A Simple Sublime Text to Day One Build System

Sublime Text to Day One

I really enjoy using Day One. Like Federico Viticci at MacStories, however, I have been wondering whether or not I should be writing more of my thoughts in it exclusively rather than relying on Slogger to collect every ounce of my digital existence. Here’s how he put it:

I want my thoughts — not my stupid Twitter jokes — to be read by someone who, for some reason, will care about the life I had.

And so I’ve been making a concerted effort to write in it more. It’s a pity, then, that I don’t like writing in Day One itself.1

Day One on the Mac offers nine fonts for both reading and composing: Anonymous Pro, Avenir, Baskerville, Courier New, Futura, Helvetica Neue, Hoefler Text, Lato and Noteworthy. On that list I find only Avenir, Helvetica Neue and Lato sensible options for writing.2 I have no idea why Noteworthy made the cut and don’t get me started on Courier New, the worst Courier.

Though the app does sport my favorite Markdown syntax highlighting (love that blue) overall it’s lacking as an editor. I find myself writing in other apps and copying the text into it.

Lately I spend almost all of my time in Sublime Text 2. I’ve tricked it out with plugins and what-not so I’m able to write faster and more comfortably. It’s even got [typewriter scrolling][tcb2] now. And, of course, I can write with whatever font I please.

In order to expedite the process of getting my writing from Sublime Text into Day One, I wrote this quick and dirty Sublime build system. You can check out the code here, or follow the installation instructions below.

The long and short of this is that I want to write more original pieces about what is happening in my life today and store them in Day One. But I also want to use the tools I have at hand to write quickly and comfortably. This little workaround gives me the best of both worlds.

Installation

  1. Install the Day One Command Line Interface.
  2. Download and unzip [Day One.sublime-build.zip][zip].
  3. Move Day One.sublime-build to ~/Library/Application Support/Sublime Text 2/Packages/User/
  4. Open the document you want to move to Day One in Sublime Text.
  5. From the Tools menu choose Build System > Day One.
  6. Typing ⌘B or choosing Build from the Tools menu will send the current document to Day One as a new post.

Notes

  • Day One will not open after you run Build, but you will get a notification in Sublime Text’s console (along the bottom of the window) that a new entry has been created.
  • If you use the Build function regularly, be sure to change Build System back to either Automatic (or whatever system you regularly use) when you are done sending to Day One.

  1. On iOS I prefer to compose entries in Drafts which has an excellent “Send to Day One” button. On the Mac…well, pay attention… ↩︎

  2. I stick with Avenir most of the time. [tcb2]: http://candlerblog.com/2012/12/03/bufferscroll/ [zip]: http://poritsky.com/phpatm/index.php?action=downloadfile&filename=Day%20One.sublime-build.zip&directory=& ↩︎