Using Atom.io

My preferred PubWriter editor of choice is free! It works for PC & Mac the same (keyboard shortcuts will vary because of the differences in the mac & pc keyboards).

Visual Studio Code vs. Atom? VSC has taken over the top spot for the developer/tech writer's text editor of choice. I find that VSC has plenty of great features for coders. And I do use it - a lot... but I also miss the simplicity of atom. On December 15, 2022, Atom is officially being archived for good. But that doesn't mean that you can't keep using it as a plain text editor for PubWriter. If Atom is indeed your software of choice, here are archived versions of the installation files:

• Atom for PC
• Atom for Mac

Looking for your list of packages installed?

Path on mac:

/Users/USERNAME/.atom/packages

Path on the PC:

/Users/USERNAME/.atom/packages

Important: To set up atom for writing in markdown, first remove the vertical line by disabling the wrap guide package. Here's a video tutorial on how you do it.

Here are some helpful things to know about using atom.io.

1. Save your file in .md (Atom recognizes formatting in .md files differently)
2. ⌘ + Shift + ; (or Ctrl+Shift+; on the PC) is a helpful shortcut to spellcheck a word.
3. Cmd-Shift-p (or Ctrl+Shift+p on the PC) brings up the command pallet (useful if you use the sort lines package, the date package, or Title Case package).
4. Ctrl+p brings up a quick list of files in a folder based on a filename.
5. Learn how to add a project folder & remove a project folder from the sidebar to help with document management.

Huge time saver: to quickly find a file ⌘+t (Mac) Ctrl-t (PC)

To unleash the power of atom, you'll want to install some packages. At the time of writing, there were over 5,800 of them!

Recommended packages

(these are like plug-ins and are all free)

• Open Recent
• Toolbar
• Markdown Toolbar
• Insert date & time
• Document Map
• color code filenames - helpful to highlight index.md in your pubwriter folder or your now.md file.
• Title Case - Automatically caps the correct words in a title. (after installing, you use the ⌘+shift+p and type 'Title Case').
• Path Copy - Allows you to copy the path and filename (helpful for linking to files) - alt+⌘+w
• Sort Lines - Allows you to arrange a list alphabetically. Mac: ⌘ + p + 'sort'

Markdown Specific

• Markdown Preview Plus - has integration with Pandoc! This could provide some slick export/conversion options for md files.
• MD Writer - helpful shortcuts for MD (Ctrl-B for Bold, Ctrl-I for Italic, etc..)
• Sort Lines - this shows how Atom.io is more powerful than any other editor!
• MD Toolbar - to enable, you also need the tool-bar and markdown-writer packages.
• Word Count
• Markdown-Folding - Use tab to toggle text under headers.

Recommended Themes

• Hacker Theme
• Hacker Theme UI

Keymaps

You can define keyboard shortcuts for packages in the keymap.cson file. Go to 'Atom -> Keymap.' I use shortcuts for Folding Text and Markdown Writer. More info.

Finding your keymap (also referred to as keybindings) on the PC:

What is the equivalent to cmd (⌘) on the PC? The Windows key.

Currently testing

• Drop-up: Drag and drop image files to Atom, upload to Imgur and insert link
• Bootstrap
• TOC for MD files
• https://atom.io/packages/copy-filename
• https://atom.io/packages/opened-files - is this redundant with Open Recent? (see above)
• https://atom.io/packages/recent-files-fuzzy-finder
• https://atom.io/packages/file-icons
• https://atom.io/packages/minimap
• https://atom.io/packages/sublime-style-column-selection
• https://atom.io/packages/punchclock
• Copy with Style
• LiveStyle Analyzer
• copy-with-style
• copy-file-contents
• simple-copy-path

As a PubWriter, there are several ways Atom will save you time!

You can transform a large list of items into a bulleted or numbered list with Markdown Writer for Atom

Multi-cursor

• On the Mac: Ctrl+Shift + ↑ and Ctrl+Shift + ↓ to move your cursor up and down lists.
• On the PC: Hold Ctrl + Alt + ↑ and Ctrl + Alt + ↓ to move your cursor up and down lists.

Power users tips & tricks

• Keyboard Shortcuts

The ones I use most often?

Reorder text quickly

Mac:

• Ctrl+Cmd+↑
• Ctrl+Cmd+↓

This allows me to quickly sort through and reprioritize a task list (think Workflowy).

Read more in the Atom Flight Manual about how writers use atom.io!

Spell Checker

Any misspelled words will be highlighted (by default with a dashed red line beneath the word), and you can pull up a menu of possible corrections by hitting Cmd + Shift + ; (or by choosing "Correct Spelling" from the right-click context menu or from the Command Palette).

Snippets

One of the most powerful features of atom is snippets. Since PubWriter supports bootstrap snippets as well as pretty much any html you want to throw at it, you'll likely find the skill of using snippets to be a huge time saver.

Setting up snippets the first time wasn't easy. But once I got 'em working, they've been a HUGE time saver for me.

Here's my snippets file you can use as a starting template. It contains many of the PubWriter snippets that will turn atom into your favorite PubWriter editor.

Keymaps

Here's a good explanation of how you use Keymaps to create your own keyboard shortcuts. Many packages comes with suggested keymaps in their documentation.

More helpful resources

• Snippet Generator
• Some useful keyboard shortcuts for Atom editor - Daijiang Li
• mehcode/awesome-atom: A curated list of delightful Atom packages and resources.

Todo

Create a way for PubWriter users to install all the recommended PubWriter atom packages in one action:

https://discuss.atom.io/t/installed-packages-list-into-single-file/12227/15

• Explore Teletype