Drafts 4

TLDR

Drafts 4 is amazing, and you should buy it. If that doesn't convince you, please buckle up and continue reading.

Preface

I assume that you have good taste, and are a current Drafts user. Greg Pierce, the wizard behind Agile Tortoise, was kind enough to get me a prerelease copy of Drafts 4 so I could start reviewing it early. He certainly didn't have to — this site isn't exactly as well-read as MacStories. Thanks, Greg. If you're a crazy person who is not a Drafts user, think of Drafts as a starting place for text. Open Drafts, type, and then do just about anything you can imagine with the text you just wrote.

Sync

Drafts no longer uses the Simperium sync engine, which required a separate login. Instead, it uses iCloud - no logging in required. Your drafts just sync across all your devices without any work from you. So far, this has been seamless. Good sync doesn't need any more said about it.

Actions

Longtime Drafts users will need to get used to the Action button placement. No longer is it just above the keyboard - now it's in the very top right. That's OK - it make more room for the Markdown keyboard. I just have the habit of looking in the old place. Eventually, it will pass. The Action button is now a small Drafts icon.

Moving from Drafts 3 to Drafts 4

Most actions from Drafts 3 shiuld work fine in Drafts 4. Some fancy ones may not, so you'll need to test. To get your actions into Drafts 4, please follow the directions in this article. It works exactly as you would expect, and takes less than a minute.

Action Creation

Wow. Ignore all the other changes of Drafts if you want. The action creation process makes this app. Tap the Action button, and then tap the plus in the top right, then Create Action. Name your action, and give it an icon if you like³. Next, you pick the steps. Never again will you have to create some insane x-callback-url fueled URL scheme abomination. You can make simple one step actions, or crazy 5 step apps with ease.

Tap on "0 Steps" and then the plus in the top right to add your first action. You can select from a ton of options, and it's very user friendly. If you don't see what you're looking for, you can still manually enter a URL scheme at the very bottom. Want to take a Draft and iMessage it, then tweet it, then add it to a reminder, and finally post it to Facebook with ease? Normal humans can actually create that action now. I created an example that you can add to Drafts if you want.

Install this example action. Don't forget to change the Twitter name to your own.

The action creation process wasn't bad before — but it looks ancient now. The new way just makes sense. It's easy and straightforward. I can't give Greg enough credit for nailing this. It is brilliant.

Action Organization

It's relatively straightforward to organize your actions. Tap the Action button. You'll be presented with your actions, organized by tab. You can add a tab by tapping the pencil icon. To move an action, swipe on it from left to right, which reveals the pencil. (Swipe from right to left to reveal the delete button.) Tap the pencil, and then you can edit the action. You can also change the Action Group to anything you like. Tap Done to go back to the Action List.

Moving your actions within the same group is simple, too. Tap and hold the action you want to move, and slide it to where it belongs.

Custom Keys and Javascript

I love the custom key row that sits above the keyboard. It's not just an easy way to access common markdown keys — it's smart. If you select some word and tap the ✪ ** button, Drafts is smart enough to know that you want to wrap that selection in double stars. There's no fiddling with cursor placement. And get this — you can add your own custom keys, including JavaScript actions.¹ This is brilliant, and I'm sure that some very smart people will come up with amazing ideas here.

Settings

To access the main settings, hide the keyboard, and tap the gear that appears in the bottom right. Typography settings are, as you might expect, accessed by the "Aa" icon.

There tons of typefaces to choose from. There is only one reasonable choice — Avenir Next⁵. You can also choose between three color schemes, but I've always preferred black text on a white background. Markdown syntax highlighting is the default, and there is just no reason for me to test the other two. Markdown is the way you should be writing.

The rest of the settings are familiar. You'll want to turn on TextExpander by refreshing the snippets. Then set "Expand shortcuts in actions" to Fenced². Go into Configure Accounts to link Drafts to Dropbox, Evernote, and Google. You can also control iOS permissions from here.

Be sure to enable auto-backup for both your Actions and Keyboard. I would much rather see these settings enabled by default, but since they need Dropbox access, I don't think that's possible.

Widget, Extension, and Web Capture Template

Just like any iOS 8 app worth its salt, Drafts 4 has a Today widget. Once enabled, it allows you to create a new Draft from the clipboard, or blank, from anywhere.

The default settings for the Safari extension are good. However, since I love making everything work just a little bit better, I changed it to look like this:

[[title]]

>[[selection]]

[[url]]

Now, when I select text on a page in Safari and tap Share, then the Drafts icon, I'm already that close to having a link post ready to go. The selection is already set up as Markdown blockquote. Use your imagination here — you can really save yourself some steps down the line.

Using Drafts for more

After a few days with Drafts 4, and for the very first time, I enabled this option in the Drafts settings:

Show inbox count as badge

I am not a fan of iOS badges in general. I immediately disable them for most apps. Drafts is special. It's a temporary holding place for text that ultimately belongs elsewhere. Any Drafts in my inbox haven't made it to their final destination yet, and I need to know about that. The badge helps. If I'm staying on top of things, I won't see the badge very often, anyway.

Pricing

Drafts 4 is a brand new Universal app. It's on launch sale until 10/23/2014, for just $4.99. After that, it goes to regular price at $9.99. It would be a steal at $19.99. You should buy it.

Unrelated Aside

I wrote this article, the longest review I've written to date, on my iPhone, Rhone-style. I did some very minor editing on my iPad Air⁴. In both cases, I used Drafts 4.