Distraction-free writing gadget BYOK is adding custom extensions

is the Verge’s weekend editor. He’s covered the tech industry for over 18 years and knows a thing or two about synths.

BYOK is a no-frills, single-purpose gadget that 90 percent of people will find absolutely frivolous. But for those who spend a significant chunk of their lives putting words to virtual paper, there is an obvious allure. Personally, I think it’s at its best when you just stick to the bare minimum, focusing on pure text drafting. Certain users, though, need more. They want BYOK to take notes, they want to use it for writing screenplays, or maybe they want to organize a sprawling novel.

Balancing the wants and needs of these more demanding users has been a challenge that BYOK founder Nick Sjolinder has been trying to figure out how to tackle. The answer he seems to have landed on, is scripts. Rather than clutter BYOK with a ton of features that 80 percent of its users wont touch, or crowd the Studio app with even more formats, the company is planning to implement optional scripts that expand the capabilities of BYOK.

A few examples of the kinds of thing people will be able to create are a screenplay assistant, a character note tool, and a writing analyzer. This could let users highlight text in a document and pull it out as a note or tell them when they’re using the passive voice. It’s still early in development and the scripting features haven’t rolled out publicly, but BYOK is asking for feedback from its users.

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