Not Without Annoyancesĭesk is well designed and easy to use, but it does have a few quirks. You can also set any of your blogs for use with the Quick Publish feature, which lets you publish a post to your blog with only a couple clicks.ĭesk can publish directly to WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Typepad, Moveable Type, and Squarespace sites it also supports posting to Facebook. Unfortunately, I didn’t have a chance to try all of the publishing options, so I can’t say how well it works for all the supported platforms. Once you have everything set up, though, the Share feature is painless to use–click the Share button, select the blog you want to publish to from the list, apply any tags or metadata to your post if applicable, then click the Publish button. Connect your blog to Desk and you can publish from within the app. A better loading indicator-perhaps one that blurred out the login page until it was ready-may prevent this annoyance. If you encounter this problem, wait until the spinning loading indicator disappears before you enter your login information, and it should work. I had some trouble connecting the app to my Tumblr blog-I had to try linking it to Desk several times before it would work-but I suspect this was a product of my slow-ish home DSL connection. Enter it, log in, approve Desk with your blogging service, and you should be set. At this point, you may be presented with a webpage that asks for your login information for your blog. Click the Share button in the sidebar that appears along the right edge, press the “+” button, enter any information requested of you, then press the Connect button. If your blog uses one of a number of popular platforms, you can publish directly from Desk itself-no copying and pasting necessary.

To avoid this, use the drag thumbs on the corners of the image to scale it without causing distortion. A quick tip: When you resize an image, you may end up distorting it, making it appear stretched or squished. The image tools are basic, but they do what they’re supposed to do. Click on an image, and Desk will display drag thumbs for resizing the image, as well as alignment tools so you can position it just how you want in your text. In addition, Desk lets you add photos to go with your words by dragging and dropping images directly into your document. Prefer Markdown to rich-text formatting? Desk covers that too. Aside from the publishing options, Desk is focused strictly on the basic formatting tools that you’ll need for writing on the Web: You can add headings, style text, format lists, and insert links. Desk does only a few things, and for the most part, it does them well. Night Mode.īut don’t look for too many advanced features-Desk isn’t going to replace Microsoft Word any time soon, nor is it going to supplant more feature-packed apps for writers like Scrivener.Īnd that’s kind of the point. It’d be great if you could choose to have Night Mode automatically kick in at sunset-just as an extra nicety. The preview feature is a little rudimentary in that it won’t show you exactly how your post will look on your blog, but it will give you a feel for your post’s formatting and layout.Īn optional Night Mode switches the display to show white text on a dark background so you don’t get blinded when inspiration strikes late at night. Mouse over the window, and you’ll get some additional details about your document: a character count, a word count, and a meter that shows approximately how long it would take to read your post (useful if you want to make sure your “short” blog post is, you know, actually short).Ī narrow sidebar along the right-hand side lets you view your drafts, publish your literary creation, and open a preview of the finished product. What sucks: Editing interface has some quirks.īuy it? Desk is a good choice if you’re looking for an enjoyable writing experience, but it still has plenty of room to grow. Make some tea, put on some mellow music, and get to work. Just you, your words, and your desktop background. All that’s missing is the “ding” sound when you hit the end of a line. Open Desk in a new Space via Mission Control and disable notifications, and you’ll get teleported to an earlier, typewritten age. In fact, as you type, there’s nothing to get between you and your words-no toolbars, no prompts, no scrollbars. Start typing, and the title bar disappears.

Open a new document, and you get a blank window with a title bar. Wait until version 1.1.ĭesk’s website touts the app’s “true distraction-free interface,” and it lives up to its billing.

Buy it? Desk is a good choice if you’re looking for an enjoyable writing experience, but it still has plenty of room to grow. What sucks: Editing interface has some quirks.

Subethaedit any good