Darkroom: A Text Editor That Helped Me to Write Better Content
I’m busy with some other projects now and instead of leaving the blog alone for several days, I thought I’ll do a quick post on a helpful tool that I’ve been using for more than a year.
It’s called Dark Room and its a minimalist fullscreen word processor which forces you to focus on the writing process and nothing else.
This free Windows/.Net application transforms your entire computer screen into a dark background and removes all the usual word processor toolbars and quick buttons. The only thing you’ll see is the words. I feel that it really improves my ability to concentrate on the blog post or school essay I’m writing.
Darkroom is quite primitive because of the lack of features and in my opinion, that’s one of the reasons for its charm. You can tweak Microsoft Word and other standard processors to get the same look but I’ll rather use a simple application like this and keep the default look/feel of Word for other editorial purposes. Here’s a screen shot:
Some people have criticized it because of its poor functionality but personally, I think its terrific for that one essay or one blog post you want to crank out. You don’t want to use this to write a book. You use this to situate the 15 to 60 minutes of time you have in an environment that is more conducive for contemplation/writing.
DarkRoom is inspired by WriteRoom, a similar word processor for Apple’s OS X. There’s also a Java version of DarkRoom if you don’t want use Microsoft’s .Net framework. It works in the same way and has roughly the same features.
Try it today and let me know what you think in the comments!
For more content development tips, subscribe to Dosh Dosh.
I’ve been using WriteRoom for a while now. It helped me finish NaNoWriMo and makes me look slick as hell at coffee shops. ;o)
This is fantastic!
Reminds me of DOS (gotta love that) – no fuss. Now, all I need is something to block out the sounds that keep filtering in from Halo, Club Penguin, news…
The colors look nice and soft on the eyes so that may help in concentration.
It’s interesting that you like a minimal screen when writing, I’ve found I like several windows open.
Well I use Windows Live Writer to write posts, but I might want to give this a try.
The thing is if I use DarkRoom, I need to finish the entire writing work and do other jobs like adding links, pics only when I complete which I’m not used to hehe
But I’ll surely try this tool. Thanks Maki.
I’ve got something like this too: an old mechanical typewriter. The tapping is a good motivator, I find. Shut my computer off entirely and I can just concentrate on writing. Thanks for sharing this neat little app.
That’s an interesting approach. However I find that using Metapad – a supercharged version of Notepad – works great for me. You’re working with text but there’s minimal extra features. For example, you can have clickable URLs that makes it easy to interact with your browser. I guess such a comment is off-topic but I just felt I had to say it.
This is pretty cool. It could be a useful tool for me if I don’t get too distracted before I open the program. I wish it had a spell check feature but I suppose I could check my spelling once I have copy and pasted it into Wordpress. Anyway, thanks for the link.
I’m with Barry – I draft nearly all of my blog posts in Notepad++. It color-codes my HTML codes and has a couple of editing features that give it an edge over regular Notepad, but it’s still a very spartan editing interface.
Having cut my teeth in the DOS days and used word processors that looked very much like DarkRoom, I’m not sure I’m ready to regress all the way back there just yet. The green on black color scheme is a bit extreme for my eyes…
I can’t thank you enough. I’ve been looking for something like this for ages.
Now I only wish I could have a real dark room that blocked out the real distractions.
I tried Darkroom a while ago but quickly tossed it because it had no apparent support for accentuated characters. So I’m using SciTE in fullscreen and now I feel better. There’s also Q10 if you want a customizable fullscreen text editor.
You might want to look at VI. It is a text editor, not a word processor, but it might be just what you need.
Wow. I’m not even sure if I could write in that way. Just imagining it feels a little surreal, like those sci-fi movies where the world blows up and you have to survive with a fork and some sneakers. Or like those movies of the obsessed crazy people tapping away at laptops in the dark of a locked room.
Almost scary not to have the crutches of what we’re used to.
I use to write my posts in Notepad. It’s simple and I can stay concentrated on the content for hours! Though, I will try today the “Dark Room” because it looks very attractive to me. Thanks!
Nice fot a change it does keep you more focused on the writing
I’ve been using WriteRoom for a few months now: it’s great!
I really love the “room” metaphor — the idea of locking yourself away to write might sound weird, but there’s nothing quite like it to help you focus.
