Library

An essential part of iA Writer, the Library is a feature you will use daily to store, organize and retrieve your documents.

As we developed our apps on all platforms natively, we do our best for the look and feel of the Library in each version to be as intuitive as possible.
On iA Writer for Android, the Library should seem familiar to Android users and looks quite different from our iOS or Windows versions.

Access the Library

You can open the Library from a document in the Editor by:
– tapping the ← blue arrow on the top-left
– swiping from left to right

Once you are in the Library, you can go to a document by selecting the location (Device or cloud storage provider) and then the document from the Document List.

Using the Library

The Library is comprised of the Storage System Menu and the Document List.

Storage System Menu

The Storage System menu is the root menu of the app, which will appear with the title “Library”. From there, you can select a cloud storage provider (like Dropbox) or a local folder (Device) to store your documents.

You can open a pop-up menu (top-right button) and sort your documents by Name, Date or Size, Show/ Hide File Extensions and choose between the File Extensions .md and .txt.

Device

Device is where you can store your documents inside the app*, in case you do not wish to use a cloud-storage provider.
This location is not visible/accessible to your device’s filesystem or other apps. When the app is PIN-protected, the content stored here cannot be accessed without inputting a PIN.
*Uninstalling or deleting iA Writer or clearing app storage (Android settings) will delete any documents stored in the Device! Please transfer or export documents from this Location prior to uninstalling/deleting the app.

When installing iA Writer, you will find a document called “iA Writer for Android Quick Start” in Device. This is a short in-app tutorial to get you started with Writer (main features, Markdown 101…). We suggest you keep it and use it as a cheat sheet until you are familiar with the app.

Dropbox | Google Drive

If you prefer saving your files in the cloud, you can do so directly in iA Writer for Android via Dropbox and Google Drive.
By doing a long press on the menu beside either of them, you can connect and disconnect them to Writer.
– Dropbox: on first use, you will be prompted to enter Dropbox credentials and approve iA Writer access to link your account.
– Google Drive: on first use, you will be prompted to grant access to Contacts to link your associated Google account.

Open From

You can access files and save your documents with other cloud-storage providers besides Dropbox and Google Drive via the Open From menu.
These documents will still be stored in the apps from which they originate but iA Writer provides a link to them so they can be edited in situ.
Open From also allows access to text files from your downloads or internal storage.

Online Collaboration

You can share access to some of your documents for an Online Collaboration. To do so, go directly in the file you wish to share, press the share button (top-right, second to last) and select Collaborate Online

This will create a copy of the file stored in the Online Collaboration folder. From there, you can Share the link to this file or Stop Collaboration.

The Document List

The Document List will show you all the folders and files stored in the selected Location (Dropbox for example). You can:
– tap a folder to display its contents in the list
– tap a document to open it in the Editor
– long-press a document to display a context menu (to rename, delete, move…)
– tap the blue + button (down-right) to create a new file in the current location

Edit Mode

Long-press any document in the Document List to select multiple files or folders. You can then batch-move, transfer* or delete them.
You can also create new folders from this function.
Tap anywhere outside the menu to exit without doing an action.
*Move changes a file’s location within the file hierarchy of one storage medium. Transfer moves it between storages.

Navigating Files

From anywhere in the Document List you can tap the ← blue arrow on the top-left to go back to the Storage System Menu.

You can sort your documents by Name, Date, and Size (currently available for Device only) and in ascending or descending alphabetical order for the other locations.

Finally, a very powerful tool to search for files is Quick Search, you can access it from the 🔍 icon on the top-right of the Document List.