Good time to buy into FoldingText?

Hi there,
I’m new to these forums and FoldingText. I’ve downloaded the demo and I really like it. It’s missing a couple things for me, and when I came to look at the support forums it seems like FoldingText might not be getting any new features. I apologize if this has already been discussed, but after reading a bit I can’t find a clear answer on what is happening. I don’t object at all to spending $25 – FoldingText is awesome as is and probably perfect for many people – but I don’t want to go through the cost of switching over my productivity workflow if FoldingText isn’t ever going to be extended. Advice would be much appreciated!

Best,
William Henderson

The current version is unlikely to see any major changes. The next version is well underway but will be a fairly significant departure from the current version. In short it will be balanced more toward and outliner UI as opposed to the current plain text editor UI. I will offer some sort of upgrade pricing and import, but if yes if the current FoldingText isn’t already an easy fit into your workflow you might want to wait a bit for the next version before buying in.

Jesse

Sadly, my advice to you is to keep the 25$ and look somewhere else. To begin with, FoldingText is a dead app. Not only that it won’t get new features, but based on past experience you shouldn’t expect maintenance and bug fixes as well.

Taskpaper, another app from the same creator, was abandoned after the developer had decided to shift focus to FoldingText. To this date annoying and trivial bugs such as broken auto-save to dropbox were neglected, and so to avoid file conflicts you have to limit the use of this app to only one machine. Repeated pleads to the developer to fix this issue were rejected.

Back to FoldingText. Like you, before paying for the app, I looked for affirmation. But instead of listening to what users express in the forum, alarming complaints about the inattentiveness of the developer to his paying users (see example here), I was lulled by gimmicky features that look slick in video but have no use in real life. I paid 39$, just to find out that the developer decided to move away from this app and work on the next small thing. Don’t do the same mistake as I did.

Each profession and activity needs slightly different tools, so the degree of match will vary.

(And some will feel more at home with the predictable outputs of teaming termite-mounds like Microsoft and other larger organisations, while others will find exceptional value in ground-breaking experiments from the workbench of a single craftsman and inventor.

Personally, I have found FoldingText one of the most useful (and unintrusive) pieces of software that I have ever worked with (stretching back to my first experiences of Unix and MS DOS in 1982). Nothing has surpassed its distinctive combination of fast and flexible outlining with rich scriptability and ease of use.

I’m also looking forward to the next iteration of one of the most innovative and influential creative cycles in the industry.

( Just look, for example, at how many subsequent apps converged on the paths that were set by WriteRoom and TaskPaper … )

Just want to say I’ve purchased and used both Folding Text and Task Paper, and have found them both very useful and stimulating for my own creativity. And as for the “support of vs inadequate support for” this software issue, I personally see the author of this software as being creative, and engaging in some very original thinking and problem-solving, and I feel that’s something I’d like to support. Lord knows so much software has gotten so complex. Here’s a good effort to create simplified yet powerful software, so I’m all for that. Moving in the direction of more of an outliner UI may be a very good move. Am happy to wait and see. :smile:

Well, not all that happy with the “waiting” part, but eager to see what will come of it.

MTO