#On Beta editor so I could add the 'labels' thing - I can re-do it in Legacy if you'd rather :p

[therapardalis]

[ @resurrectedfiles from here.]

Marc grabbed the phone before Steven and Jake could stop him. He dialed Thera's number and he waited for her to answer. "Don't hang up. Its me...I wanted to-you're very pretty. I wish I could fu-kiss you. I want us to be us. Be together like other couples." Marc slurred his words.

The caller ID was her first clue. But then … “Marc - ?” The voice sounded like him, the cadence she was used to picking out. But what he was saying - first it was more like something she’d expect from Jake, and second …

Second, whichever alter it was her eyebrows were climbing sky-high. She was going to have to unpack this properly when she had the chance, but as the surprise faded her good sense caught up to something else. “Marc, honey, how much have you had to drink?”

[bloggerjoedoe]

One of my favorite times every year is right around the beginning of August. Not because of the weather – summer where I live – but rather it’s when beta season is in full swing. Apps are putting polish on features, the full update scope is set, and everything starts to feel stable. And there’s nothing better to me than a new Drafts update to coincide with new OS features, bringing new uses of the app to my répertoire.

With the release of iOS and iPadOS 14 this year, it might seem on the surface that the updates to most apps are minimal. Widgets are the hot new feature of the operating systems, along with the visual changes of macOS Big Sur. While most apps will benefit from these changes, the productivity category will be greatly helped. And like Shortcuts, Scriptable, and others, Drafts benefits greatly from these new changes. It might take you a bit of time to see how this will fit your use cases, but once you give that some thought, it will open up new opportunities for you to use the app.

Widgets in iOS 14

By far the largest and most impactful update across all platforms is the introduction of widgets. I won’t bury the lede: the Drafts widgets have transformed the way I interact with Drafts on my devices. This has given me the opportunity to re-think how I’ve approached my Home Screens on my iPhone 11 Pro and iPad Pro 11”. While the limitations Apple’s imposed on this first Home Screen implementation of widgets isn’t ideal, Drafts is the epitome of what third-party productivity widgets should be on iOS and iPadOS 14.

Five good options to choose from. Nice.

Drafts has two types of widget styles: grid and list. Both widget styles are customizable for theme and the use of tint color, meaning the color of the workspace or action used. The other customizations for the widgets are based on which type you use. To edit the widgets, tap and hold on one to reveal a small popover menu with options to edit the widget, the Home Screen, or remove the widget. Stacks add the option to edit the stack or remove it.

The list widget style comes in medium and large sizes. This widget style shows you the drafts list for whichever item you choose: you have your choice of the Inbox – your unfiltered view of Drafts – or any workspace you choose, which is customized in the widget settings. You can also specify which folder within that workspace you’d like to show. Using the Inbox will show your most recent drafts; tapping on an individual draft will send you right into the draft with the editor loaded and ready to type. This is ideal when you’re moving back and forth between another app and the Home Screen. While it’s not the widget I use, it’s there for those who want it. If Apple changes some of the interaction models, I would love to see a widget that contains a specific draft, such as a grocery list, where I could interact and check off items. I’m not going to hold my breath on that one, however.

There are plenty of combinations to create for an all-Drafts Home Screen.

The grid style comes in small, medium, and large sizes. Each of the up to 16 elements in the widget are customizable in three types: built-in actions, opening workspaces, or running actions. The small widget only allows for a single button: this is a limitation by Apple, and one I cannot understand at all. You need to look no further than Drafts or even Apple’s own Shortcuts app to understand the utility that would be added with multiple buttons. Given this limitation, I’m not using this option at all on my Home Screen; the only use case I currently could imagine for it is a launcher for a workspace, but I’m not devoting that much screen real estate to a single launcher. The medium and large widgets provide 8 and 16 buttons, respectively. Within the widget editor, you can select or search for the workspace or action name to make it your own; you can also reorder the elements, which I’ve done based on one-handed reach to the tap target. Having this many available actions and customizations opens the door to multiple possibilities.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I was going to use the widgets. I could launch Drafts from my dock just fine and jump into a workspace from there. But as I started customizing and tinkering with the possibilities, it became clear that this is a whole new interaction model. Over the course of the summer betas, it’s completely changed my use of the app and done something I didn’t think would ever happen: Drafts is no longer in my dock. This isn’t because the app has lost its usefulness, rather it’s actually increased in versatility so much through the widget that I no longer need it elsewhere.1

