Basics: Navigating Drafts

The Drafts interface is broken into three primary views: the Draft Editor, the Draft List and Actions.  This post is an overview of the functionality available in each of these views.

Draft Editor

The draft editor is the main face of Drafts, and is the view where your drafts are displayed and edited.

 

 The majority of the area is devoted to your text, the other elements accessible on this screen are:

• Drafts list: This button opens the Draft List for selecting and managing your saved drafts. Swiping to the right anywhere in the editor also displays the list.
• New draft: The "+" button creates a new draft ready for editing. Tap and hold on this button for import and creation options. Details.
• Detail: The (i) button opens a detail view about the current draft.  In this screen you can view draft creation/modification location information, access the draft's version history and view logged actions.
• Character & word counts: This text displays a live updated character and word count for the current draft.
• Actions: The actions button displays the list of actions available to perform on the text of your draft. Swiping to the left anywhere in the editor will also display this list.
• Link mode: Toggle Link mode, which makes phone numbers, email and web links and addresses found in the text into tappable links. Details.
• Arrange mode: Opens the text in arrange mode, which allows re-ordering of lines via drag and drop. Details.
• Theme and font options: The appearance button allows selection of editor fonts, and themes. Details.
• Settings: Configure app settings. 

Draft List

The draft list can be viewed by tapping the "Drafts" button or swiping to the right anywhere in the editor.  Drafts are organized similar to email.  New drafts are created in an inbox.  When you done with them, they can be moved to an archive, or deleted. Drafts you wish to easily access can also be flagged.

To open a draft for editing or actions, tap on it in the list.  For options, swipe right on the draft in the list, or swipe left to expose the delete button.

The options available on a draft are:

• Archive/Restore: If the draft is currently in the inbox, this button will display "Archive" and will move the draft to the archive. If the draft is currently in the archive, it will display "Restore", which will move the draft back into the inbox.
• Flag/Unflag: Toggle the flagged status of the draft.  Flagged drafts appear in both the inbox and archive, which an additional dot to indicate flagged status, or can be viewed on the "Flagged" tab separately.
• Detail (i): Displays detailed information about the draft, such as location, version history and logged actions.

 Additional options available in the draft list include:

• New draft: The "+" will hide the list and go directly to the editor with a new draft.
• Sort: Use the sort button to change the default sort order of the drafts. Drafts can be sorted by last accessed, created or modified dates.
• Search: Use the search field to perform full text searches of your draft folders to locate drafts. 

Actions

The action list displays actions available to perform on drafts. The action list ships with a large set of default actions, but you can also create your own or install ready-to-use actions from the Action Directory.  Actions can do everything from send and email/message, to manipulating text with scripts and many things in-between.

To display actions, tap on the actions button or swipe to the left anywhere in the editor.

The action list can be organized into custom action groups and actions re-ordered in the list by tapping and holding on an action, then dragging it to a new location in the list.

Tap on an action in the list to fire the action on the current draft.

To create a new action, tap the new action ("+") button in the top right, to edit an existing action – or just review it's configuration - swipe right on the action in the list and tap the edit (pen) button. 

To delete an action, swipe left on the action to expose the delete button.