v1.2 — writing rebuilt around the document, and workspaces

MindMax v1.2.0 is one change more than anything else: AI writing was rebuilt so that the document you are writing is also where you steer it. The old writing flow is gone; everything below replaces it.

What is in it

• The plan is in the document. Starting a piece puts a writing brief at the top of the document — the task, who it is for, what they should agree with, the angle, the voice, the sources — and a card under every heading with that section's point and the passage it rests on. Change a line and that is what gets written. Before, the plan lived in a separate view you approved once and then lost sight of.
• An outline first, unless you say otherwise. A new piece stops at the plan so you can argue with it, then Write it all drafts it section by section. Say “just write it” and it goes straight through.
• Where only you know the facts, it asks. Your results, your figures, what happened on the project: missing from your material, they become a card at that spot asking for them — answer it, @ a file, let it write around the gap, or write it yourself. A public fact it could not find is marked to verify.
• A read-through at the end. Section three cannot see section seven while it is written, so the whole draft is read once when it is done. What changed is listed with the reason, and each change can be undone on its own.
• Write one section. With the cursor under a heading, ⌘J writes just that section from its card. Section cards stay above the text, folded, so you can rewrite a section later from the same plan.
• Genres, and your own. Pick what you are writing — report, proposal, thesis chapter, column and more — and the structure, voice and citation style follow. Your own genres sit in the same menu, built from how you describe your writing or from pieces you have already written.
• Write like an example. Name a piece to write like, and it takes the shape and voice from it while every fact comes from the material you give for the new topic. How it works.
• Knowledge base is now “workspace”. The folder you open is called a workspace across the app, the docs and the site. Nothing about your files changes.
• Smaller things. Edit a note's title in place at the top of the editor, cleaner code blocks and tooltips, and footnotes that open in the same preview as citations.

Known rough edges

• Long pieces take a while. Sections are written one after another, with the read-through after. A long piece can take many minutes; you can keep working in other files meanwhile.
• Unsigned installers outside the Microsoft Store still need the one-time step in the installation guide.

Where to start

New to writing in MindMax: writing with a brief, or the tour in Introducing MindMax. Already using it: the update will offer itself — accept it and restart.