Chapter 02 · write
The editor & focus mode
Write mode is where roono is quietest on purpose: a sheet of warm paper, a serif face, and nothing between you and the sentence. This chapter covers what the editor does for you while staying out of the way.
Paper firstThe editor
The editor is serif-first and defaults to Newsreader, with a small set of shipped faces — a system serif, a humanist sans, and IBM Plex Mono — switchable from theAa pill in the title bar. Body text sets at 17px with generous line-height, in a centered column that never stretches past a comfortable measure.
Typewriter scrolling keeps the line you are writing on at a steady height, so your eyes stop chasing the bottom of the window. Under the glass, the editor is a native TextKit 2 view rather than a web-style text box — that is what lets roono draw pin highlights, proposal diffs, and paragraph dimming precisely, and what keeps typing instantaneous on a book-length manuscript.
The quiet scoreboardWord count & goals
The footer shows a live word count. Set a session goal and a small strip fills as you write — a progress mark, not a judgment. Try it: the counter below is live.
A sandboxed copy of the footer strip. Goals are per session; the draft never judges you.
esc-escFocus mode
Press esc then esc — or the ◎ pill — and everything folds away: sidebar, rail, title chrome. The paper goes dark (#211c15), the paragraph you are in stays bright, and the rest of the draft dims to a whisper. The caret turns gold. Pins stay attached to the text but hide. esc brings the room back.
The ferry left before dawn, and the harbor master would not say who was on it.
By the second winter, nobody asked about the ledgers at all. That is when the questions started to matter.
The minute book for March was exactly one page shorter than the index said it should be.
The ferry left before dawn, and the harbor master would not say who was on it.
By the second winter, nobody asked about the ledgers at all. That is when the questions started to matter.▊
The minute book for March was exactly one page shorter than the index said it should be.
Focus mode, in facsimile — one paragraph bright, the rest of the draft at a whisper.
Already nativeThe language desk
Spelling and grammar check as you type, with automatic correction, word completion, smart quotes and dashes, and your system text replacements — the same language machinery every native Mac app has, on in every editor including focus mode.
The mono Language menu in the Write footer opens a task sheet for the selection — or the word at the caret — with the dictionaries and thesauri installed on your Mac, spelling alternatives, learned-word controls, and Apple Translation. Translation replaces text only after you explicitly confirm, and the change flows through the normal save path, so it becomes a Moment like any other edit.
Nowhere. Language assets belong to Apple and the operating system; roono bundles no dictionary of its own, calls no web-dictionary service, and sends no prose to a roono server or agent. Vault text is never exposed to these tools.
Availability varies by macOS version, language, region, active Dictionary sources, and downloaded Translation assets — if a language is missing, add it in System Settings, not in roono.
A blank page can stay a blank page — but when the work grows, theProject Map chapter shows how roono organizes a whole book without turning it into a dashboard.