Distraction Free Writing
I am once again browsing r/writerdeck and lamenting my lack of technical skills and budget. I'm also once again entertaining vague dreams of turning my Chromebook into a dedicated writing device by putting Linux on it and having it boot directly into a markdown editor.
The problem is that I have an image of my perfect writing device in my head but don't have the means to achieve it. Here's what I want:
- Instant on. No fucking around with booting and opening programs. I want to press a button and be in a text editor, and for that text editor to be the only thing it runs.
- A full sized keyboard. Probably connected via USB (or even PS2) so I can pick exactly the keyboard I want to type on. I don't want another, vestigial, unused keyboard sitting there not being used like you get when you plug an external board into a laptop.
- Remote screen. None of this clamshell nonsense. I want to be able to situated my monitor exactly where I need it to be without it being attached to my keyboard. It doesn't have to be a big screen because all I'm doing is writing on it. Something close to A5 size would be ideal, and if it's e-ink (with a decent refresh rate) that's even better.
- Long battery life
- Local storage (which doesn't have to be a lot, because we're dealing with text files here), USB connectivity for external storage, maybe the ability to also email files directly from the device but that would be outgoing only, with no ability to read emails or look at an inbox.
- Easily portable. As light as physically possible, can just go in my backpack when I'm out and about.
I suspect I'm asking too much here, but I really wish I knew how to approach making something like this. I know that plugging a keyboard into a tablet achieves largely the same thing but the point is that that's a compromise rather than a tool designed to do Just This One Thing, and I really like tools designed to do one thing and do them well.