Write Environment

Although WordPress is first and foremost a publishing platform, it's flexible enough to be adapted to other uses, too. As a writer, you can transform WordPress into a fully fledged writing environment that can be used for a variety of tasks: from capturing ideas and drafting articles to collaborating with other authors. In this article, I cover several plugins and themes that can help you turn a WordPress installation into a flexible writing environment.

Distraction-Free Writing Mode and Just Writing

The default editor in WordPress is a capable writing tool, but it's squeezed between other toolbars, widgets, and menus, which can be rather distracting. Fortunately, WordPress features the so-called Distraction-Free Writing Mode (DFWM) that behaves more like a regular word processor (Figure 1). To activate DFWM, just press the dedicated button in the main toolbar or use the Alt+Shift+W keyboard shortcut.

Figure 1: The Just Writing plugin enhances the toolbar in the Distraction-Free Writing Mode.

The DFWM editor offers only bare essentials: a toolbar with a handful of formatting tools, the main writing area, and the word count feature. The interface elements fade away when not used, leaving nothing to distract you from writing. The buttons in the main toolbar cover the basics, but if you find the selection limiting, the Just Writing plugin [1] can remedy the situation. Once installed and activated, the plugin adds a shortcut to the DFWM and an extended toolbar to the DFWM editor.

The DFWM shortcut appears next to each post in the All Posts list. The link opens the selected post directly in the DFWM, bypassing the default editor. If you do most of your writing in the DFWM, this feature can be a real time-saver. The plugin also replaces the default basic toolbar with a more functional one. The new toolbar adds a preview button, replaces the Exit fullscreen link with a proper button, and organizes buttons into logical groups. The Preview button alone makes Just Writing worth installing, because it allows you to preview the current article without returning to the default editor first.

Just Writing is highly customizable, and it adds a slew of settings for you to tweak in the Users | Your Profile section. Here, you can toggle individual buttons as well as enable additional features. For example, you can disable the toolbar fadeout effect, as well as enable the DFWM for new and existing posts. Note, however, that activating these options could affect overall performance. You can also enable cut-and-paste functionality, which is essential for many writers. This feature doesn't work with all browsers (it does work fine in Mozilla Firefox), which explains why it's not enabled by default.

The DFWM editor doesn't support themes, so you are stuck with the default appearance – unless you choose to install the Distraction-Free Mode Themes plugin [2], which features several dark and light themes designed specifically for use in DFWM (Figure 2). By default, the plugin uses the Monokai theme, but you can easily switch to another theme in Users | Your Profile. The plugin also adds the Settings | DFWM Themes section, where you can preview the available themes and pick the one you like. Better still, if you know your way around CSS, you can create a custom theme (Figure 3). To do this, enable the Custom option and tweak the default theme skeleton in the Custom CSS field.

Figure 2: The Q10 theme supplied with the Distraction-Free Mode Themes plugin.

Figure 3: Distraction-Free Mode Themes plugin lets you create your own custom theme.

Themes for Writers

Speaking of themes, plenty of open source themes are designed for text-centric content, including the Typesense theme [3], which features a clean and uncluttered design (Figure 4). This theme does away with distracting elements like widgets, sidebars, and sharing buttons, and it disables comments by default. Typesense is a responsive theme, so it works well on screens of different sizes. LESS [4] is another minimalistic theme that would appeal to writers (Figure 5). The theme features a single-column layout with a sidebar and large text. Like Typesense, LESS is a widget-free theme. Highlights include support for custom header menus, responsive design, and the ability to display a Gravatar picture in the header.

Figure 4: Typesense is a clean, responsive text-focused theme.

Figure 5: The LESS theme features a single-column layout and responsive design.

WP-Svbtle Theme

Although regular themes, such as Typesense and LESS, change the default appearance of the blog, the WP-Svbtle theme [5] adds a whole new layer of functionality to WordPress. As the name suggests, the theme is inspired by Svbtle magazine. WP-Svbtle consists of two parts: the theme itself, which modifies the blog's appearance, and an alternative dashboard, which completely transforms the way you use WordPress.

Deploying WP-Svbtle requires several steps. First, grab the latest version of WP-Svbtle from the project's GitHub repository using:

git clone https://github.com/themeskult/wp-svbtle.git

Move the wp-content/themes/svbltle folder into the wp-content/themes directory inside your WordPress installation. Next, move the wp-svbtle folder to the root of the WordPress installation. Log in to WordPress's administration interface, switch to the Appearance | Themes section, and enable the Svbtle theme.

