Simple file sharing services are great for sharing all types of files — from code snippets to short notes to ready-to-publish PDFs — but most of the time, they’re only used for sharing images. That’s a shame, though. Most of us often need to share text that’s longer than a tweet but that’d make no sense to put into a blog post, and simple file sharing apps are great for that.
Except, they still make it rather difficult to share text. You have to write it in an app, save it to a file, the drag it to your sharing tool of choice. Plus, there’s no way to edit your text once it’s shared, without deleting the original share, editing your original text on your Mac, then re-uploading and re-sharing the text.
Sharing text should be far simpler, which is why Levi Nunnink from the Droplr team just built the brand-new MarkDrop app. It makes sharing text via Droplr — and editing text you’ve already shared — as simple as saving a document in iCloud. It’s brilliant.
Simple Writing. Simpler Sharing.
MarkDrop looks like your standard split-screen Markdown writing app at first glance — there’s your plain text with Markdown formatting on the left, and a formatted preview of your work on the right. What’s different is the beautifully simple UI, and a Droplr slider on the top. For MarkDrop isn’t just a writing app — it’s one designed specifically for sharing your words on Droplr. Tap CMD+S, and by default MarkDrop will instantly upload your document to Droplr, with a simple bar loading animation on the top of the window. You can then copy the link to your clipboard from the square icon, or share it with any of the default OS X sharing services right from the app. It’s the simplest way to get text online.
The default editor view is rather nice, but there’s also a dark theme for writing and a half-dozen preview themes, including two inspired by GitHub’s Markdown rendering. Then, there’s options to export your formatted document as PDF, print your document in Markdown or with your selected preview theme, copy your Markdown text as HTML, or save the document locally on your Mac if you want. And, of course, there’s integration with OS X’ text features you’d expect like spellcheck, a full-screen mode and option to turn off the live preview, and a word/character counter at the bottom of the window that can be turned off.
It’s everything you’d expect from a Markdown writing app, but with the addition of simple Droplr saving. That’s what makes it truly unique. You can edit the document name from the top of the window — where you’d usually set your file name and add tags in other Mac apps — and can save changes even after you’ve initially uploaded the document.
Droplr — Your Public iCloud
Markdown writing and live preview and simple sharing are all nice, but what are you to do once you’ve already pushed your document to Droplr and want to make changes? Turns out, MarkDrop can edit existing documents on Droplr just as easily. Tap CMD+O, and you’ll see a beautifully simple iCloud-style dialog that shows all of your Droplr text files ready for editing. Select any of them, and you can edit them live on your Mac then upload the changes to Droplr with a simple CMD+S.
It’s just as easy as editing a local document — and almost as quick — but your documents are saved on Droplr and can be quickly shared. And it works so great, I have to wonder if Droplr eventually could be a direct iCloud competitor for file sync, in addition to its great public-facing sharing.
Conclusion
Now, serious Droplr users will know Droplr for Mac includes a basic notes tool for uploading plain text or Markdown formatted text to Droplr for quick sharing. I’m easily excited by new writing apps, so MarkDrop looked appealing to me at first glance, but I still couldn’t see at first how it’d be that much better than just using Droplr with your favorite writing app. That is, until I taped CMD+O and saw the open options for editing Droplr files directly in MarkDrop, and saw how easy it made quick publishing and editing. That sold me on MarkDrop.
MarkDrop is a seriously neat writing app that’s even neater for sharing text. And that’s something brand-new to the market. For your longer tweets — or blog posts without a blog, or blog drafts for semi-private editing by your friends — it’s the perfect writing companion.
One more thing…
We just closed our giveaway — congrats to our winners bishless, loeffler, Willem, tremil, and Fraser!
MarkDrop’s on a launch-day sale for just $3.99, and if you think you’ll use it a lot, be sure to pick up a copy. But we’ve got something else: 5 copies of MarkDrop to giveaway to our readers today only. Just leave a comment below to let us know your thoughts about MarkDrop to enter the giveaway, and share it on your favorite social networks and share the link in a second comment for an extra entry in the giveaway.
Hurry and get your entry in — we’re closing the giveaway tomorrow!
Envato staff or those who have written more than two articles or tutorials for AppStorm are ineligible to enter.
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