Starting with my iPhone, I played around with using the large Drafts widgets, but there was an information density with other apps like GoodTask and CARROT Weather that I missed having. So I’m using stacked medium grid widgets in the bottom, which affords me 16 total customizable targets. I have the widgets stacked in a particular order, which I’ll go through in reverse. The second widget has quick access to my most used workspaces: General, Journal, Writing, and Work. I also have quick search and a New in Workspace action to create a draft with specific tags already applied. The remaining two buttons are the same between the widgets, which I’ll explain in a moment.

My current Drafts widgets on my Home Screen.

The first widget in the stack is all about action. It may take a while to get what you need for these types of actions, but where I started was using some existing actions that fit well. I have the built-in quick search and new draft actions for quick access; there is also an “Empty” space, which just opens Drafts itself; I would have liked to have a label on it like the Drafts logo, but we’ll see if something like that gets added in the future.

My Add Item to Grocery action pops up a prompt which allows for a single entry into my grocery list, without the need for creating a draft to do it; I often use Siri for this, however there are times where I don’t want to speak and need to quickly enter it. In my original review of Drafts, I created a massive text modifier action; I couldn’t use it in the same way for the widget. Instead, I modified it and created a new action which grabs the clipboard text, applies the selected modifier, then places that modified text back into the clipboard. Again, this does not create a draft when doing this and doesn’t clog up my workspaces more.

I use GoodTask because of its Reminders integration, which I leverage in Drafts as well. Most of my task entry occurs through Drafts. With that in mind, I started to see some developers publishing their quick add shortcuts to their widgets, and decided to do the same here with Drafts. I had the first action mostly complete before: this action already existed, though I’ve updated it since and modified it slightly. This displays a prompt, gets the task title and sets a date for the reminder; you can optionally set an alarm, which really just puts the time in for the date, otherwise it’s an all-day reminder. There are other times I just want to add something to the inbox. I took the previous action and simplified it even more, creating a new one which just adds a single reminder to the inbox. Both of these work quickly for entry, and are right there when I pick up my phone, making them easily accessible.

The final action that I’ve created (for now) is for tweeting. This started because I wanted a way to quickly write a tweet without opening up Twitter and getting sucked into the news of the day. I wanted to have the option to tweet it straight away, but there are many times when I’ll want to compose a tweet and save it to reflect on whether or not I should even post it. This gave way to creating a tweet action which provides a prompt and the option to tweet, save, or cancel and delete it forever. But in version 21 of Drafts, support was added for advanced HTML previews. These interfaces are completely customizable to whatever the user needs. This fancier HTML version still needed the same options of tweet, save, and cancel, but I also wanted to have a large space for composing and a character counter to count down from 256; when you go over that, it pops up an error in the prompt window itself, and shows you that you’re out of characters. It combines some of the elements in Twitter’s own compose window with respect to text entry. I’m sure someone with more coding capabilities could create an even better version, but this is perfect for what I need.

I much prefer tweeting in a more fancy way.

When considering the actions you want to include in your widget, you may want to start by looking at some of your most frequent actions which involve creating new drafts. Packing lists, task management templates, and related drafts might be great use cases for you. I think the little utility actions can be so useful to start with. As you begin thinking of what’s most important, you may find yourself using one or more widgets in a stack to gain additional levels of access or to separate functions. The great thing about iOS 14’s widgets, and Drafts in general, is the level of customization a user can apply to their own working needs.

