Writing on a phone Published the 2022-08-04 Most tools and services are made to be used from a computer. It can be a local text editor combined with a VCS (e.g. static websites built with git and a generator), or a website allowing you to edit online (e.g. Plume, writefreely, or this blog). But in all those cases, the UI is mostly incompatible with any kind of mobile-oriented development. I used to be okay with this kind of setup, because most of my time where I wanted to focus on writing was spent on my computer (at home, school, in the train, or any place like that). With my disability taking more and more space in my life, I am not able to use this setup anymore. It's hard to stay sitting. It's hard to focus on a screen for too long. It's also hard to use my keyboard (even though my current keyboard is much more adapted than the ones I owned before, it's still hurting at some point). I spend a lot of time in bed, laying down, so using a computer is impractical, but using a phone isn't as hard. After some time trying to find something usable, I now have a hacky but mostly okay-ish setup that works for me. --- The hard part was figuring out how to easily use git on my phone without fiddling with a CLI. I ended up with one anyways because there is no app that properly implements git. I use [Termux](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux/) for the terminal app, with [Termux: Widget](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.termux.widget/) to have simple buttons I can press to handle the basic needs I have with git. ![A set of three tiles sitting on my phone's main screen](/image/working-on-tel-tiles) I use [Material Files](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/me.zhanghai.android.files/) to browse and edit my blog, including edit its articles, or move its files (like photos). Since [my static site generator tool](https://git.aphrodite.dev/ArtemisNeko/cap) includes a decently efficient and perfectly-working image compression and cleaning pipeline (thanks [ImageMagick](https://imagemagick.org) and [Rek's talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfrB4Gvpj8c) and [wiki page](https://kokorobot.ca/site/leanimages.html) for this), I don't need to care about stripping or compressing here. Still, for basic edition, like cropping or reorienting images, I use [the Imagepipe app](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.kaffeemitkoffein.imagepipe) and [Simple Gallery](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.gallery.pro/)'s built-in edition tool, depending on where I'm browsing at the moment. This provides me with three tiles to download and upload changes, and see if there's anything I haven't uploaded yet. ``` $ cat ~/.shortcuts/aphrodite-pull #!/bin/bash cd $HOME/git/aphrodite git pull read $ cat ~/.shortcuts/aphrodite-push #!/bin/bash cd $HOME/git/aphrodite git add . git commit -m "from termux auto script" git push read $ cat ~/.shortcuts/aphrodite-status #!/bin/bash cd $HOME/git/aphrodite git status read ``` This is not the best setup in the world, but after a few weeks of struggling, it's the most decent compromise I could reach.