In the article "Pin's Next Stop", we mentioned that there will be a product as the next generation of Pin.
After nearly a year of design, development and testing, version 1.0 is finally online in the App Store. This product is called Taio, pronounced Tie-O (泰欧). Although
is an application for text, Taio and Pin are still very different. Through this article, we will introduce to you the design logic behind Taio, as well as some highlights.
Design Philosophy
At the beginning of the design, we set a few keynotes for it:
hides the power in the simplicity
Taio does our best to make beginners not feel at a loss, so in essence it is just a clipboard tool and text editor . On the other hand, Taio also provides extremely flexible configuration capabilities to meet the needs of professional users.
Realize the correct user interface
We all like good-looking applications, but good-looking applications must be based on the correct working of and . The term "correct" may seem simple, but it is not easy to achieve. For example: good performance in various screen states, perfect support for accessibility, optimization for peripherals, etc.
embraces platform features.
Taio is a good citizen of the Apple ecosystem. We have implemented most of the modern features, such as Contextual Menu, Drag & Drop, and Split View and Slide Over on iPadOS. As a text processing tool, files can of course be edited by other applications, and files from other applications can also be edited through Open in Place.
adopts best practices
If there are multiple ways to achieve a goal, we choose the most reliable one after verification. For example, we follow the CommonMark standard to build the Markdown editor, without introducing any "non-standard" private format. This allows you to migrate to other products or use multiple products at the same time without compatibility issues. These keynotes of
run through the entire process of designing and developing this application, and then some specific usage scenarios will be introduced.
Clipboard Management The clipboard function of
Taio was born out of Pin and has been enhanced. We believe that the clipboard is a very important part of the mobile text processing scene. We will frequently use the copy and paste function on the device, but will not keep it for long. Compared with the previous form of using notification center widgets, Taio uses desktop shortcuts or widgets to record the clipboard:
As a kind of draft data, we often need to perform secondary processing on the clipboard. In the main application, long press to edit it or start an action:
handles the clipboard
, and can also perform batch operations on the clipboard data (support two-finger sliding to enter the editing state), such as sorting or batch deletion:
batch editing
In addition, clipboard data can be synchronized between devices via iCloud. This feature is implemented using iCloud's private database and will not go through the developer's server. For more privacy issues, please refer to our "Privacy Policy".
text editor
Taio's editor follows the popular Markdown standard, provides an open file system, and makes collaboration between applications possible.
If we only regard Taio as a text editor, we also hope that the Markdown experience can be outstanding. For this reason, Taio has introduced many features.
Toolbar
In order to better enter the format and symbols, Taio provides a convenient toolbar:
Editor toolbar
Toolbar will intelligently determine the current selected area, for example: when the cursor is a title, you don’t need to Select this title precisely; press bold after selecting a piece of text, and the bold symbol will wrap the selected text. There are many other optimizations, You can try more to get the most suitable method of use.
gesture operation
in addition to sliding left and right to move the cursor, two-finger zoom to adjust the font size, you can also tap the screen three times to quickly select the current paragraph:
quickly select the paragraph
The same operation can also be done in other ways, But gesture operations can make the most of the advantages of the touch screen.
shortcut phrases
Taio support dynamic content phrases, such as current date or clipboard:
input shortcut phrases
edit shortcut phrases
You can freely set shortcut phrases through template text to achieve more flexible and fast text input.
Tips: Taio also supports text replacement based on TextExpander.
outline and export
Taio will automatically extract all levels of headings in the document to generate an outline view, tap the heading to locate the corresponding position in the document:
outline view
click the share button in the upper left corner, and the document can be formatted in multiple formats Export:
document export not only supports common HTML and PDF formats, but also supports TextBundle format for cross-application collaboration. The historical version
Taio will save your content regularly to prevent accidentally correcting a mistake or not remembering what was changed. More importantly, Taio supports comparing the differences between the two file versions, allowing you to be more confident about the recovery operation:
extended functions
