Pillarbox is a Google Chrome application that gives you a full-screen, distraction free writing environment right within your browser.
The app interface is designed in a way that you can fully concentrate on your writing and nothing else. By default, you get a black screen with a grey column in the middle for you to type in. But you can change the colors and font sizes if you want, and if you know CSS, you can change just about everything about the appearance.
Pillarbox allows you set how many words you want to write, and you can even set a timer for how long you want to write. This is useful if you practice “Timed Writing” – a method where a writer just writes what’s on their mind for a designated amount of time. And as you start writing, you can see the word count at the bottom-left corner of your screen, and on the bottom-right, you have a clock with a countdown timer – if you’ve set.
The stand-out feature of this application, for me, is the typewriter scrolling. When enabled, every line you type scrolls up as soon as you finish, with the new line remaining at the same eye level. Basically, it keeps your text in the middle of the screen so you don’t have to scroll.
Pillarbox automatically saves your text every 10 seconds using HTML 5 offline storage, so the text always exists in your browser cache and you can access it even if you are offline. Right now, it cannot directly save text to an external file due to Chrome restriction, so you’ll have to select all, copy and paste it into another app.
If you need to type and want the computer to just get out of the way, this app is for you. Get it now from the Web Store.
Install: Pillarbox