Craft - The BEST Note Taking App for the Apple Ecosystem

craft is a new note-taking application

for the apple ecosystem

it's very similar to notion but it's a

native app that means it just runs

better

on devices and it can store content

offline so

if the service goes down or you don't

have internet you still have access to

your notes

i'm really impressed with how well this

app works and how

frequently the developers are updating

it and constantly adding new features

it is a new app so there's a lot of

things that i would like to see there

that just

aren't there yet and that's okay because

it's new but they're

constantly updating it so i wanted to do

a walkthrough video on all the different

ways you can use it

when you get started with craft i

recommend building out a

loose folder structure for the different

parts of your life

for me this was personal business

research and video projects

when creating a folder you can of course

label it but you can also pick an emoji

to represent that folder

you can drag and drop a folder on top of

another folder to create a subfolder

you can even create subfolders for your

subfolders basically a

sub subfolder at the top there are three

smart folders

all documents will show well all your

documents

starred will show any start documents

you can start a document by long

pressing on it and hitting the star

label inbox will show you any documents

that aren't

filed away into a folder when writing in

a doc you can use the markdown syntax

in order to quickly make things like

headers

bullet points bold or even italic text

this also means you can embed links add

blocks of code

and insert images using markdown if

you're unfamiliar with markdown i will

put a link to a site that explains it in

more detail

markdown is a big part of how i write

i'll show

more about that in a bit when writing

and craft

think of text as blocks each section you

write becomes a block

to start a new section hit enter when

working in a dock you could grab the

handlebar

next to a block and move it around if

you want to move multiple blocks you can

highlight them by using the mouse or

trackpad

then you can move them around when

selecting a block of text you will see

bubbles along the side you can tap on

these to select

multiple blocks in this editing mode

you'll see a toolbar down at the bottom

there are five options here while you

can write in markdown in craft

it will preview out that text for you

but you can also use

rich text style ui to change the format

of that text

in this menu you could change the style

of the text you can also make task lists

toggle lists bullet and number list

there are options to have the selected

text be in a focus or block mode

if you hit the three dot menu there is

even more formatting options

to pick from including fonts one thing i

would like to see is craft gain the

ability

to use third-party fonts or fonts that

aren't native to this app

and then let me set a default font for

all my notes

personally i like mono space fonts the

top

options can all be done with markdown

you could swipe down

on the menu to go back under more you'll

see

more text formatting options but also

card and page

we'll come back to page in just a second

but if you select card it will give you

an

editor here you can design a card for

your content

you have selected once you hit apply

style it will turn each block

into a card with its content stored

in that card the page option does

something similar but not as fancy

this will turn the selected block into

sub pages

one way i use this is for projects i

will have a top level document and then

sub docs for each part writing research

links etc pages and cards are at the

core of using craft to its full

potential

all of the stuff we just went through is

accessible in a lot of different ways

you don't have to just highlight text

and click menus

hit the forward slash key to bring up

different commands

here you can insert a page or a card

start a to-do list

change the text style or color insert

media

change font basically anything you would

do under that toolbar menu i was showing

you

you could do here and if you want to

apply

any sort of formatting to your text you

have already written

just select it and hit the forward slash

key

you can then format it however you want

this

is the shortcut to all of craft but

if you want even more shortcuts there

are keyboard shortcuts of course

for all the commands hit command and

comma to see

all of them a quick aside one thing i

don't really care for about craft is

that they use their own

keyboard shortcut menu and don't use the

system one that's why you have to hit

command

and comma but here you can see all the

keyboard shortcuts

for the app and this is a lot of the

stuff that's in the toolbar or the

forward slash menu

if we go back to the toolbar really

quickly you can see there's still a few

more things in here

in craft you can group blocks together

this will turn them into a page

remember a page is just a document and a

document a way to help keep

all of your notes more organized if you

right click or

long press on the page icon there are a

handful of options on how you can

manipulate it

when writing in a document it's not just

text if you hit the forward slash key

and type an

image there are a few options here

including scanning a document

and inserting a new drawing we can also

import from the photos app and files it

does say

images from files but pdfs are supported

so it's not just traditional image

files when adding a link to a craft

document it will generate

a card for it i quite like this it's not

just a long

unreadable url there's a title image

and even a little blurb but if you're

really attached to the url

it's down at the bottom if you want the

url embedded in text you can use the

standard markdown syntax for that

either way you can click on that link

and it'll open right to whatever it's

linking to

another part of kraft's secret sauce is

linking to other documents

pages and blocks within craft type the

at symbol and you'll see a menu pop up

