At one point this year I spent 6 months on Linux and the biggest problem was software lock in. Not Linux software lock in, but macOS lock in.

I love Ulysses and Scrivener, but if I want to change my OS to Ubuntu I’m out of luck with either of those tools.

If I want to change to Windows, Ulysses goes by the wayside.

This sucks. It feels like it’s not the way it should be. I know that Scrivener gave Linux a go, and abandoned the application. It clearly wasn’t viable financially.

This has me thinking, what about building a crossplatform editor? Something that takes markdown like Ulysses, but has some more power like Scrivener?

Something where I can embed a web page in my ‘research’ like Scrivener, but it gets out of the way like Ulysses when I’m working on a project that’s not as complex.

Could it be done? Could I do it?

The first stop is choosing a programming interface. I’d rather go for crossplatform compatibility instead of native OS perfection so that leaves me with a few options, but Electron looks like the best option so far.

No I don’t want to hear your whining about Electron and processor usage. If you want a crossplatform application, there is something that needs to get given up.

So yes, I’ll be investigating Electron and what it’s going to take to build myself a writing tool that fits in with what I want. To start, we’ll aim for a markdown editor only. Then we’ll introduce folders like Ulysses has so it can be synced in Dropbox easily.