Drafts is my #2 most used app … behind email, and best follows the theme ‘capture first - process later’. I don’t, however, leverage many actions for text, posting to apps, email, etc. it’s primarily my note pad for everything! I use it for:
… creating initial content for email, text, docs as my ‘capture first’ and then I finalize (then copy/paste)
… I do use 2 actions - Add to List (I have 8 lists) and Day One Journal
… My ‘Add to List’ action includes: 1) All Ideas capture; 2) Daily Journal (manually add one-liner personal diary: date* keyword - content i.e. (04/15* Financial - Submitted taxes) 3) Recall (where is it, what’s the serial number, where is it stored, etc); 4) Project-specific idea/todo capture Blog, Website, Vacation plans, etc. 5) etc. These are collected monthly and then exported to CSV format to store as spreadsheet(s) on computer
… tags are used most often
… with Drafts I find I capture more ‘stuff’ than when I did not have Drafts (and I wonder if all the data I capture is/will be used)
… 95% of captures are via Mac app not mobile app
I would like to …
leverage Actions better … what are your top 3 actions
understand how users, use workspaces - can I use workspaces as folders?
how to export my lists to a spreadsheet format for multi sorts (currently: I copy, paste to Libre Office sheet, convert to spreadsheet form via text to columns, then finally manipulate to a clean form. Note: my individual Drafts require *, -, / symbols to be inserted in text to allow for specific column separations using text to column steps.
know how users assign the categories … ‘Inbox - Flagged - Archive - All’ - (of course “Bob use it as you want” … but I’m interested in others views)
know how others use Drafts for non-word or business productivity … is their a community group for this level of users?
The top 3 for all users based on downloads from the directory might be a good start for you.
i couldn’t honestly tell you which three I use most often on an individual level as I use such a wide range of actions.
Typically a folder would imply something only exists in one folder. Workspaces are a way of filtering your drafts. So yes, you could use it as folders, but they are really so much more.
I have many workspaces set up. I use them to help me filter my drafts in different ways for what i am working on at that time.
That sounds like you could do with a bespoke action. If you need some help coming up with that, I would recommend posting it as a separate request. It is usually best to keep questions as separate topics otherwise you will get a disjointed flow iof discussion that will become really difficualt to follow as different people pitch in at different times on different topics.
Maybe my blog post from a few years back might help on what typical use might look like? It also touches on how folders and workspaces interact.
This forum is THE community for Drafts discussion. There is an official Slack group too, but that is focused on discussions for the beta versions, which you may note are not openly discussed on the forum as that is for the public realease.
I am intrigued as to what you mean by “non-word”. Did you mean “non-work”, or are you considering things like automation management of some sort? After all, “words” are kind of the raison d’être of Drafts, but some people do use it for controls that are not strictly test focused - many talk of Drafts being more like an OS than an appfor those sorts of uses.
leverage Actions better … what are your top 3 actions
“better” is subjective. If a couple of actions suit your needs, don’t feel you are missing out on anything. If, however, you find yourself doing something that requires multiple steps repeatedly, there might be an opportunity to make your life easier by streamlining it with an action.
Or, if you are doing something regularly with text in another app or service, it’s possible an action exists to integrate that into Drafts and give you one less other app to fiddle with. Hard to say what those things might be as they are different for everybody.
understand how users, use workspaces - can I use workspaces as folders?
Think of Workspaces like macros you apply to the draft list to change its settings. Most commonly, people use these as filters to limit the view to only certain tags, but they can also control all the other list options, like sort order, what information is displayed, etc. You say you use the “Add to List” action, do you have a “Lists” workspace? That is a good place to start as a way to quickly show only your list drafts. Perhaps you want to modify that workspace to show your lists in “text” sort order because date modified is less important in that case. Or make it default to showing the “Archive” tab because you keep your lists in the archive, not the inbox. Those are the kind of things workspaces are useful for.
know how users assign the categories … ‘Inbox - Flagged - Archive - All’ - (of course “Bob use it as you want” … but I’m interested in others views)
I use them the same way I do in email, pretty much. Inbox is temporary storage. Archive where everything goes when it’s no longer in active use or has been processed. At any given time I might have 8-12 flagged drafts that are usually drafts I’ve archived, but still want quick reference to…examples might be a “Gift Ideas” note I am referencing often during the holiday season.
I’ve been using Drafts awhile but never as the place where text starts. Since we gained the ability to use wikilinks I created what I really wanted in Drafts which was what I call connected notes. They rely on tags, workspaces, and actions to send some of the content on sometimes to Ulysses or Day One. For my use Drafts works very well for managing my little connected world of notes. Now with the wikilinks and being able to create really cool links like for workspaces I get a lot of use from the app. I did try using Craft and Obsidian. Craft is way too much for me and I am too dense to understand Obsidian. Besides Drafts is fun to use and I really enjoy cruising the new actions and seeing what people contribute. So that’s how I tend to use Drafts. For just about everything where text is concerned. I also push things to Day One and Ulysses to publish to my journal or my ghost blog. Fun times!