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If you do some typing work frequently on the computer, may it be for work, digitalising an essay or perhaps just writing a story, you would surely understand the enormous number of distractions which can easily throw you off your work path. It might be a random friend instant messaging you, or perhaps a bad habit of surfing the web at the same time and you have encountered an interesting enough article that it beckons you from your work. This is what exactly Writeroom/Darkroom is made for.

Writeroom is actually a program which was coded solely for the MAC OS, being advertised as an application which is able to keep out all the distractions from a writer. The program’s slogan is “Distraction free writing”, which is exactly the type of environment it tries to emulate for the users. It’s a program which blocks out everything else except a blank screen for you to write on in full screen mode, and it also gives the basic utilities of being able to save, count your words and even a spell checker. What it basically promises is a place you can focus on your writing, nothing else.

When I personally first started up Writeroom, upon a friend’s advice, the interface looked sleek and smooth. The basic skin, which can be customised, is just a black screen, with green text which appears when you start typing, giving the user a “matrix” feel. It blocks out everything else which might be present on the background, such as IM’s popping up or even your Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer standing by with loaded contents. It reminded me of writing in real life, where the only things on your desk would be a writing pad and your stationery, just like a blank screen for you to type on.

However, despite what it was made for, a distraction blocker, it does not exactly grant full immunity to such distractions. In the end, it’s just a helping tool, and writers still have to rely on themselves to be able to fully concentrate on their work. With easy hot keys to exit, and the usage of certain hot keys of whatever operating system one is using, you can easily tab away the Writeroom to other programs, overriding whatever use it may have. Furthermore, it does not exactly block out sounds in the background, so one would still hear the familiar pings of instant messages in the background and easily tab out to reply them.

In the end, Writeroom is still just a tool to help a writer get going, it still boils down to the person himself or herself to concentrate on their work. Still, it is a helpful program which can be downloaded here for the Mac version, or here, for a ported PC version.

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