One Mac Writing

I’m more than forty thousand words into my current novel, and nearly 90% of those words have been written on my iBook. So, how are things going?

First, the good: The combination of MultiMarkdown and Textmate has been an absolute godsend from a productivity standpoint. I tried both NeoOffice and AbiWord on the new system, but my text-based workflow runs circles around both of them, both from a productivity and a distraction management standpoint.

One thing that’s aided in this regard has been the installation of SIMBL and MegaZoomer, both by Ian Henderson. To make a long story short, once these two handy little (free) utilities are installed, you can press a keystroke or pick a menu item to “zoom” Textmate to full-screen, hiding the menu bar, dock, and just about everything else. Since WriteRoom version 2 doesn’t run on OS X 10.3, and since Hogs Bay seems to have pulled the older version from their Web site, this combination is a reasonable facsimile.

Now, the bad. Well, not bad, really. Just fiddly. It turned out that my vision for converting Markdown to something printable wasn’t as easy as I’d have liked. Pandoc doesn’t run on OS X 10.3, which means I had to pull the files over to my Windows machine to print them. Less than ideal, especially when I’m sharing my chapters with my technical advisor on a fairly regular basis.

The MultiMarkdown to Word (via ODT) conversion via Pandoc will still be fine if I ever have to end up with an editable Word file (for example, if an editor wants to work using Track Changes.) But most of the time, I just want to print a full or partial formatted manuscript, or e-mail one. So, with the help of the MultiMarkdown XSLT stylesheets, a little bit of Perl hackery, and XeLaTeX, I’ve hacked up a one-command conversion from my individual MultiMarkdown files to a PDF in the proper manuscript format.

I’ll document the process in more detail later, but basically, I have a single shell script (which I’ve named mmpdf) that deos the following:

• Combines all of my individual .markdown files into a single file, prepending a pre-defined header with author name/title/etc.
• Converts the combined Markdown file into XHTML using MultiMarkdown
• Converts the XHTML file into LaTeX using xsltproc and the XSLT files that come with MultiMarkdown
• Applies a number of “fixups” to the LaTeX file, including things like resetting the chapter numbering so my “front matter” chapters (dedication, acknowledgements, etc.) get numbered correctly, changing the document font to Dark Courier, and adding a word count to the title page. (I could probably hack up the XSLT files to do these things, but I know Perl a whole lot better than XSLT).
• Converts the resulting LaTeX file to PDF with XeLaTeX.

Perhaps not the cleanest process, but it works. The conversion isn’t fast, but it’s a whole lot faster than walking into the other room, synching the files over to my Windows machine, converting them to ODT, and reformatting them into manuscript format each time I want to print.

I know I’ve been scarce of late, but that’s a good thing. Really. The new Mac is working so well for me that I’ve been off doing paying work, which is always a plus.

We’ll get back to a more regular routine here, though. Don’t worry. In the meantime, here are a few random observations from the first 20 days:

For a laptop, the iBook has a really decent keyboard. Even though I had to use a bit of double-stick tape to fix a broken keyboard latch, I really, really like the way the keyboard feels. I did plug in an external keyboard and mouse on one occasion, but that was only because I had to produce a lot of text in a very short time, and wanted to save wear and tear.

Plain text was definitely the right decision, notwithstanding the fact that OS X 10.3 cannot run Pandoc (because there’s no build of the right version of Haskell) and does not have the whizzy texttool command-line utility from 10.4. With the aid of Git and a little bit of shell scripting hackery, I can get my work over to the PC and formatted in no time flat. Upgrading the iBook to 10.4 or getting newer hardware would solve that problem, so I’m not too worried for the moment.

Quicksilver has been a great timesaver for me. (Make sure, if you’re on OS X 10.3.9, that you use the older version.) If you’re not already running this, you should be.

I’ve fully migrated my to-do lists and stuff to todo.txt on both platforms. What a blessing – task lists that work, that can be quickly edited and searched, without reliance on any proprietary or single platform apps.

If you’re going to a text-based workflow like I’ve done, here are my votes for text editing applications:

• Windows: e text editor
• Mac: Textmate, no contest
• Unix/Linux: I still like emacs, though I’ve heard rumors that [e][] can be run under Wine.

Stay tuned for more.

In yesterday’s post, I talked about the process of getting my new Mac up and running with Wi-Fi, and getting ready to install the software. Today, I’ll talk about the software I’ve installed on my new machine.

In keeping with my earlier decision to go “lean and mean” with the new iBook, both out of a desire to minimize distractions and out of recognition that my new iBook isn’t exactly a speed demon, I’ve made software choices that reflect my desire for a lightweight, distraction-free writing environment. Here, then, is what I’ve put on my system so far.

MacPorts and Related Stuff

Because I’m a command-line gal at heart, the first thing I installed on my system was MacPorts. This also necessitated loading XCode 1.5. With MacPorts installed, I was able to load Git, an updated version of Ruby, and some of my other essential tools.

