My Writing Spot FAQ
Writers are inquisitive and curious by nature. This page contains several of the
more popular questions I've been asked about My Writing Spot. I will
update this page from time to time as more questions come in.
If
you have a question that isn't represented here, feel free to drop me a line at
mywritingspot@gmail.com
If you're looking for help with the iPhone/iPod touch app, you can find a support page here.
Here they are: Your Greatest Hits
- My "uncluttered writing workspace" is too cluttered.
Is there any way to get rid of that stuff on the right?
- Hey! How do I know that you're not reading my work?
- Storing my data in the "cloud" sounds scary. Why would I want to put my
precious writing into something nebulous like a cloud?
- How do I change the order of my documents in the document list?
My "uncluttered writing workspace" is too cluttered.
Is there any way to get rid of that stuff on the right?
Yup. Clicking on the 
Toggle Sidebar button will hide all that stuff. You can also use Ctrl-I, if you
prefer keeping your hands on the keyboard.
To get the sidebar back, just click on the button again, or hit Ctrl-I. Now you see it,
now you don't. Wow - you're a writer AND a magician!
Hey! How do I know that you're not reading my work?
Most websites store data on their own dedicated servers, which means that the people
that run those websites have full access to your data. With My Writing Spot,
your data is stored on Google's App servers, and I as the website developer have
limited access to the data. Basically, I can see information about when you created
or edited your documents, but the actual contents of a document are a black box to me.
I also don't have any access to your account or passwords - all that is managed by
Google.
Honestly, I'd much rather spend my time writing my own masterpiece than digging
through mountains of data to find and attempt to read yours. I'm selfish like that.
Besides, that would be poor form. I'm not going to do that.
Storing my data in the "cloud" sounds scary. Why would I want to put my
precious writing into something nebulous like a cloud?
When talking about "cloud computing," cloud is the term used to describe the
distribution of a website across a large number of computers (servers). Today, most websites rely on
a finite number of servers to control their websites and data. A lot of the time,
a website runs on a single server. If that server goes belly-up, then the website
becomes unavailable and your data could be lost forever.
My Writing Spot runs on Google's App cloud, which means that the
website and the data live on many different servers spread out all over the world. This
has many advantages over the traditional model, two of which are:
- Performance - Since the website is hosted on many servers all over the world, the server that is closest to you is likely the one that will be providing the website, so network latency will be low. Also, having more servers available means that a sudden rush of users won't overwhelm the site. This means that page load times will be as low as possible, and will remain low no matter how many other people are using the site.
- Reliability - If one server dies, the website will remain working - it will simply be provided by a different server in the cloud. Copies of your data also live on many servers, so the chance of data loss is minimized.
For more information, check out this Wikipedia article on cloud computing.
How do I change the order of my documents in the document list?
The documents in the document list are displayed in alphabetical order, so you can
reorder a document simply by changing its name.
When
working on my manuscript, I usually like to use one document per chapter,
so I end up with a list of docs with names like "Bk1Ch01 - A nefarious plan",
"Bk1Ch02 - Still planning", "Bk1Ch03 - Getting tired of planning", etc.
If I want to break chapters down into scenes, then I can add something
like this: "Bk1Ch01Sc01" or something similar.