Hey folks! I got tired of looking for the perfect writing app that integrated with Ghost so I went and built one and named it em after the best punctuation mark there is. While I’ve been using it exclusively for my entire writing flow for a few weeks, I’m looking for a few beta testers willing to try it out through Apple’s TestFlight and identify any bugs or oddities. There are a handful of TestFlight spots available for Ghost users running iOS or macOS 26.5+.
You can also read more about why and how I built em on my website.
I’m mainly interested in the writing features. What does em offer that Ghost doesn’t? I couldn’t find anything concrete in your linked website article.
em is for people who want to be able to write and edit outside of Ghost, but still publish to a Ghost site. It’s also for people who want to have all of their writing in one place which may include Ghost posts but also things that are just theirs.
OK, I am in and I am starting to test. The only question I have so far is this. Once I finish writing, how do I publish to Ghost? Is there another way apart from manually copying the text and pasting it into my Ghost site?
When I add a folder (called eg “Drafts”), how do I get it to sit inside my Ghost site (alongside “Published”) rather than on its own within em? Drag and drop doesn’t work.
Can I import existing files into my Drafts folder for editing within em? Is there a shortcut or do I have to copy and paste the text as before?
Inside em, I now have two files in my Drafts folder, but I can’t select them. Nothing happens when I click on them. How do I get past this?
I appreciate these questions and they are going to greatly help me build some help docs!
First off, ghost is inherently read only so as to avoid any unintended consequences. There’s a setting to turn that off which will enable publishing to Ghost, editing Ghost posts, etc.
With read only turned off, you can then publish local files to Ghost with the menu option or cmd+shift+p. That brings up the publishing sheet which is similar to what you would see with Ghost. If the post is already in Ghost, it will let you edit those same settings.
There’s no way to change the folders inside of a ghost site. Those three are standard and set. But you can add as many folders to a local iCloud library as you want, and then publish from there. You also cannot drag files into ghost folders, but that is a feature that is worth exploring.
As far as bringing additional folders into em, yes, you can add those as iCloud folders and then edit everything locally and publish the individual files to Ghost when you’re ready. em reads Markdown files (.md) and will work with those files. What files were you trying to bring in?
The files in your drafts that you’re trying to click on, are they in local or Ghost? And if in Ghost, is read only turned on or off?
I have turned off read only in em’s settings. I have written two posts within em. But when I go back to the file pane in em (middle pane of files in my Drafts folder), and click on any file name, nothing happens. I’m sending you a screenshot of what I’m looking at within em. How do I access them for editing / publishing?
It’s not just the Drafts folder. None of the files in my Published folder (i.e. those already published on Ghost) are available for editing locally in em either.
I’m using the Mac version. I can’t submit feedback via TestFlight because clicking Report a Problem opens a Safari window which then freezes.
Can you not investigate from the information I’ve already given you? If I can’t access the files I’ve created locally in em, then there’s no point using the app at all. Nothing in the settings or the help files seems to cover this.
In the menu bar, please go to “About em” and tell me the build number. The TestFlight report would help with the error reports you’re running into. But the build number will help as well. This is not something I’m currently able to reproduce, but knowing the build will help me track down any potential bug.
I’m not getting any error reports. It’s just that I can create a new file in em, and edit it while I’m in writing mode, but as soon as I try to select the file name itself, it’s like clicking on an empty area of screen.
That’s the latest public test build, but not the current in-production build. I’ll do some testing and compile the new test flight build later today or tomorrow.
I see you’ve released the latest build (1892). I tested this and it makes no difference to my problem. The files in the central pane are still not accessible.
Are you trying to find a resolution to this problem?