here you could type in the name of a

document page or even a block of text

once you've found what you want hit

enter and it'll insert a link to that

in your current document if you tap on

that link it'll take you straight to

that piece of text

scroll down on that newly linked to page

and you'll see what's called a back link

this shows all the pages that link to

this current page

and you can tap on one of those to jump

to that page

it's all connected craft is also great

about getting content added to it via

third parties as well craft has a great

share sheet extension for adding content

to specific notes or creating a new one

but it does require a lot of tapping i

made a shortcut that just

lists all my documents then let me

append whatever i want to

to the document i select i do this a lot

with links for research and

apps i want to check out the way i use

drafts has changed slightly since i'm

using craft as well

but i still use it every day as a place

to dump ideas and

other things that pop into my head i'll

link to these in the description below

but on the drafts action directory there

are three

really useful drafts actions for working

with craft

create a new craft note append to a

craft note and prepend to a craft note

they're pretty self-explanatory but once

you get them installed they do need a

bit of configuration so be sure to take

a look at the notes for the action

as i go through what i dumped in drafts

for the day if i decide

i want to keep something i'll send it to

craft using one of these actions

then i will delete the draft so i don't

have the content in multiple places

the way i like to think of these apps is

drafts is for temporary work stuff i'm

going to be publishing quickly

working on something in a specific

moment or something i want to write down

so i don't forget

nothing should be permanent in drafts

craft is a place where i store

long-term notes that i need to keep

around research and projects i'm working

on i found this approach to be

extremely helpful in dealing with

digital clutter

craft isn't just great at importing

information but it's also great at

exporting tap the three dot menu at the

top and then select

share and export at the top there is a

toggle to get a secret link to this

document

there is a ton of collaboration stuff in

craft that we will get to

in a moment but this will let you share

one page with anybody

after tapping that toggle a gear will

appear

this gives you very specific options on

what other people can see

in this document under the secret links

section you'll see the app specific

icons this will send the content you are

sharing

in a compatible format to that app

so if you're sending a to-do list to an

app like things it will take the

document that you're sending over

and turn that into a task and then make

any to-do's in that document

a subtask if you use an app like drafts

it will send over a markdown document

and if you have any subpages in that

document it will pull that content from

them and combine it into

one draft when you send content to a

specific app

it will add a link to it this is a

deep link if you tap on that it will

take you back to the original craft

document

but that's not all if you want to send

content to an app or a service that

isn't

in that list you can use the options

below

this includes basics like email print

pdf or markdown

but there's also a couple of more

options like text bundle

which will take all the images pages and

anything linked to that document

and generate a file with that all

attached

this is great when you're done with a

big project and want to archive that

data

you can also export as a word document

as well

then at the bottom you can get the deep

link to that page

meaning you can store that link in a

different craft page

or in other apps or even make a shortcut

to open right to that specific page

using that deep link i mentioned craft

has

great collaboration features if you tap

on your name

in the top left corner you'll see the

space section

you have your own personal space there's

no collaboration here

unless you send somebody a secret link

to a document

you can create a space and invite other

people to work in that

this works just like your own personal

space but you get real-time

collaboration with others

it's important to note that anything you

put in these collaborative spaces

others will be able to see it so don't

put your bank passwords in it

in my opinion crafts collaboration works

even better than google docs

especially for ipad users for those that

like handwriting like i mentioned you

can insert a new drawing and handwrite

something out

but you can also use scribble and have

it translate handwritten text

to type text if you wish and if you do

really like those

options you should really try out a

paper like paper like is a channel

sponsor and a product that i really like

in fact i have it on both of my ipads

it's a screen protector that adds

texture to the ipad screen

this way you get a little bit of

friction and feedback when using the

apple pencil

a lot like writing with pen and paper i

really like this product and i notice

such a difference when i don't have it

if you're interested in getting started

with craft there's a few things i

recommend focusing on

at first number one is markdown this

will speed up your writing process

number two is the forward slash command

this is how you can quickly edit or add

things like

images pages to do lists or anything

else you want to your document

and lastly is linking remember you can

link any document page or even block

in craft using the at simple and just

typing out what it is

let me know what you guys think about

kraft in the comments below i'm

really hoping to see like some sort of

like grid or spreadsheet ability to be

added to craft

i have some ideas if they do ever add

that i have some ideas on how to use and

i'll make an update to this video but

that that's it for this video thank you

all so much for watching

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