My only gripe with using actions through widgets again resides with Apple: there isn’t an API available to automatically exit your app to the Home Screen. The only real way to do this is to purposely crash the app. This isn’t ideal for Drafts because of the iCloud syncing in the background. I wish Apple would provide this option to developers so I could go into the app, do a quick action, then pop back to the Home Screen immediately. In lieu of this, I’ve turned on the triple Back Tap setting found in Settings ⇾ Accessibility ⇾ Touch ⇾ Back Tap. After my action is run, I can triple tap the back of my phone to go back to the Home Screen. This feels like such a hack that could be avoided, and is something that Apple should fix in the future.

Overall, widgets are a fantastic addition to all of the OS updates, and my second favorite feature added this year. With the new HTML previews in Drafts, I can see a whole new level of action being created for the app’s widgets by providing more customizable and better-looking interactive models. With Drafts and many other apps adopting widgets and gaining new ideas, I can see the feature getting better over time and causing everyone to re-think their daily interactions.

Scribble with Drafts

My personal favorite new implementation in this release, which is not a unique feature of Drafts itself, is Scribble. This feature has been an incredible addition to the way in which I approach my iPad use. When I saw it announced back in June I immediately thought it was the most important update for iPadOS, and that it would completely change not only how but where I would use my device. A few months later my suspicions have been confirmed: Scribble has changed the iPad for me in so many ways, and by far the most with Drafts.

So why use Scribble in a text editor? Let me start with my primary use cases: capture, writing, journaling, and note taking. Capture is the most important. As I sit and consume content on my devices, a thought will often pop into my head. If I’m already using the Pencil as the main input device, I can simply bring Drafts into view via Slide Over and start writing. And because Scribble works anywhere you can enter text, this works in prompt steps also. I can capture ideas, tasks, and more.

For both writing and journaling, two use cases for which I use Drafts exclusively, I’ve found myself sitting on the couch or in a chair with my coffee in the morning, writing more intentionally and better processing my thoughts. I start my journal entries with Shortcuts, and end with a pre-filled entry in my journal workspace. I’ve always loved the feeling of writing in Drafts, but I now feel that even more tangibly writing with the Apple Pencil. I plan on taking this new approach in my writing going forward.

The one place where I think Scribble has impacted me the most has been note taking. When you couple Scribble with the other available features of Drafts, it makes the whole concept of organization easier. Version 20 introduced wiki-style links to Drafts. This ability to place [[double brackets]] around text to then create a new draft with that title was already intriguing. When everything at work got busier again, I found myself in need of a system that I could manage. Because I can’t show you my actual work, I’m going to pretend that I work and participate in everything related to MacStories and its related properties, for the purposes of illustration.

There’s a lot going on in the MacStories Universe.

I started by writing down my areas of responsibility into a draft titled ‘MacStories Wiki.’ Again, not typing, but physically writing. Once that was complete, I added the brackets with my Pencil to create a new draft for each area. This allowed me to keep it all organized, with deep links back and forth. I created two actions, one for capturing a line to my ‘Current Tasks’ draft as a task, and the other for deleting the line completely. I can now fluidly move through my various drafts, capturing items in the proper places, and moving items over as tasks when necessary; when the task is complete, I simply delete the item or copy/paste into my ‘Completed Tasks’ draft to keep it handy for the end of the year activities. I have all of these notes in my ‘Work’ workspace, with the main drafts in the inbox, and all of the sub-drafts flagged ‘not visible.’ Doing things in this way makes everything visually cleaner, and helps me navigate the app more quickly with a few taps.

Creating links to navigate between drafts is made better by Scribble.

You could apply the same strategy to other use cases: whether it’s notes for a class or preparing to write a novel, you can set everything up using your Pencil and a single draft. With the improvements to this version of Drafts surrounding this style of linking, you can even create a wiki-style link to a specific section of a draft by using [[draft title/section name]] to navigate directly to that point in larger drafts. I’ve found that brainstorming in this way causes my brain to think more critically of what’s important. I don’t have to think about how to tie it all together, I simply write it all out and modify it later to include the deep-linking features as needed.

