Typewriter mode

I’m pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: please bring typewriter mode. I have read the previous responses by the dev team in other forums, and understand it is hard to test and implement. But if you have long notes as I do, you would know that it is crucial (especially on the iPad.)

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Hello there,

typewriter mode is on our list, but it’s a very niche feature and we have a LOT of stuff to add before it :slight_smile:

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Thanks for your response.

I am surprised that you guys think it is a niche feature. I guess I am the only one who struggles with the long notes. Anyways, I am happy that at least you guys are considering it.

Good luck with the 2.0. Looking forward to the full release.

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I would like to add my vote to this. I LOVE Bear, and these new features do look awesome. But typewriter scrolling is the reason I end-up writing nearly all of my longer notes in Ulysses or iA Writer before copying them into Bear…I hate working at the bottom of the screen. I appreciate this is a personal thing, but for me I would be more than happy if this were the only feature that was added to Bear - it would make it perfect!

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Yes, when writing long notes(which I usually do on my iPad) writing at the bottom is not always so…satisfying…
I love ulysses for that reason, I hope the developers can add this feature.

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Just wanted to chime-in that I would appreciate typewriter mode at some point as well, though it’s not as important to me as it seems to be for @nadirfirat :slight_smile:

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As an alternative/compromise that might fit in right now, you could consider adding something akin to page margins in Xcode. I believe the options were 1/4, 1/2 and the whole viewport height as a margin at the end of the page.

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Hi @matteo

I am sure there are a lot of other things that will make Bear better, but for writers (who spend a lot of time actually writing), Typewriter mode is a powerful feature. Sure I would love to see other features too, but Typewriter mode is the first one that would really add value to writers like me. Please bump it up your list of to-dos.

Thanks!
RR

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+1 for Typewriter view. I am not sure where the niche status came from either (and why tables wouldn’t be considered niche), but it’s your program and you get to set the rules. Typewriter mode is really for serious note takers, which I thought was the core user group for Bear. This feature for me is more important than nested styles and tables (though they are also nice to have in the tools repertoire).

As for the feature set that is in the Alpha release, I have not found any bugs that impact my workflow yet (haven’t tested tables). They seem to be very stable and well thought out. I do appreciate the simplicity of the interface and the features that are worked on by your team. I like where Bear is heading.

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I am a new user and I like Bear very much. But I find myself doing copy/paste from my old writing app, Byword. The only reason being that Byword has typewriter mode.

I do a lot of writing and typewriter mode was something I took for granted. I assumed every app had it. Please see what you can do to implement it. Thanks.

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I second this as a priority feature!

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I came here, created an account literally to ask for just this! If Bear added this one feature, it would basically be a perfect writing app in my view, and would probably have my business from here into eternity. :slight_smile: I hate either typing at the very bottom of my screen, OR, adding a bunch of line breaks at the bottom of every note!

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Perhaps Typewriter mode is a niche feature only because most people haven’t experienced it yet? I recently discovered it when trying out Ulysses, and I now can’t imagine writing anything of length without it. Because of that, I have a convoluted setup to sync my Bear notes to markdown files in iCloud so that I can write in Ulysses and still have everything show up in Bear. I think more people would love this feature once you showed it to them!

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Longtime Bear user here, also came here to say I really would love Typewriting mode! I do the same thing as some others, weird hacks so I can edit notes in iA Writer mostly for Typewriter mode.

Also agree that even if Typewriter mode wasn’t implemented, just having a fixed / nonzero margin at the bottom would probably suffice as well.

Thank you!

EDIT: Looks like there is a margin of sorts, when I test against Version 1.0 (1563). Not sure if this was a recently added thing, but it does the trick for me! Once you type all the way to the ‘bottom’, it automatically scrolls and you get more margin. Yay!

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Typewriter mode is a number one priority for me! Absolutely essential to the writing experience. I use iA Writer and Bear interchangeably because neither get both note-taking and long form writing right.

There are workarounds like sizing the window to halfway up the screen, but it still feels wrong. It’s not natural to crane towards the bottom of the screen to type long notes. This is a basic usability feature and definitely not something niche. It would also look especially pretty in Bear marketing screenshots :wink:

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Typewriter mode is something I really miss after converting from Ulysses to Bear.

I type reclined a lot (on my bed or couch), and my knuckles block the bottom of the screen when typing blog posts or anything else of length in Bear.

It sucks to have to abandon the fullscreen beauty of Bear and do the whole “make the window half size” thing. Now I see my ugly, non-matching desktop behind.

I’ve even gotten so desperate at times that I’ve matched my desktop bg color to whatever theme I’m using in Bear at the moment. But that of course changes in dark/light themes/modes. So still a pain.

I’m thinking about buying IA writer just to have typewriter mode.

And I love their big blue blinking cursor. Anything else you wish Bear had that IA writer has?

Or alternatively, what do you like more about IA writer than Bear—besides typewriter mode?

I’ve been using iA for years for articles and a novel. It’s perfect for longer form text. The design is immaculate and the design philosophy detailed in their blog is a joy to read.

I just switched from Bear to Apple Notes for my daily shorthand note taking. Since Apple announced tagging, it became a perfect Bear replacement for me. Unless Bear pulls off something incredible with Panda, I’m not sure I’ll be switching back.

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Gosh I might be on the same path of you. Which would be a shame (for me) since I have so so many notes in Bear. Tagging was the thing missing from Apple notes. I think I tried IA writer once and really liked it.

Thanks for the clue to read the IA blog. Will definitely check that out…

+1 for typewriter mode.

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Hi there,

As noted previously by Matteo, typewriter mode is on our list.

However, it’s currently still a niche feature, not a priority one. Plus, we still have a good amount of stuff to add before this.

In order to get some more insight on this feature though, may I just ask what specifically do you miss or would want in regards to a typewriter mode?

You mentioned Ulysses, they have several options available - highlight, fixed scrolling, and mark current line. Is there one more important from these for you? How would you expect a typewriter mode to work/look in Bear?