TextMate

I looked at TextWrangler, but the dizzying menu tree proved more than I could handle. TextMate was the obvious choice, especially since I already own its Windows analog, e-texteditor. TextMate is everything I love in a software package: functional, powerful and customizable, with an interface that stays out of your way. And, given my earlier decision to write in Markdown, TextMate will be my go-to application for 99% of my work on the new system.

A note for fellow Panther users: Although the Macromates site claims TextMate requires OS X 10.4 (Tiger) or later, the current version as of this writing, 1.5.7, runs fine on Panther. I’ve had to adjust a few of the bundle items to use the MacPorts Ruby in /opt/local/bin, rather than the (broken) Apple-shipped version in /usr/bin, but that hasn’t been a big deal.

OmniOutliner

I installed the 30-day trial of this one, but I’m not sure I’ll keep it. I like the program well enough, but since I’m still partially beholden to the Gods of Redmond, I’m not sure I want to lock any vital data into an application that’s not cross-platform. Still, OmniOutliner looks like a lovely application.

Notational Velocity

Another one I’m playing with, but which I’m not sure I’ll keep. It’s a neat program, with a snazzy UI, but I’m not sure how much I’ll actually use it in the real world. We’ll see.

Adium and Colloquy

OK, so I like my IM and IRC chat. Not strictly writing applications, but Adium and Colloquy seem like the best choices for these two applications. Plus, they’re both free.

So, what didn’t work the way I expected? So far, the only problem I’ve run into is that Pandoc requires a newer version of Haskell than is available for Panther. In the short term, this isn’t a big deal, because I can do the Markdown conversion and processing on my Windows system. Eventually, though, I’ll want to get a more powerful Mac that can run Tiger or Leopard, so that this issue will go away.

That’s my software load-out in a nutshell. From here on out, we’ll move into more writing-specific stuff, my experiences as a Mac-toting working writer, and the writerly life in general.

Oh, and if anyone out there is a writer and uses DEVONthink in your writing, please drop me a note. I’m trying to figure out what the big deal is with DEVONthink and whether It’s worth the $79.99.

This is the first of two posts about getting up and running with my new (to me) iBook. In today’s entry, I’ll talk about the hardware aspects of getting the new machine set up. The second, to be posted tomorrow, will focus on my software choices.

As you know from my previous entry, I actually received my AirPort wireless card on Thursday. The iBook itself, a 500MHz G3, arrived in Friday’s mail, in an otherwise unassuming priority mail box. Considering the machine’s vintage, it’s in remarkably good shape, with fairly few scratches and scuffs. The AC adapter included with the system was an after-market variety, but that’s what was advertised, so I didn’t expect anything different.

Once I got the system unpacked, the first order of business was getting the AirPort card installed and making sure everything worked. Here, I have to say, Apple did an exemplary job: Installing the wireless card, which fits into a slot under the keyboard, is dead simple. As an added bonus, the card can be installed without tools. It took me less than two minutes to get the card installed, antenna hooked up, and the keyboard re-attached.

I quickly found a plug and powered it up. The cheery Apple startup chord sounded a few seconds later, and my iBook was awake and chugging along. I also made a welcome discovery: Though the eBay auction had claimed the system had 256MB of RAM, apparently that was in addition to the 64MB on the system board, so my iMac actually has a total of 320MB of RAM. Not much in today’s world, but it’ll do for my purposes.

Once I finished verifying that the hardware worked, it was time to load software.

Since that’ll be the subject of tomorrow’s post, I wanted to leave off today with a few observations about the hardware. Overall, the build quality of the iBook is quite good, especially for what was (even at the time) a relatively low-end offering in Apple’s lineup. The screen hinge is aluminum and looks quite solid, there’s very little flex anywhere in the case, and the feel of the system is quite solid and robust.

In fact, I only have on e niggly little complaint about the hardware: The keyboard is quite thin, and because it looks like there’s a latch missing on the top center edge next to the F5 key, the keyboard tends to flex in the middle a bit while typing. That’s not a huge issue, and I suspect a short strip of double-sided foam tape would fix the problem quite nicely. In the alternative, I suppose a replacement keyboard (about $25 on eBay) would solve the problem, but it’s not a $25 annoyance.

Tune in tomorrow to learn about my software load and the software choices I made.

Don’t you just love it when the accessories you ordered arrive before the thing they’re meant to accessorize?

My AirPort card arrived today, after a slight mixup with UPS about delivery addresses. My iBook won’t arrive until (I hope) tomorrow, I don’t have any way to test it. But it looks to be in good shape cosmetically, at least. With any luck, I’ll be able to make my next post here from my new system. If that’s the case, I’ll be able to chronicle the setup and configuration process.

One other tidbit of news: I found out that a friend of mine has an iBook of similar vintage to the one I’m buying. This is good news, because it means I have a source from whom I can borrow the OS X 10.3 installation CDs if something ever happens to my laptop and I need to re-install them.

Now if only the laptop itself would actually get here! Sadly for me, I’m not any good at all at the waiting game.