I’m a Button Dork: Look What I Found!

August 26, 2011 By Frank Dickinson Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Videos, WordPress 29 Comments

Since giving up my Mac to my wife (group awwwww…please) and not using it’s Text Editor, I have been looking for a simple, straightforward, no bloat (thank you @MSchechter for that word) application that I can use for my blogging.

Holy Moly Batman, today I discovered just the thing I was looking for and it was right under my nose.

The WordPress Toggle Full Screen button. I don’t know how I missed it – too busy looking in other places I guess.

I wanted you to know about this little wonder. Watch the screencast to see it in action.

How To Use WordPress Toggle Fullscreen Button

Sorry for the link and not an embed – technology issues today.

Do you struggle, like me, with focus when writing.? Will this help? Share your experience with this button or other applications that work for you.

Buffer

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Videos, WordPress Tagged With: blogging, blogging tips, video, wordpress, writing

About Frank Dickinson

Frank Dickinson wants to be intimately involved in creating conversations about the subjects that interest him the most; Internet and Affiliate Marketing, Social Media and Personal Development. On his blog, "creating conversations in a world of chatter", you will find tutorials, screencasts, reviews, blog posts, videos and whatever else he can get his hands on to teach, enlighten and inspire.

MSchechter

Nice to see that WP is learning from a lot of the modern text editors like Byword, iAWriter, etc. Still don’t love the idea of writing in a browser, but that is certainly progress! Like the just write comment in the corner. Happy to lend you the word bloat, I am far too familiar with it, especially in my stomach area…
FrankDickinson

@MSchechter It’s not perfect, but a ton better than Word and the like.

Can you tell I am still thinking about yesterday’s post http://frankdickinson.me/the-power-of-tool/

I was quite enamored by the “Just Write” message.
MSchechter

@FrankDickinson I’ve always used ByWord on the Mac for a similar kind of experience, especially considering it plays so well with nvALT which is my primary text editor.
bobWP

Hey Frank, yeah, that one is pretty sweet. Actually they made a huge improvement over the original toggle full screen button on the previous versions. And they like to describe it as “distraction free”.

Funny though, I haven’t even used it yet, and I’m on WordPress every day for hours.

And what was hilarious is, when this version came out and so many were impressed by this feature, a lot of developers just sighed and said “what the hell is that good for?” : )

But for many it’s a dream come true ….
bobWP

oh, and BTW, I love your admission that your are a button dork. Do you go to monthly meetings for that??
FrankDickinson

@bobWP It’s one of those buttons that I just missed and never knew was there – creature of habit stuff.

It is FAR better than many other possibilities out there for the PC.

Thanks for dropping in – I thought you might catch wind of this post.
FrankDickinson

@bobWP umm no

weekly

LOL
http://www.slymarketing.com jens

Hi Frank,

First off, you need to buy another Mac

I have never used the wordpress full screen mode, from your screencast this looks really interesting. I’ve been using iA Writer though, that’s the perfect writing tool for me.

Jens
FrankDickinson

@jens Hey Jens – good to see you here!

Yep – got my eye on a Macbook Air per @MSchechter ‘s recommendation.

I was pleasantly surprised by this WP mode. I still miss Text Editor though!

Have a great weekend my friend.
http://alifewelllivedconcludeswithasmile.blogspot.com/ barryrsilver

All this techie stuff makes my head spin. The tutorial was helpful but may I ask: If the full toolbar is too many toys you could use Blogger (as I do) or a text compiler. It seems that the Toggle full screen button is designed by WordPress to keep it’s clientele(?) from discovering that other things exist.

Yes I know Blogger is to blogging as White Zinfandel is to varietal wines. My 1st attempt was with WordPress and I found it as user friendly as the IRS. Couldn’t change the F*#*in’ font size to save my life. Now, I’m just to stubborn to to chage and besides Blogger is supposed to interface with Livefyre soon. OK, I’ll shut up now.
FrankDickinson

@barryrsilver Hey Barry! For me, I was looking for something completely plain. Text Editor from my Mac that I mentioned is completely vanilla – basically a white box that you type in. No distractions, bloat whatever.

When I started blogging 3 years ago, I started on Blogger. I think it is a fine service hosted platform. Related to this topic, it would still have too many buttons and whistles for me.

Finding the Fullscreen Toggle on WP gave me the “white box” and the ability to save my writing directly into WPress. No copying and pasting needed.

Blogger and LiveFyre eh? Pretty cool.
http://alifewelllivedconcludeswithasmile.blogspot.com/ barryrsilver

@FrankDickinson I’m also excited about Blogger and Livefyre. It terms of white space, have you seen Notepad? I’ve used it as a compiler (and probably should reclaim that habit) and it’s pretty bare bones.
FrankDickinson

@barryrsilver I can tell you – LiveFyre is awesome – has made a great addition to my blog.

I sometimes use Notepad for tinkering with code.
http://expatdoctormom.com/ ExpatDoctorMom

Frank

How funny I read about this awhile ago… and then do you think I used it, NO! And then I forgot how to get it to full screen. Just watched the video. Very neat: one button!

Thanks for the tip!

Rajka
http://writinghappiness.com/ Marya | Writing Happiness

I don’t use toggle screen all that much because you can’t put your headings in there. Correct me if I am wrong, you can’t insert photos in the full screen mode as well. I don’t remember if you can run your spell check or not. I don’t use it as much I would have liked to. Maybe others have better experiences with it?
http://writinghappiness.com/ Marya | Writing Happiness

Scrape that – you can indeed insert photos in there – I just checked.
FrankDickinson

@ExpatDoctorMom Glad you found it – I’m thinking this is going to get some very regular use from me. Let me know how it works for you!

Always good to see you!
http://live-your-love.com/ Brankica

@Marya | Writing Happiness I think you could not do it before and that they added it in the newer version
http://live-your-love.com/ Brankica

@FrankDickinson And to think I am still a Windows girl and don’t plan to convert soon (just cause my lap top is rocking and pretty new)
http://live-your-love.com/ Brankica

@MSchechter Frank, be careful, he is on a crusade of teaching us all “the MSchechter ways” LOL
MSchechter

@Brankica Yep, crusade sounds about right.
FrankDickinson

@Brankica you hang around @MSchechter and me long enough that Windows girl thing could change :=)
FrankDickinson

@Marya | Writing Happiness Yeah – I just write in the full screen mode – save it – exit full screen and then do all my formatting.

It really has helped with the writing and the whole speed of which I can put up a post.
FrankDickinson

@Brankica@MSchechter LOL and he has me hooked on eddie_smith from Practically Efficient – I’m now a professed tool geek!
http://dannybrown.me/ DannyBrown

@FrankDickinson@Brankica You gotta look out for that @MSchechter , before you know it he sucks you into his weird little vortex…
MSchechter

@FrankDickinson@Brankica Just you wait until I suck you into those two Mac Power Users episodes with Merlin Mann…that is when there is really no turning back…
MSchechter

@DannyBrown@FrankDickinson@Brankica He shall be assimilated…
FrankDickinson

@MSchechter@Brankica holy hotdogladies – Merlin Mann – now he’s pullin’ out the big guns!
http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/ Ana @ Increase Web Traffic

I am so attached to my Mac, my husband would have to pry it from me… lol

However, he does get to play with my Ipad…

I’ll check out the toggle screen for my PC; thanks for the tip, Frank.