nvALT functionality
Completed
Hey — congrats on the app. Looking quite deep functionally already!
Just thought I'd alert to you to a possible issue, which is that due to the app's name, and Brett's involvement, there's a strong implication of this app being an almost "official" nvALT successor, which means people may come to this with preconceptions as to its abilities, which you may have no intention of implementing. I certainly did, as I use(d) nvALT to edit my vast library of RTF notes, not ever for Markdown (for which I have no interest). So my preconception lead to disappointment, rather than a celebration of what the new app is. Then again, I wouldn't have even signed onto the beta if I knew it wouldn't allow RTF editing.
Sorry for the slightly negative post. I guess I'm suggesting somehow making it very clear upfront on the website what this does and doesn't do in comparison to nvALT — I think the comparison will be inevitable anyway, and nvALT is a fairly polarising tool, the long-term users of which, like me, probably have strong feelings. nvALT was a surprisingly deep app despite appearances, so be careful implying you've covered its bases.
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Official comment
(Comments are mine, but based on discussions with Brett. Depending on our schedules, sometimes one or the other has more immediate availability in responding, and we want to keep things moving.)
RTF may or may not have been an intentional part of Notational Velocity, but I belive that it was more of an accidental part of nvAlt. One thing that Brett and I share in common is a belief in the power, flexibility, and "future-proofing" of plain text file formats. We also share a common belief that the RTF file format is an unfortunate left-over piece of history. (To be clear, I am not disparaging those who use it (or who are forced to use it), but rather I lament the absence of a better format since RTF is rather antiquated.) My understanding is that Brett's vision with nvAlt was more centered around the plain text functionality, but that there was no reason to actively remove the RTF functionality.
We both understand that some users may have found nvAlt useful for RTF files, and welcome them to continue to use it for that. But we both believe that the future of applications like this reside in plain text formats instead of RTF, and want nvUltra to be amongst the best tools for doing so. nvUltra works perfectly well with "regular" plain text, but works even better when writing using the conventions of Markdown. (If you don't need Markdown, simply leave the preview turned off. Heck, I leave the preview off 95% of the time and I do everything in MMD.)
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I have to concur with a lot of this. My first disappointment on opening nvUltra is to find that there is no RTF, and that it is Markdown only. This immediately rules it out for me. I'm sorry, but I've tried Markdown and I'm not really interested in it. Nice idea, but I want WYSIWYG. I'm likely to continue using nvALT till it breaks (which may not be long, I suspect), at which point I don't know what I will do. But as it stands, nvUltra is not for me. Sorry to be negative, but it just doesn't do what I need. But best of luck with it.
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I am glad that nvUltra doesn't do rich text. I have no need for it. But if you are interested in an application which is similar to nvALT, and deals with rich text, you might want to look at FSNotes. It is available at https://fsnot.es
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No worries. RTF is a suitable format for some users, and if so, by all means keep using it. And you're correct, until nvAlt stops working, it's still a viable solution. And since nvAlt is open source, someone may be able to keep it running for quite some time into the future.
For many users, however, RTF is an unacceptable document format. And many of those users see a real benefit to plain text and lightweight markup languages like Markdown/MultiMarkdown. And that is where we believe nvUltra has something to offer.
It's not absolutely impossible that nvUltra could support editing RTF files at some point, but RTF would always be a second-class citizen, which makes it unlikely to have the functionality that users would want, or the smooth integration we would want to provide. And neither Brett nor myself want to lead you on by promising something we're not sure we will deliver.
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> And neither Brett nor myself want to lead you on by promising something we're not sure we will deliver.
I think that highlights the essence of my point. I feel you inadvertently *have* promised something you aren't likely to deliver. Not due to some nefarious purpose I'm sure! :) But there nonetheless.
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I'm not sure I would put it quite like that, but from my first glance at nvUltra, it looks as if it owes rather more to MultiMarkdown Composer than it does to nvALT, so I'm not really sure it has got the right name. It is fine for people who want an extended MMC, but I don't. I want a minimal application that captures notes really fast (and finds them fast) -- nothing more. The extra functionality that seems to be built into nvUltra is, I'm sorry to say, just stuff that gets in my way. It doesn't have any extra value for me because all of the real work for me gets done in DEVONthink, Tinderbox, and Scrivener. nvALT was a wonderful adjunct to those programs because it could sit in the background all the time, never be obtrusive, yet pop up instantly when I needed it for something. So I'm sorry to say that nvUltra doesn't fit in with my workflow. In an odd way, it actually provides too much. But I wish you all the best with it.
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