Also, http://writer.bighugelabs.com/ is a great version of this as well.
It will save your work and you can access it from anywhere in the world. Not to mention it’s platform independent since it’s in your web browser.
Hmmm…that’s an interesting idea. By taking away all of the distractions you’re able to focus solely on the task at hand.
I usually do my writing in notepad, but I do find myself flipping through various screens whenever I hit a stumbling block. That certainly slows down the writing process a bit but sometimes I find it helpful to step away for a few minutes and then come back refreshed.
Thanks for this, I have been looking for a word processor like this for a while.
A couple more you guys could try out:
Q10 http://www.baara.com/q10/
The most complete fullscreen text editor I’ve found. You can customize pretty much everything and define how you want your pages counted (great for students). It comes in portable app form too so you can take it with you on your USB drive.
Writer: http://writer.bighugelabs.com/
This one, while slightly less customizable, is a web based app that saves your work automatically on your home computer. It’s accessible via password from anywhere on any computer. (Unlike Q10, which is Windows only).
Hope these help!
Very cool, thanks for sharing this as I’m experimenting with various programs to help me with jogging my writing, proofing, etc. Lol at James Chartrand’s comment, got the same feeling. Many of the comments provide good suggestions, too.
I’ve been using Notepad and TextPad (This one is amazing) for years.. I don’t see how using a text editor with a dark background could stimulate the creativity process….
I like to do my writing in Google Docs for similar reasons — very minimalistic but I can get to it from anywhere. I wish it had better outlining tools, since I like to make big outlines when I’m in the preliminary stages of writing.
Hmmm, maybe I should find a better online outliner or try out one of those GTD mindmapper thingies. Any suggestions, anyone?
The new version of wordpress 2.5 allows you to full screen type articles for your blog. According to Matt one of the most innovating new features of wordpress.
Back in the good old DOS days I used a fantastic wordprocessor that was a total of 20K. Before PCs I equipped my people with a little box that was nothing more than memory and a floppy disc drive. mWe typed Medical Records from dictation tapes by the milklions. I hape to think what Microsoft Word is today. Over 500 Meg.
You have a terrific Blog.
Ira
Well, very nice article.
I rather prefer to use Notepad ++ for that purpose.
I will try this software too.
I love it. I use it for projects which don’t require a lot of links or fonts…so not for most blog posts unless it’s something really thought-provoking that I’m going to kick around for a few weeks. It has an astounding way of making me forget about all the little distractions like checking my e-mail.
It’s a great piece of software. I use to write posts that don’t require a lot of research. And I definitely notice the difference in the results. I did check out Q10 from Xander’s comment. Really good. Timed writing and a lot of other features with the same black screen.
@ Jay
I agree.. I use Darkroom in class sometimes and it definitely makes an impression on the people i’m sitting next to
@ Lid
Turn everything off and focus on the screen… the words will flow!
@ Michael
I will never get anything done with several windows open…. too much mental diversion for me..
@ Shankar
Windows Live Writer is fantastic… I use it sometimes too… Dark Room is good for those posts you don’t need to use a lot of hyperlinks or pics, I guess. Or you can always add them later.
@ Dan, monawea, Mohsin, Money and Success
You’re welcome!
@ Barry
I’ll check out Metapad
@ Rob O.
You can change the color for the font in Darkroom but if Notepad++ works for you… stick with it!
@ HED, Xander Becket, Ellis
Yeah Q10 actually looks pretty damn good. I like the page and word count feature. I think I’ll try using it from now. Big huge labs is pretty cool but I prefer to have it local….if I’m traveling I’ll probably use Q10 or Google Docs. Thanks for sharing them though!
@ Geeks are Sexy
You have to try it yourself to see if it works for creativity or not. I can’t really explain how it works. ^_^
@ phil.gs
Scrivener for Mac works pretty good from what I’ve heard. I’m sure there are other useful tools out there for Windows as well but nothing comes to mind now..
@ Sander
Yeah I saw the Wordpress 2.5 screencast… that will be an awesome feature indeed!
@ Ira
Yeah word processors have certainly changed a lot since then.
@ Mrs. Micah and Stephan
Yeah I think this software is great for posts that don’t require a lot of research. It’s excellent for introspective writing. And yeah, Q10 looks great!
@ Everyone else
Thanks for the comments!
