Text editors. To some people, they can be as exciting as they sound, as in "not very." But for writers, editors, software developers, web designers, bloggers, and anyone else who deals with large quantities of text or code, a great text editor is probably the most-used application on their Mac. FoldingText is a brand-new text editor from Hog Bay Software, maker of WriteRoom & TaskPaper. 

Opening a FoldingText document presents you with a Welcome document that quickly walks you through the app's features. It's handy, but once you learn how to use it, you'll want to turn it off — which required a Terminal command in version 1.0, although as of version 1.1, the welcome text only shows on the first launch. 

FoldingText uses a tweaked subset of Markdown, a simple set of codes for formatting text. Single asterisks surrounding text will italicize it, for example, while double asterisks create bold formatting. But the most useful feature of FoldingText is the actual folding. 

Starting a line with a # creates a section heading. Sections can be expanded or collapsed by clicking on the hash mark, easing document navigation. Better yet, you can nest headings using multiple hash marks, allowing for more granular organization of your text, and turning FoldingText into a powerful outliner. Since it's all plain-text, re-using your FoldingText documents in other applications is easy, and you're not locked into any proprietary formats.

For long documents, folding is insanely useful, but it's only scratching the surface of FoldingText's capabilities. Invoking To Do mode by appending .todo to a line turns your lists into to-do items, complete with clickable checkboxes for tracking your tasks—although more advanced date-management features are missing. 

The ingenious timer mode lets you create complex multi-step timers using natural language, which can be used for anything from enhancing productivity, to tracking long and complex recipes. Timers are currently limited to countdowns only (so you can't use them to track time spent working on a project, for example), and there's no simple way to pause an in-progress timer. 

There's also no native support for word counts, although the potential for new features is bright—FoldingText is designed with expansion in mind, including APIs that will allow users to create their own modes to add and enhance functionality. While some users would no doubt prefer all their extras baked-in, the modular approach is in keeping with FoldingText's propensity toward simplicity.

The bottom line. FoldingText is still new, although version 1.1 did address many of our immediate concerns. Its core functions work well, but there are many features that I'm hoping will be added or refined, either via native support or user-written plug-ins. That said, I use it daily, and FoldingText has earned a permanent spot on my Dock.