I know that I can do this all by typing, but there is an irreplaceable feeling provided to me by working in this way. My notes have been better and more concise. My journaling has been raw, emotional, and liberating. My writing has been more considered. I feel like I’m using different muscles to get things accomplished, but with better results. If you need any proof of how great Scribble works in Drafts, this entire section of my review has been written, links and all, using nothing but the Apple Pencil.

Everything Else

Drafts 22 also packs visual changes which mimic the design aesthetics of iOS and iPadOS 14. For iOS and iPadOS, the app gets refreshed menus, rounding the menu item corners and creating separation with color changes. For macOS, the app has been redone to accept the big change within Big Sur.2 There is a new Vivid Dark theme, my new favorite and featured throughout this review, which pops a bit more color into the system. The changes here are subtle, but help it fit into the broader visuals of the system updates.

Workspaces get a new filter for dates. Within the workspace filter settings, you can select start and end dates for filtering your drafts. In the example published with the version 22 release notes, you can use the Today in Review action which assembles your drafts into a temporary workspace and shows your created and modified drafts in a preview window, along with pertinent information such as character counts, links to open each draft, and their tags. You could modify this preview more to show other aspects if you have the right coding skills. I think that given some time, this will open up some opportunities for me to use Drafts when combined with other features in a whole new way. But for now I’m still parsing through the possibilities of what I might be able to do in the future.

Actions get some nice updates as well. Additional modifier keys are now available to provide more power at your fingertips when connected to an external keyboard. You can now use more modifier keys to kick off actions, notably the arrow keys, in conjunction with other key presses to kick off your actions.

Additional modifier keys give you more power with an external keyboard.

Have you ever been developing an action, made a mistake, and have to redo the entire thing? I know I’ve done this a lot. With action versioning, this is a thing of the past. At the bottom of the edit action window, there is a new button which loads the versioning page. As you are developing an action, you can create a new version which can be restored later. In developing actions for this review, I used this extensively to make sure that I could go back to the last “good” version I had where everything worked. As I added new elements to some of them, things would break, and I would have to revert back. When I did this before, I would need to create a duplicate action or – more often than not – scrap it and start over. This is a perfect addition for those that develop actions for Drafts.

Action versioning is perfect for action creation.

I would love to see this feature further extended to include versioning with the Action Directory. I can envision a future where I upload different versions of the same action to incorporate new features of each OS release, that way users who don’t upgrade immediately can still use the action as it once was. The current system does not allow for that, and this would be a welcome change for action sharing.

I absolutely love how the new features added to Drafts have yet again transformed the way I work with the app. Every update brings more capability and refinement, providing more power than ever. Widgets bring quicker access and greater functionality from the Home Screen. The Apple Pencil is yet another input device that can complement or augment your experience.

Drafts is the perfect example of an app that incorporates the best elements of new releases, providing users new opportunities to benefit from the app in the process.

At least for my iPhone. My iPad does retain the app icon, but only because I do need multitasking and Apple has inexplicably left the Home Screen customization option off of iPadOS 14. ↩︎

Most of you will know that I’m 99% iOS and iPadOS only. I don’t use the Mac, so I don’t always cover it in detail. Know that for this release, the main (and extensive) update for the Mac is the visual refresh for Big Sur; all of the other updates to follow with the exception of one are all available for macOS as well. ↩︎

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[naomi-l-tiessen-blog]

Things You Should Know Before Becoming a Writer

 Hellllllloooo everybody ~

Happy Thursday Blogday!