If necessary, you can configure WP-Svbtle's menus, widgets, and settings. To switch to the WP-Svbtle dashboard, you can either use the wp-svbtle editor link in the top bar of the standard administration interface or point your browser directly to http://<yourwordpressblog>/wp-svbtle.

The WP-Svbtle dashboard replaces the standard administration interface with a radically different and simpler version. Instead of drafts and published articles, WP-Svbtle treats all content as ideas and public articles. The dashboard is designed to make the process of adding and managing ideas and public posts as easy as possible. To add an idea, you either press the New Entry button or type text in the input field and press Enter. This step opens the editing interface, where you can work on the current idea.

Although WP-Svbtle doesn't have a toolbar that provides access to formatting tools, you can use HTML markup to format text in the text area. If you don't fancy HTML, WP-Svbtle also supports the popular Markdown markup language. The Option button allows you to specify a URL for the title, and you can use the Preview button to preview the draft on your blog. Pressing Save creates a new revision of the idea, and turning your idea into a published article is as easy as pressing the Public button.

All ideas and published articles are listed in the respective sections of the dashboard, and you can edit any existing item by simply clicking on it. Thanks to its simplicity, the WP-Svbtle interface is perfect for capturing quick notes, jotting down ideas, and drafting articles (Figure 6). Because WP-Svbtle adds an alternative dashboard to the standard editing interface, you can pick the tool that suits you best for the task at hand (Figure 7).

Figure 6: WP-Svbtle adds an alternative dashboard.

Figure 7: WP-Svbtle features its own simplified editor.

Writing Help

Because most browsers support spell-checking, you don't need a dedicated WordPress plugin for that. However, a plugin to help you avoid common grammatical pitfalls can be rather handy, indeed. Enter the After the Deadline plugin. After the Deadline, which was previously available as a standalone module, is now part of the Jetpack suite [7], so you have to install it to enable the spell-checking and grammar support on your WordPress installation.

Besides installing and enabling JetPack, you also need to connect it to the WordPress.com services. This step automatically enables the Spelling and Grammar module, and you can configure its settings in the Users | Your Profile section under Proofreading. Here, you can enable the option to proofread the article automatically before you publish or update it, and you can toggle options that check for specific patterns of poor writing style, including common problems like clichés, double negatives, passive voice, redundant phrases, and so on. You can also specify phrases and words that should be ignored during proofreading.

To proofread the currently edited article, press the Proofread Writing button in the editor's toolbar. To make it easier for you to identify problematic words and phrases, the proofreading feature highlights them using three colors: red for misused words and spelling errors, green for grammar mistakes, and blue for style suggestions. Clicking on a highlighted word or phrase displays a brief explanation of the problem and a list of possible suggestions.

Obviously, the Spelling and Grammar feature (Figure 8) can only handle a limited set of grammar-related issues, but it can be a useful tool for catching some common mistakes and errors.

Figure 8: The Spelling and Grammar module lets you fix the most common grammar issues.

Collaborative Editing with Post Forking

The Post Forking plugin [8] adds collaborative editing functionality to WordPress, and it does this in a slightly different way than you might expect. It uses an approach similar to the Git distributed revision control system that is popular with open source software developers. The plugin allows WordPress users without editing rights to fork an article – that is, to clone and edit it without affecting the original.

Once the fork has been saved, the administrator can compare it with the original and merge changes. Additionally, the author of the article can create branches, or parallel versions of the article, that can be edited independently. Despite (or thanks to) its software developer-friendly logic, the plugin's functionality is relatively easy to master. Once installed and enabled, the plugin adds the Fork link next to each post created by other users in the Posts | All Posts section. Click on it to clone the desired item and edit it as a regular post. When done, press Save Fork to save the changes and add the revised article to the Forks section.

In this section, the admin (and the article's author) can then view forked articles, compare them with their originals, and merge changes. Thanks to the dedicated graphical tool, comparing the original with its fork and merging changes is rather straightforward (Figure 9). The tool displays the original and the fork side-by-side in a two-pane window, where all additions and deletes are highlighted with green and red colors, respectively. You can merge each change to the right (thus undoing the modification) or to the left (which merges the modification). For articles authored by you, Post Forking displays the Create branch link instead of Fork. Using it, you can create new versions of the article that are treated as forks.

Figure 9: The Post Forking plugin sports a visual tool for merging changes.

Final Word

Using the right mix of plugins and themes, you can transform WordPress into a versatile writing environment as an alternative to your regular tools of the trade. Even if WordPress won't replace a fully-fledged desktop word processor, it can prove to be an indispensable tool for all kinds of writing activities – from taking notes and organizing research to collaborating with other writers.