(no subject)

I came across this post and gave Focus Writer a try. I've only been using it for half an hour or so, but I gotta say, it's pretty nifty. Like Zen Writer, it covers the whole screen to try and minimize distraction. However, it fixes a lot of the usability ZW has and is much, much better for editing.

The screen was clearer, and the lack of music didn't bother me, as I tend to use 8tracks anyways and don't bother with the music. I've yet to run into the bugs/crashing that I had with ZW, and there's many more fun functions.

It's also very hard to minimize (and I don't intend to teach myself how to minimize it without resorting to control panel, because if it's hard to do, I only tend to stop writing when I absolutely have to do something) It also keeps word count goals, has a timer and a clock built in.

Best of all, it's free. Here's hoping that it's better than Libre Office, which just loves to eat anything with links, and corrupt large files so I have to spend ages piecing together what I can of the work I did.

I'm also trying out PomodoroFox for blocking apps. Usually I use Focal Filter, but I'm trying this one for say, shorter blocking periods as opposed to "Okay, shut down that crap for 8 hours and get your ass to work!"

PomodoroFox and FocusWriter take 2

I already commented a bit here, but for a bit more expanded review after using them extensively today, I have to give pretty high marks. Pomodorofox is especially good when my ADHD-ness is acting up and I can't focus, but I need to force myself. Because the timer is right there in ways other blockers aren't, I can look up, see I only have to work for 15 more minutes before I can take a break, and then push through it.

FocusWriter has yet to show a dark side at all. I've figured out how to minimize (it's CTRL+M) and the goal system will make NaNoWrimo soo much easier. I just wish I could figure out a way to make it actually show my word count. I could reset it after every 1k or so I know when to add it all up, or mentally calculate percentages, but it'd be so much easier if I could just figure out a way for it to say "you wrote 2k today" without me having to hunt that number down.

But so far, that's the only complaint I have for otherwise incredible software.

As for some other notes:

7 Free Productivity Tools for the Content Creator.