Startup Idea: Intelligent, Semantically Aware Writing Software
I just recently obtained my PhD degree in a discipline that straddles humanities and the natural sciences. I do a lot of writing on my computer on an almost daily basis. One thing I've always wished there existed is more intelligent "semantically aware" writing software for the English language that is suitable for expressing thoughts that are still being developed (rather than thoughts that have already been fully formed, so the only work left is to put it down on paper). I've tried pretty much everything under the sun (even attempted to code my own), but nothing satisfies me.
In a nutshell, the writing software as I imagine it is like an "IDE" for thoughts. Like a code editor, but for natural language, and in rich text (and for god's sake, allow rich text formatting). Here are some examples of more detailed points:
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syntax highlighting for natural language: e.g. (i) parenthetical remarks (those encircled by a pair of parentheses) should have a smaller font, and have say 50% opacity. (ii) Logical particles ('and', 'or', 'if', 'unless') should be highlighted with a special color (customizable) to help the reader parse text quicker (yes, the writing software as I imagine it should take into account the reading experience as well - just like with code editors)
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semantic highlighting, i.e. the ability to apply highlighting (usually custom-designed) rules not based on the formal/syntactic shape of a symbol but based on its content/reference. For example, I've often wanted to highlight all occurrences in a text of words/phrases referring to a given idea. Syntax highlighting is not helpful here because in natural language the same idea can be referred to in very different ways. (Incidentally, as you and your colleague are probably aware, this is a feature that even code editors are usually not equipped with (in newest version of sublime it's built-in but in vscode you need to install an extension))
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the ability to toggle to and from "sentence-by-sentece view". What I mean by this is a view in which each sentence of the text should be on a separate line, to faciliate reading and composing. Most people don't realize the existing convention (where we only typographically separate paragraphs but not sentences) is only because of the need to save paper in the physical printing medium. There's no need to follow that convention in the electronic realm.
These are just some examples. It's possible to generate more of these things by considering your code editor's list of features, and ask: "hmm, would I want such a thing when composing/reading prose?" The fact is that the tool most people use (e.g. Word, Scrivener ...) are not really development tools; they are more like a "formatter" (think a flyer designer, or Photoshop) - they focus on giving you the power to style your content however you like, but does not help you develop the content in the first place. I feel that this area is "ripe for disruption" so to speak. Its potential market is huge (after all you'd be selling the app not to developers, but to more or less the same user base as Word! (well, a slightly smaller user base i guess, because some Word users are no doubt just using it as a "formatter")). I used terms like "rich text syntax highlighting". I haven't found anything.
The way I solve it now is by manually composing all my thoughts etc in freaking HTML. Thus e.g. re: the above-mentioned "sentence-by-sentence" view feature, I would wrap each sentence in a custom tag (), then I would use js to add a hotkey for toggling between "normal view" and "sentence-by-sentence" view. As for "semantic highlighting", my makeshift solution is to use CSS classes. Thus all phrases referring to the same idea would be wrapped in a span of the same class, etc.
It kind of works, but the amount of constantly technical tinkering involved distracts from the writing process.
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