For years, maybe a decade, I've wanted to build a writing tool that just did a few things I couldn't find anywhere else. A system that mimicked how I think when I write. A system that provided clear affordances, features, and places to do the things I wanted to... do. A way to play with my writing as I'm writing it. A way to settle into just the right way to say something. It never made sense to make it a 37signals product because it's not commercially viable, nor would it be worth pulling people off their other work to hack on this. Plus, it would have taken months the old way. So this weekend I just made it myself, with Claude's help. It's called Write_On and the short video walks you through it. Essentially it's "alternative control" at the word, sentence, and paragraph level, plus a way to dim stuff back, and stash stuff near by. Not version control, but alternative control. You'll see what I mean when you watch the video below. So here it is. Write_On.show more

By the way, you’ll hear little sounds in the video when I’m arrowing through different alternatives. There are two tones. One’s higher pitched, which you’re gonna hear most of the time, and one is a lower pitched sound. The lower pitch sound is a return to the original. This way, I know when I’m back to the original version I was on before I began playing.

Wait till you see the LinkedIn integration!

You also notice that the lines underneath the alternatives aren’t perfectly straight. I wanted them to feel a bit more like an editor’s pen, something a little human, a little wavy, imperfect, just slightly, just a little bit, not too much, but just something that gave it a bit of a different feel than just your standard straight and perfect computer-generated underline.

And it's all Markdown, too. Alternatives, overflow, etc.

Little follow-up video. I didn't show that you can just type ?? in the alts sidebar and the AI will toss in some ideas. True at the word, sentence, or paragraph level. Plus more explosions!

This looks great. Especially the LinkedIn Feature 😂

I mean, right???

sir, i like how your brain works. When can we download this?

Looking amazing!

Thanks sir!

i love all the small details and sound effects, and specially the experience seeing it. will try to do one of those my self sometime soon! open sourcing it soon?

That’s the plan.

This is delightful, seriously! Very handy and pretty at the same time. Hope you share it!

I will when done. And thanks.

Best linkedin integration i've ever seen! bravo!

I thought so!

great work

🙏

Love it! Can't wait to actually give this a try myself.

Some more to do, but then yes!

@dhh I love this. I’m finishing up a dissertation that’s now a rats nest of typst files with comments and todos, this approach may have saved my sanity

@dhh I know the feeling trying to keep it all somewhere but also kinda nowhere and everywhere... Just a mess. It never felt right.

@dhh Oh this is nice

I can’t love this enough. Wow. Literally a game changer.

Thanks John! Glad you dig it.

I'm amazed by how you nailed the exact same problems I go through! Specially the "Overflow" that was... incredible.

I think a lot of people write like this, which is why I’m just shocked that a tool like this has never existed before.

I like that this gives you room to change your mind. A sentence can feel wrong now and fit once the next paragraph changes. I’d much rather have AI help me explore those alternatives than keep nudging everything toward one polished version.

That's exactly it. Things change. Make that change easy and contextual.

Absolutely incredible idea and great UI! I have been struggling with this for years, either by always keeping 100 versions in my head while writing or by creating a 5-page long document with notes for a tweet-size text. I can't wait to try this out. Thank you, this is amazing!

Right?? There had to be a better way. There is!

This is very nice. Funny enough this is the 2nd writing software walkthrough I've watched today. Earlier one was NEO, a writing tool for book authors by Hugh Howey, creator of the Silo series. The Darlings idea there looks very similar to your Overflow:

@dhh I thought it was OmaWrite. Why do not merge the two apps?

I may be wrong here, please correct me if that's the case. Is this one of those scenarios where agents are just perfect for today's world? The tool is amazing but I wonder why you didn't that before. Is it because with agents the cost of experimenting is just lower? I really loved it, hope you open source soon!

I simply couldn't have built this before myself (in a reasonable amount of time without learning a bunch of new stuff), and I couldn't ask anyone else to build it for me (they had more important stuff to do). I've always had the vision. Never the time or talent. Now I have it all.

That's a lovely situation to be in. I hope you build more stuff like this, really inspiring.

This is genius! I love it

So good!

Thanks Ryan!

@dhh Masterclass in UX.

This is looks amazing I need to get my hands on it 😂

Always wanted to build this too and almost tried years ago. Looks nice

🙏

Just finished the video, lots of nice touches. Love the more specific AI feedback prompts. Clever

for years you wanted iA Writer?

The inline wordsmithing's brilliant. No longer do alternatives have to be concatenated together as a stringy mess of alternatives, or written at the bottom that instantly disrupts chain of thought. The side panel's also a must to give the writer some nonlinear freedom. Smart!

this is awesome, so much thought an nuance put into what looks like a 'simple' tool. 'do what you love' and its easy!

Excellent. Some really novel UX paradigms that I haven't seen before that once you see, seem obviously needed in any writing experience. Especially around using AI not to change your writing, but help you be a better editor of your writing.

a decade of wanting it and one weekend to build it. the old way was the bottleneck

Not having to convince a product team that enough other people want your oddly specific feature is a pretty great feeling.

This looks awesome! Your UX intuition is inspiring as always 👌

Beautiful product!