I had a rude awakening the other day. After wasting a great many hour on The Vlog That Never Was (see post, “The Adventure Continues...”), it occurred to me that 1) life is unfair, 2) it turns out that yes, I am indeed technologically challenged, and 3) there was so much to the writing world that I didn’t know and OH LORD was I unprepared. And as I sat slumped in front of my computer, arms clenched across my chest, my mouth twisted into a perma-frown, I felt cheated...how come no one told me about these things or, at the very least, gave me a heads up? What was I getting myself into? In my defense, it’s not like writing comes with some sort of warning/disclaimer label, but still...I was way over my head. 

Sound familiar?

Well, have no fear! I’ve got your back! Today’s blog is about 9 things you should probably take into account before diving head first into the Writer Pool. I imagine that there are many more out there, but these were the heavier-duty ones that you’ll, more often than not, encounter.  

1) You need to whore yourself to the social media world. For reals. And at first it’s going to be scary, but just do baby steps, and you’ll be fine. I started out with Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr, and I’m still alive. Really, it shouldn’t even be scary! It’s not like the world is asking you to leave your house and socialize with real people. On the internet, the worst thing that can happen is an invasion of trolls. 

But honestly, the social media world is horribly important for a writer. How else will we get our name out there, market our book, promote ourselves, and seduce people with our awkwardness? I don’t know about you, but I had this really weird delusion that 1) I wouldn’t have to market myself until the publication day of my book, and 2) even if I didn’t market myself, people would still be interested in my book. Well, true, people MIGHT be interested, but chances of people even finding your book in the first place will be a hell of a lot slimmer if you don’t promote your stuff. I LITERALLY HAD NO IDEA that I had to put in promotional work before my book was even done. God, was I naive, and dumb, but mostly naive. 

And on that note….

2) Hashtags are your friends. Seriously. Use the shit out of them. They are a great way of connecting with other people with similar interests, or finding fellow writers, or potential beta readers and critique partners. I used to hate jumping on my Facebook and seeing people posting a single picture with, no joke, about 30-40 hashtags after it. But now that I’m actively on social media, I totally get it. Granted, the chicks that drowned my FB feed were using really dumb hashtags like “hair,” .... yes...yes you do have hair...good observation. Having said that, there are some really great hashtags out there: #WritingCommunity, #WritersofInstagram, #AmWriting, #NewWriter, to name a few. Don’t be afraid to test these waters and try some out. 

3) You need to be technologically savvy. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. THIS. Honestly, I need a lesson on computers. I have no idea how to create a website, or purchase a domain name. I don’t know the first thing about creating a vlog and posting it on my YouTube channel. I haven’t a clue how to edit videos, and how to format my word documents. And HOW the FUCK do I market my book when IT’S NOT EVEN DONE!? 

Word, Robb Stark, word.

4) You [sometimes] can’t just publish a book and immediately quit your day job. This might not be a shocker to some, but I was really delusional when I first started writing. I figured that as soon as I published my first novel, I could immediately resign from my position at the hospital and become a full-time writer. Well, as nice as that would be, it’s not really realistic, especially when you are relying on your day job for financial stability. The first authors convention I went to, every single author on the panel still had a day job, and to be honest, it blew my mind. I was like, “are...are they doing that on purpose?” Unfortunately, I never got a chance to have a 1-on-1 chat with any of them, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that none of them seemed really driven to become a full-time writer. I mean....isn’t that the point for some? It is for me! The idea of being a nurse longer than I need to be is freaking torture, and I want to jump off that ship as soon as possible. But it’s going to take time. I need to remind myself that every day. Unless you are the next Tolkien, chances are it might take some time getting your feet off the ground. And that’s ok! It’s not a race, after all. Primarily, you need to look out for you, even if that means staying with your dead-end job in order to pay the bills. Don’t fret, just keep working by day, writing by night, and conniving during your sleep. Mind you, some people HAVE managed to accomplish the act of quitting their day job, so its not altogether impossible. And really, who doesn’t love a good challenge? 

