Editors, like file managers and browsers, are legion. To carve out a niche for itself an editor needs to have some compelling or unique feature(s). QuiEdit is unique. No, really. It is. If you want to write, unplugged from the distractions of the digital world, it has to be a contender. How?
QuiEdit isn't in the Ubuntu repositories or any of the major distros; so, you'll have to grab a stand-alone binary at the developer's website. There is a Ubuntu/Debian package as well as source code and a PPA for Ubuntu users.
Once installed, starting QuiEdit reveals why it effectively unplugs you from the rest of your computer. Well, a picture paints a thousand words so here it is in all its minimalist glory: it's in the opening image of this article.
It's full screen. You can't resize or minimize it. The only way to get back to other running applications is by ALT+TAB. No fancy GUI, no menus, no buttons but it's your firewall against distraction. Strictly speaking, that's not entirely true. When you start it for the first time it is in full screen mode but CTRL+SHIFT+F will reduce it and you can then minimize it. If you close QuiEdit in either mode it will restart in that mode.
Finding your way around is by that ancient device, the keyboard. So CTRL+H is your first port of call.
Figure 2: All the keystrokes you'll needUse the scroll wheel to view Help. CTRL+H again to clear it. Start writing. When you save your text you'll ge a surprise. Here's a short pasted section of text I saved and then opened with Gedit.
Figure 3: Shocker. It's HTML formattedYes, that's the default save mode. I like this uber-minimal editor but I would also like the ability to save as .txt files too. I contacted the developer who has kindly added it as a feature request on Github. That will complete it nicely.
Comments
Pandoc
If you want to write your stuff in Markdown and then convert to a hoist of other formats (including HTML, LaTeX, PDF) I can only recommend Pandoc.
It can also convert from HTML into any other format, so you can stil use QuiEdit ;)
Other options
This looks quite a lot like PyRoom.
I use Focuswriter (http://gottcode.org/focuswriter) for this, write all my articles in it - it supports basic formatting and will export to RTF and ODT.
Whats wrong with the command line?
Try going to another virtual terminal (CTRL+ALT+F2), then login, then try one of these commands:
nano
vim
emacs
ed
There you go, a distraction free writer.