Support for My Writing Spot on the iPhone™

This is the official support page for the My Writing Spot companion application that is available for the iPhone/iPod Touch. You will find answers to frequently asked questions about the app here.

If you still have questions, or are running into a problem, please send an email to mywritingspot@gmail.com and we'll do our best to get you up and writing quickly.

How do I sync between the web app and the iPhone app?

Here are the steps that you can follow to get the synchronization between the web app and the iPhone set up:

1. Log into the web app at http://www.mywritingspot.com. If this is the first time you're logging in, there will be a single document in your list, named '[new]'. Click on this document and add some text.

2. Save the document. You should be prompted to give the document a name at this point.

3. Once you've saved the document with a new name, close the web app. In general, it is not a good idea to have the web app open when you are trying to sync from the iPhone.

4. Launch the iPhone app. Tap on the Settings button

5. On the Account Settings screen, enter your account information for the same account that you used to log into the web app. If you are using an email account with a non-google domain, you'll need to enter the entire email address into the Login field. Enter your password into the Password field, being careful not to mistype it. The iPhone helps a bit here, showing you each character for a second before hiding it.

6. Once your account settings are OK, tap on the Done button.

7. On the My Documents screen, tap on the sync button (the one with the double arrows). A busy "spinner" should appear for a few seconds while the app syncs. When the sync is complete, you should see the document from the web app in your document list on the phone.

Now that you're set up, you can tap the sync button any time to sync the documents between the web and the iPhone. When you are logged into the web app, you'll also be able to email documents to yourself as a backup, or download them directly to the hard disk. The files are saved as simple text file, so you'll be able to open them in any word processor and go from there.

I'm a peaceful person by nature. Why do I have a document conflict?

If there are changes to both copies of a document (the one on the iPhone/iPod and the one on the web), the app will flag it as being in conflict, because it's not sure which version of the document you want to keep.

If this happens, you can tap the ! icon to play the role of peacemaker and resolve the conflict. The app will allow you to view both versions of the document and choose which one you'd like to keep.

To prevent this from happening in the future, try to maintain only one modified version of each document. If you've made changes to a document on the phone, then try not to make any changes to the copy on the web app until you've performed a sync. Since the web app saves the current document automatically every few minutes, it's best to keep it closed when working on the iPhone.

The following workflow is suggested to avoid such conflicts:
1. When you launch the app, perform a sync. This will ensure that you have the most recent documents on your device.
2. Write write write!
3. When your writing session is over, perform a sync. This will send your updates back to the web.

How do I rename a document?

On the My Documents screen, tap on the Edit button. Then tap on the name of the document that you wish to rename. This will make the name editable, and you will be able to change the document name. Tap the Done button when you are finished.

The next time that you sync the document, the name change will be reflected in the web app.

When are you going to add feature X?

If you've got a feature request, let us know at mywritingspot@gmail.com. If it's a good idea, we'll consider adding it to a future release of the app.