5) It’s a long ass process. The writing itself can take years. YEARS. I started HBE back in April of 2014, and it’s STILL not done. And when I finally get around to finishing it, I’ll have the joys of editing, re-writes (and re-writes, and re-writes), and recruiting beta readers and critique partners. Depending on how many rounds of betas I want to do, not to mention how long they take to read my work, this can add on several more months to my writing timeline. Then there’s the professional editing. Not only are professional editors sometimes hard to hire in a timely manner, their process of going through your work can take large chunks of time. For this reason, it’s best to look into hiring one about 3-4 months before you are actually ready for them to cover your manuscript in red ink. And depending on which route you take for publishing, you’re going to have to deal with query letters (and waiting), submissions (and waiting), and contracts (and potentially more waiting). Bottom line: it’s not exactly an overnight sort of ordeal. 

6) It can be a bit pricey. Now, this might not apply to everyone (lucky buggers), but it definitely applies to moi, and I know that, for the most part, writers aren’t rich bastards. There are the typical expenses: hiring a professional editor, a book cover artist, and self-publishing. Granted, these are things that TECHNICALLY don’t have to be pricey, but in the long run, you might suffer because you weren’t willing to shill out another dollar. It’s sort of like a tattoo...if you pay for a $50 lion, you’re going to get a $50 lion. Trust me...that shit ain’t pretty.

If you are cheap when it comes to things like the cover and the editing, you’re going to end up with a book that doesn’t sell as well as you’d like. Talk about a bummer. 

Then there are the hidden expenses. These include things like: equipment to vlog (camera, microphone, not to mention an editing program), throwing giveaways for your followers, purchasing a domain name for a website, and *obviously* a computer to write on (unless you like doing long-hand...weirdo...). And while some of these aren’t exactly essential, they are still fairly noteworthy to take into consideration, lest you get the surprise of your life when it’s time to front the writing bill. 

7) Nothing is going to happen overnight. You can’t post your first blog before bedtime and expect to wake up the next morning a brand new internet sensation. You’re setting yourself up for failure and disappointment if you do this. It can take months before you scrounge up even the littlest following, and even if that following is your proud mother, sister, and loyal friend, that’s ok! Use this time to find your writing voice, what you want your theme to be (if you want one at all), and how you want to portray yourself on the internet (whether it’s through blogs, or vlogs, or Twitter, or Instagram, etc). Figure out who your target audience is, and work towards reaching out to them. 

One thing that will help your cause that you should definitely consider is the art of consistency. Post often, whether it’s little writer updates, excerpts from your WIP, or pictures of your work station. Have a playlist for one of your characters? Share it with the world! Have a character inspiration aesthetic? Post that shit! The things you post don’t always have to be writer-oriented, as well. Post things about your fur babies, or what you had for dinner, or about the epic dance battle you just held in your living room. And if you choose to jump into the blogging realm, make sure to pick a day to post, and stick with it. Obviously if that day stops working out for you (especially if you have shift work and don’t have much control over your schedule), let your readers know. But if you skip blogging for weeks at a time, sporadically posting here and there...well...no one likes a flaky blogger. That shit ain’t cool, and leaves everyone disappointed.       

8) Research will be needed. A lot of it. *Eye twitch*. Ok, if you’re a writer, you’re going to know that saying, “write what you know.” I’m going to call bull shit on that one. If we merely wrote what we knew, most of us would be writing about high school, and going to work, and completely mundane things. Uh, hello!? Writing is meant to be an escape from all that, right? I already have to go through the torture of 12 hour shifts being a nurse...what makes you think I want to write about it too? So, unless you live a wicked double life or something, chances are your life and what you know isn’t exactly writing material (no offence). If we simply wrote what we knew, how would we discover the elves of Rivendell, or the witches and wizards of Hogwarts? How would we write about mermaids, and dragons, and zombies, and vampires? Does that mean that I, a female, never get to write about men? Ever? Ok, ok, that’s a fierce exaggeration, but you get the point. 

