Apr 28, 2020 3 min read Ulysses

Ulysses 19 Brings Material Sheets, Markdown Keywords, and More

Popular writing app Ulysses is releasing the version 19 update and it’s bringing a couple of cool new features. Regular readers will know that Ulysses is my favorite writing app and everything that you read here is written in Ulysses. I have already published a review of Ulysses along with a comparison article of Ulysses and Scrivener. You can read them if you want a deeper understanding of the app. With that said, let’s see all the new features that Ulysses 19 is bringing.

Ulysses 19 New Features

Material Sheets

The first big feature is “Material Sheets”. This is a feature I had been waiting for the past few years. The feature allows you to mark selected texts and notes as “Material”. Once done, Ulysses will not include them in the exported file. It allows users to keep research notes in the same folder as the original manuscript. Previously, I was either keeping my research outside Ulysses or in a special research folder that held the research for all the articles. Now, I can easily create research sub-folders for each project and not worry about them being included in the final product.

Mouse and Trackpad Support for iPadOS

Another new feature is the mouse and trackpad support for iPadOS. One of the biggest benefits of Ulysses taking the subscription route is that we get support for all new OS features quickly. With Ulysses 19, you can use your mouse or touchpad with Ulysses just like you can with the native apps.

Markdown Keywords

The final big new feature is the inclusion of Markdown keywords. Ulysses has had keyword support for a long-time. The only problem was that Ulysses used a native method for storing keywords so you could not use them when you exported a file. With version 19, you can use keywords in Ulysses using the universal “#keyword” format that is recognized by all markdown editors. This goes both ways. Now when you import a text or markdown file that uses keywords, Ulysses will recognize them.

Other Features

Apart from the above three main features, Ulysses is also bringing several enhancements for its Mac, iPad, and iPhone apps. You can embed external folders from locations in the Files app, such as cloud storage providers or Git clients, and edit the contained files with Ulysses. Here is the list of all new features.

New filter criteria such as “has goal“, “has note attachment” or “is material”.
You can now export and import your backups.
WordPress preview now uses the Twenty Twenty theme.
Ghost preview now also uses the latest theme.
New SF Mono editor font.
Improved initial download performance when syncing with Dropbox.
New toilet paper group icon.

While not radical, the features are a nice update. With the release of Ulysses 19, the company is also opening its beta-testing for version 20. According to the company,