Writeroom is worth the money, but for those unwilling to buy it, you can run the free text editor Smultron in full screen mode for a similar effect.
For those who have Macs, there’s a wonderful piece of software called Scrivener.
http://literatureandlatte.com
It’s an outliner, a non linear word processor, and has a full-screen, no distractions mode.
It’s the most incredible piece of software I’ve ever used, and it’s helped a great deal in writing those great articles this blog encourages.
And rightly so.
in a differet way Windows Live Writer has helped me improve my blogging> Windows Live Writer is a free software that lets you write your blogs offline.
But the real magic is in formating, inseting pictures and with cool widgets in the sidebar i can add things like flickr photos, and amazon books without leaving live writer.
awesome!
Very interesting, although I’m not sure I could get used to something totally different. Going to give this a shot
Hi Maki,
This is a great tool that helped improve my productivity. I was just mentioning it in my last post!
As I said to one of my commentators, Darkroom is like a piano to a synthesizer, the synthesizer is very cool, but the masterpieces are written on a piano.
Cheers,
Alex
Too bad it requires .NET Framework 2.0. I hate .Net
Great tool, it really force you to keep the concentration on your writing. By the way, wordpress 2.5 have a similar feature.
I gave it a try…looks good..it also gives a poetic imagination when we write
It does require .NET 2.0 framework? Kind of a bummer. I probably installed that some time ago. But anyways, I’m giving this a try. Looks just like from the days programming Java in a shell window. Sometimes the Wordpress WYSIWYG feels too cramped and this could be a nice breather from that.
Thats a really good idea. I always get distracted when I go to write something on my blog. I think I will try this out. Thanks.
its not working on my pc
reg
rushitshah.com
This could be an interesting project to take to ps3. Anyone interested?
Long time reader, first time commentor.
I have to thank you for this. I update my site 3 times a week (nice big articles) and I always get distracted by various things (msn, emails etc..) and miss deadlines. I NEEDED this application. I ended up donating $10 to the program creator as a thank you to him.
I’m going to try this, it looks so simple and nice. Thank you. :]
I agree that full screen ext editors are great for helping you write.
I’ve been using Q10 for a few weeks now and it really is the business.
I love the retro typewriter sound on key strokes. It sounds like it would be annoying, but I find it actually helps me to write.
Q10 http://www.baara.com/q10/
you won’t believe this is a great help for me.
Q10 is great.
Especially the portable version wins my heart.
::emp::
given my general wayward mind.. this might exactly be the thing i’m looking for to get more foccus.. a genuine thanks Maki
Thanks for the WhiteRoom link, as I was reading the post I was thinkin, wish they had that for mac, and there it is!
Very timely post!
I was just now wondering what this darkroom zip file was on my hard drive before reading my RSS feeds. I guess I’ll open it up and get to blogging.
Thanks,
Dan
I’ll do my posts in Dark Room first then worry about formatting in Windows Live Writer.
I find if I can play with Spellchecking, Linking, Formatting or other stuff as I’m writing it tends to slow down my writing process.
Man, wouldn’t it be kinda cool if there were a sound effect option? Like with computers in the movies back in the 80’s. When you type you hear sounds.
I Love the simplicity of Dark Room, Its what I have been looking for without even knowing it. This is going to help me immensely, find I’m constantly distracted when using word, something always messes up my concentration.
Thanks for the post! I have used Dark Room in the past, and do like it myself.
This is an awesome tool to focus on your writing. Kinda brings me back to the old monochrome Apple days, thanks Maki
I use Edit Pad, but customize it to look like Darkroom. I love the black and green approach.
There is a nice on-line version as well: http://darkcopy.com/
This is awesome. Thanks a lot.
This is nice version still i did not get enough options to make me use of it
Wow. I will have to download this for myself. It may make blogging less distracting. Thanks so much for sharing this!
It does look cool and I like the idea behind it. But is it good for the eyes? I guess I will check it out for myself. Thanks for sharing
Sounds interesting for new players like myself. I was scratching my head try to find what kind of tools are available out there. I guess i will give a try and see if i like it or not. Thanks for this info especially for new players in the game.
LOL! You’ve obviously come up age within the past decade! Back when I wrote my book (1989) all we had were fullscreen, text-only *word processors*. Kids these days… ‘-)