However, on the flip-side, if you wake up one morning and are suddenly itching to write about a gay vampire during the American Civil War, or about a neurosurgeon that’s also a zombie, or about a police officer suspected of the murder of well-known celebrity, you might want to consider doing some research. If you don’t, chances are, you might come across as ignorant, not to mention offend some people. However, research isn’t simply for the writing process. What genre are you writing in? Do you know a lot about it? What about POV’s? Past vs Present Tense? If you aren’t well-educated on even these types of things, people are going to notice. Joy.

9) Writing isn’t the only *hard* part…and screw anyone that says “writing is fun! And easy!!” ….cue hardcore eye roll.

Seriously, anyone that says this is a freaking liar. Yes, writing is fun, but not ALL the TIME. There are times where it’s hard as fuck, where you have been suffering from Writer’s Block for what seems like an indefinite amount of time, where writing is literally the last thing you want to do. There are times you are going to think you aren’t good enough, or smart enough, or brave enough to write an entire novel, let alone publish it.  You’re going to want to quit a million times, and some days, it’s going to be really hard finding a single reason to keep going. 

And not only that, if you had the expectation that things would get easier after your manuscript is complete...boy, you are in for a rude awakening. After finishing your novel, you’ll have to deal with the repetitive process of editing and drafts till you want to punch yourself in the face. Then there’s the critique partners, beta readers, professional editors, cover designers, agents, contracts, and publishers. Honestly, that’s just to name a few obstacles; I could keep going. You’re going to have to deal with criticism, receiving positive and negative feedback, and not to mention trolls (who have no souls and like making people cry for fun). Depending on which route you take to publish your work, you might lose some control of your novel baby, and won’t get much of a say as you’d like.      

Are we having fun yet??

And there you have it! I hope that these pointers are as enlightening for you as they were for me, and that perhaps I can save you some grief, and hoarse vocal chords (from…you know…screaming with consuming frustration into the abyss). Also, keep in mind that writing is still a great adventure, and honestly, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it. But it’s not. It’s hella hard, and takes a special breed of human to be up for the challenge. I applaud you, human! Go you!

And yes, I’m still hoping to throw a vlog out there one of these days :)

With that said, I post new blogs every Thursday, and if there is anything you’d like me to discuss, feel free to message me on here, or tweet me @ScarletteStone

Until next time,

Happy Writing!

[mrrolandtfranco]

Back 2 School: Vector Tiles in Azimuthal? Check it…

This post comes courtesy of cartographer Jonah Adkins, from Newport News, Virginia. Jonah is a GIS alchemist, routinely crafting beautiful and insightful work, and sharing his process.

…

Vector tiles in Azimuthal Equal Area?? NO WAY!

Way

I’ve been learning all the new patterns in ArcGIS Pro since it’s early beta days. Like many of you, I’ve been using ArcMap for years (since 8.0!) and was skeptical about making the switch to ArcGIS Pro. I can tell you now after about 2 years of use, it’s my go-to for cartographic creations. I’ve used Pro for several projects, putting it through the carto-wringer doing forced 3d perspective on a 2d page with the Rainfall Cubes map, and creating a Legend of Zelda inspired basemap called Breath of the World. For my latest project, I was going Back to School.

A few years ago, while I was at a state GIS conference, I used some free time to peruse the shops in Downtown Charlottesville, Virginia. I came across a vintage store and absolutely fell in an old Nystrom classroom pull down map hung up on the wall. I instantly purchased it, then I did what any normal cartographer would do – re make it!

Fast-forward to this past month. I was eager to generate some non-Mercator vector tiles using Pro. My Back to School pulldown map was the perfect inspiration to try this out on because of its Azimuthal Equal Area Projection of a North America-centric view, and of course it’s retro sweetness.

Resources

For my digital re-creation, I used two main datasets: Natural Earth data and a polygonized version of ETOPO 1 raster data.

