Wes Meltzer on WriteRoom 1.0

Wes Meltzer, reviewing WriteRoom (Hog Bay Software’s full-screen anti-distraction text-editor) for ATPM:

Since I’ve switched to using WriteRoom for almost everything, I have gone from being pitifully unproductive to being unproductive just to the point of ridicule. I find myself generating somewhere between double and triple my pre-WriteRoom writing output.

Meltzer obviously likes WriteRoom, and Merlin Mann has been asking for a full-screen-screen text-editing mode for ages, but I’ve never understood the need. If I’m trying to concentrate on my writing, I use Hide Others and quit distraction-prone apps like instant messaging clients. But there’s clearly demand for this, and it seems to work really well for some people.

★ Friday, 1 September 2006