago, I've had the opportunity to really polish the Controller, and I can't remember the last time I saw the Controller itself crash.

Check out Nebulous Controller now »

iPad screenshots

iPhone screenshots

I've been using Nebulous 2.0 for a week now, and I've noticed two things:

1. I no longer use the built-in Notes app
2. I no longer use Google Docs

The latest change allows you to open multiple docs and automatically keep local backups. This is great if you have a set of persistent notes, like in your built-in Notes app. For example, I always have a shopping list and a list for my business ideas. With Nebulous, I can now keep these files synced to the cloud, so I can edit and copy them on my computer.

I also added TextExpander support, which has been one of the most commonly requested features. This allows you to type little abbreviations, like "sig" which then automatically gets replaced (along a satisfying pop sound) with your email signature.

Another feature is the ability to insert a tab character in your document. The built-in iOS keyboard unfortunately has no tab key, so programmers rejoice!

See for yourself:

Click here to download Nebulous Notes 2.0 Now! »

iPad screenshots

iPhone screenshots

I've also tried the other Dropbox text editors, and they just don't quite have the right feature matrix to be what Nebulous Notes is:

And if you think it's missing anything, add a comment or send me an email, I've been good with following-up with customer feature requests (without bloating the app).

Click here to check out the app in iTunes!

Thank you to everybody who wrote in, it helped me prioritized what features to add first. In return, if you like the update, could you please rate the app, submit a review, and/or and tell your friends about this. Thanks! - Phil

MAJOR UPDATES:
- Auto-saves your documents now
- New files with international characters can be saved now
- Landscape enabled for both iPhone and iPad
- Full-screen mode
- A Hide Keyboard Button

MINOR UPDATES:
- Added Marker Felt and Times New Roman Fonts
- Added a "Reset Customizations" button
- Added links to my other apps
- Added a smaller font choice
- The Dropbox Btn is automatically hit upon load (if you don't have an auto-save)
- The App can now be installed on 3.1 devices
- Polished the way directories listings look
- Polished the way the menu looks
- Made the scrollbar change color depending on screen brightness

Right now, there's only TWO Dropbox text editors on the App Store, DropText and Nebulous Notes. I wish my app came out before DropText, but instead of rushing it out, I stocked it with crucial features. Here's a comparison:

Apple just approved my latest creation, Nebulous Notes, which does one thing, and one thing really well: edit text files in the cloud. If you're like me, you are constantly editing text files, and based on my survey of all the available tools out there, Dropbox is the smartest way to backup your files and access them anywhere.

Nebulous Notes lets you edit your text files that are stored on your Dropbox. Here are some screenshots, see for yourself:

Reviews have already started to trickle in! Here's what AppAdvice.com had to say: "This is quite possibly the best tool for any writer, blogger, or journalist that needs to get work done on-the-go, and also live by Dropbox, which is one of the easiest ways to manage files in the cloud."

Click here to learn more about Nebulous Notes

If you're a developer, I've also open-sourced the file management interface, which shouldn't take no more than an hour to integrate into your iOS apps. For example, if you have an app that lets you record memos or organize photos, rather than forcing users to FTP their files off their iPhone, or have to email the files to themselves, or sync to their iTunes, you can just let them save to their Dropbox accounts. To find out more, check out Nebulous Controller.