Styling

With ArcGIS Pro open, the data was added and styled using the pull down map as my style guide. I took a high-resolution picture that I brought into my Mac and used the color-dropper tool to help derive those beautiful color combinations of the original. Elevations were grouped according to the original map as well. Below are the hex values used:

#8C503C — Greater than 3,000m

#D25A3C — 1,500m

#D2824B — 600m

#ECC465 — 300m

#6EA07D — 150m

#4B825A — 0

#BEC8D7 — Less than 200m

#4BAFD7 — Less than 6,000m

#0A4B64 — Greater than 6,000m

With those settings and colors applied you can feel the dry gum under the desk and smell the chalk dust. It’s gorgeous…and we could just call it day there. But why?

Some reference would be nice. The original map uses simple red symbols (circles, squares, and triangles) to denote population hierarchy with labels to the left or right of the symbol. The Natural Earth Populated Places (ne_50m_populated_places) layer contains points with population numbers attributed that we can use to replicate the map’s style. I added a pink (1, -1) offset shadow to make them pop just a bit in my version.

Along with some State and Country labels the map uses semi-transparent lines to show boundaries. These are default dashed lines with a thick background according to boundary type. I use a creamier red (#F03250) for these.

Probably one of my favorite features is the use of geographic lines  and graticules – it’s a rare occasion to put the Tropic of Capricorn on a map these days. I used ne_50m_geographic_lines and ne_50m_graticules_10, both from the Natural Earth 50m Physical dataset.

Projection

With the labeling properties buttoned up, we’re ready to get the full effect of this pull-down map style: changing the projection!

We’re going to edit the projection properties just a bit, to center the projection over North America. In the map properties, coordinate system, and select North Pole Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area: 102017, then right click the projection and choose “copy and modify”. More on this sort of thing here. All that’s changed here is the Central Meridian (-96) and Latitude of Origin (40).

It’s too gorgeous to keep to ourselves; we want to share this with the world…

Tile Index

We could make some raster tiles, but why do that when vector tiles can snap into existence on demand, on the client-side? So let’s bake some vector tiles!

First, we need to create a vector tile index—this will look at our data, and chop it up appropriately for each zoom (Geoprocessing > Create Vector Tile Index) so tiles are created efficiently and quickly. The mesh actually looks pretty cool.

The important thing to note here is to un-check the “Package for ArcGIS Online”. This will ensure we create tiles in our lovely custom azimuthal coordinate system, rather than in typical web Mercator.

And that’s it—we’re ready to share it (Share > Publish Web Layer). Fill out the Name, Summary, and tags, and be sure to check “Vector Tiles” because we are baking tiles and a baker’s gonna bake

Tile Baking

Next, switch to the configuration tab.  We want to use the tiling scheme that we generated with the tile index polygons. I’d saved mine locally, so I just pointed the dialog to it. Then adjust the levels of detail to tell it how deeply this tile bake-off digs. I only styled down to zoom level 6, but you can go as low as your styling allows, just be mindful of your output vector tile package size. Vectors are much more efficient than raster tiles, but things can still get big in a hurry. Select the tile index polygons we just created, to inform the tile chopping.

The last step is to analyze the map; as long as we are error free (we are :>) we can publish to ArcGIS Online.

Optional Post-Production

You may want to adjust the label properties of your vector tiles in ArcGIS Online in what I call “Post-Production”. At times there can be wrinkles with advanced label settings. You can easily fix this by creating a copy of your published vector tile style – there’s a great how-to by Deane Kensok on this exact topic. Then you can use a vector tile style editor like Vector Basemap Style Editor to edit your tiles.

To adjust label text-wrapping, select your layer in the right panel of the Vector Basemap Style Editor’s layout section and add the two following properties:

text-max-width: 5

text-line-height: 0.9

You may want to play with those settings a bit, depending on your font sizes. Refer to the full vector tile style specification for further information—specifically for any symbol or text setting.

And now we’re really done! I had a lot of fun recreating this nostalgic style—and that was the only reason: FOR FUN!!!!!!!!!!

Check out Back 2 School in all its equal area glory here.

Jonah Adkins @jonahadkins

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