Ulysses, a popular writing app for Mac, iPhone and iPad, is receiving an update with some new features. The user interface has been slightly redesigned with a new right column that acts as a dashboard. There's also a new grammar and style control feature that goes beyond what is provided on the Apple platform by default.
Let's start with the dashboard. The new column is about consolidating existing elements into a more consistent interface. Previously, it was possible to click a button to view the document's statistics, click another button to view the document structure and click a clip-shaped button to access attachments, notes, tags but also to the writing goal.
It was a little confusing because the statistics could not be displayed next to your goal. Or you can't keep the outline next to the document unless you know you can drag the popover menu so that it doesn't close automatically.
Now, everything is consolidated under three buttons: a sharing menu, a formatting menu and the dashboard. There are multiple tabs on the dashboard, and you can customize the widgets you want to display on most tabs.
For example, it is much more convenient to keep the outline in the right column next to the document. You can click on titles and subtitles to jump to the right part of your work. You can also view a list of all your footnotes, images and links in that view. The new dashboard is also available on iPad and iPhone.
When it comes to spell checking, Ulysses has always taken advantage of native features on Apple platforms: your words are underlined in red when there is a typo.
But the new version of Ulysses goes a step further by integrating with LanguageTool Plus, a proofreading service that works in your browser and provides an API to third-party developers. The result is a new feature that allows you to review the text before exporting it from Ulysses.
LanguageTool Plus is a freemium product with a paid subscription of over 2,500 characters. You reached that limit fairly quickly since the article you are reading is longer than 2,500 characters, for example. If you are a Ulysses user, grammar and style suggestions are included in your subscription.
Analyze your text for typos, but also punctuation errors, redundancy, typography, style, etc. Compared to grammar, LanguageTool Plus supports more than 20 languages. You can approve or reject suggestions one by one or browse them by category in the dashboard.
Grammar and style tips are only available on the Mac version of Ulysses for now and will arrive on iPhone and iPad later this year.
