This article is part of a series on going iPad-only.

As a writer, the iPad is already my perfect computer.

As a novelist who self-publishes, though, there have always been a number of limitations on which parts of my job I can do solely on this device — but things have changed. As various third-party iPad apps have become available (and evolved), and as iPadOS itself has progressed to give a more desktop-level web experience in particular, there’s now very little that an iPad is locked out of.

For the first time, I can now create and publish novels — in both ebook and paperback formats — entirely on the iPad, from start to finish. And to prove it, I did just that.

This article is part of a series on going iPad-only.

Two years ago, I created an ePub export style for Ulysses, allowing you to create beautiful ebook versions of your novels. I’ve now created an equivalent PDF export style for Ulysses, which will let you create print-ready paperback PDF versions of your novels.

The third volume of my anthology of ultra-short sci-fi / horror / etc stories is out now! You can find on Amazon/Kindle, Apple Books, and as a ePub ebook file (either as-is, or a special autographed-cover edition). Once Upon A Time is a collection of flash fiction: standalone tales of 1,000–3,000 words, in genres including science fiction, horror, and the supernatural! The anthology also includes author’s notes on each tale, describing inspiration and background.

Drafts 21 is out today, and it brings a major new feature for Actions developers: the ability to create custom user interfaces using the HTMLPreview window, which can now execute JavaScript and pass data back out to the calling context or action.

Accordingly, I’ve released MGCheckListPrompt, a custom selection/picker dialog which lets you choose from a list of options — which can be either drafts, or arbitrary choices. There are lots of configurable options and conveniences, including: full keyboard navigation/control (no pointing devices/fingers required); support for Mac, iPad, and iPhone; automatic light/dark theme support; customisable appearance via CSS; optional type-to-select mode; and more. Both multiple-selection (checkboxes) and single-selection (radio-buttons) modes are supported.

This article is part of a series on going iPad-only.

Drafts on iPadOS, iOS, and macOS can now be used as a first-class personal knowledge base, ideas repository, Zettelkasten, and so on. I think that a wiki is a useful concept (and measurement) for such situations, and in that regard Drafts now stacks up well.

I use Drafts as my text-processing tool of choice. I do all my actual writing in Ulysses, but when it’s time to prepare articles for my blog, my weekly site-members’ newsletter and so on, it’s Drafts I turn to. I think of it as the BBEdit for my iPad.

With the recent version 20.0, Drafts introduced cross-linking. You can use wiki-style links to open other documents (also called drafts, by the way) within the app; for example, a link like this: [[Some Other File]] can be tapped or clicked to open the draft entitled “Some Other File” (creating it if necessary). Needless to say, this is very useful for creating a repository of knowledge, a body of research, a plain-text household database, and so on.

Drafts is also very scriptable and customisable, so I decided to extend this functionality to fit how I work. First and foremost, I don’t like to take my hands off the keyboard, so I needed a way to navigate cross-links without needing to use a pointing device. I created an action for Drafts to do that, to which you can assign whatever keyboard shortcut you prefer. It works on a link that’s either part of the text selection in the frontmost draft, or is immediately adjacent to the selection or the insertion point. There are various other options you can tweak for yourself, as detailed below.

This article is part of a series on going iPad-only.

I’d like to share a few thoughts about pointer control on the iPad. My perspective is narrow and specific: I’ve been using an iPad as my full-time computer for three and a half years, and my job is writing books. The iPad does everything I need it to, and I’ve written a lot already about why it’s the right device for me.

In particular, I wrote a piece about the weird disconnect of pointer-driven interfaces, which only really becomes apparent when you move away from the familiarity of pointing devices. Switching entirely to the iPad meant committing to many new ways of doing things, to the extent that I now find traditional computers a bit awkward to use. They feel like machines with interfaces designed to let you use the pointer, rather than with a pointer designed to let you use the interface. And of course that’s exactly what they are, because it’s logical to make the software capitalise on the nature of the hardware.

Can I be honest with you?

I hope so. In my writing, here and otherwise, it’s all I try to do. Truth in fiction is about verisimilitude, and clarity, and refinement of ideas. Truth in real life, though, is a bit different.

The second volume of my anthology of ultra-short sci-fi / horror / etc stories is out now! You can find on Amazon/Kindle, Apple Books, and as a ePub ebook file (either as-is, or a special autographed-cover edition!). Once Upon A Time is a collection of flash fiction: standalone tales of 1,000–3,000 words, in genres including science fiction, horror, and the supernatural! The anthology also includes author’s notes on each tale, describing inspiration and background.