Lobster Help

Lobster: Writing App 1.0 · macOS 14+ · iOS / iPadOS 18+

Contents

1. The library — where writing lives
2. Writing — Markdown
3. Catch Ideas
4. Interstellar View
5. Writing Studio
6. Voiceprint
7. The dashboard
8. Projects and writing types
9. Goals
10. Export and Style Studio
11. Sync
12. Three layers that keep your writing
13. Password lock
14. Trial and purchase
15. Keyboard shortcuts
16. Common questions

1. The library — where writing lives

The Mac window has four columns. ⌘1 ⌘2 ⌘3 ⌘4 fold each one away.

The library holds, from the top:

• Idea Aquarium — everything you caught with Catch Ideas
• Filters — All · Last 7 Days · Favorites · Trash
• Projects — self-contained work with an end: a book, a run of posts
• Story Ocean (iCloud) — writing with no home yet. Its default ocean is Dots
• Story Ocean (on this device) — writing that never syncs
• External Folders — any folder on your Mac: Desktop, Dropbox, Google Drive

A sheet is one piece of writing — a chapter, a post, a day's diary. Don't let them grow long; split them. File ▸ Merge Sheets… puts them back together whenever you want.

Things you'll reach for

• New sheet ⌘N · new ocean ⇧⌘N · new project with the + above the library
• Open Quickly ⌘O
• Favorites — right-click a sheet, Add to Favorites
• File ▸ Mark as Material — material sheets are left out of word counts and exports. Use it for character notes and anything that isn't the manuscript.

2. Writing — Markdown

There is no formatting toolbar to hunt through. You type it.

# Big heading      ## Subheading      ### Smaller
**bold**  *italic*  `code`  ~~strikethrough~~
> quote
- list             1. numbered list

• The marks stay in the text. The app reads them and draws the result. Your manuscript is always readable characters.
• Everything is in the Format menu with shortcuts — bold ⌘B, italic ⌘I, link ⌘K, clear markup ⌘L.
• Markdown XL adds footnotes, table and figure captions, equations, two-column layout, a table of contents, sheet links, annotations and redaction. They live in the Insert menu.

A second editor

View ▸ Second Editor opens two sheets side by side — source on one side, or a rewrite next to the original.

Writing without distraction

⌘1 and ⌘2 fold the two left columns away and leave only the text. ⌘9 hides the editing toolbar too.

3. Catch Ideas

The bolt button in the toolbar (⇧⌘I) opens the catch sheet from any screen.

• write something down
• take a photo or video (on the Mac, through your iPhone with Continuity Camera)
• make a recording
• attach where you are
• attach an existing file or photo

Everything lands in the Idea Aquarium. Later, Move to… turns an idea into an ordinary sheet in the ocean you choose, attachments and all.

Catching from other apps

Select text in Safari, or pick a photo in Photos, then Share → Lobster, and it arrives in the Idea Aquarium.

• Once, on the Mac: turn Lobster on in System Settings ▸ General ▸ Login Items & Extensions ▸ Sharing.
• Sharing works even when the device is locked. Unlock it and the idea is there.
• The share extension never asks for your location. Use Catch Ideas inside the app when you want the place recorded.

4. Interstellar View

The dots icon above the sheet list opens it.

• Sheets that share a keyword are joined by a dotted line.
• Sheet links you made by hand (Insert ▸ Link to Sheet…) are solid.
• Click a dot to see what it connects to; click again to open that sheet.
• unconnected at the bottom counts what nothing reaches yet.

5. Writing Studio

Put the cursor in a paragraph and choose Format ▸ Open in Studio, or arrive from Voiceprint in the dashboard.

1. The blocks of the sheet stand on the left — headings, paragraphs, lists.
2. Pick one and it opens on the right, one sentence per line.
3. Add candidate under a sentence gives you a rewrite line beside the original.
4. Choose what you want, press Save and return to the sheet, and only the sentences you chose go back into the manuscript.
5. Drag the handle at the left of a line to reorder the sentences.

The original stands untouched until you choose. There is nowhere to lose it.

6. Voiceprint

The Voiceprint tab in the dashboard.

• One square per paragraph in the sheet. Paragraphs carrying pasted text are tinted.
• The figure at the top says how much of the sheet is in your own words.
• Click a square to see that paragraph, then either
• correct it — Mark as my own / Mark as borrowed — or
• Open in Writing Studio and work on it.
• Transcription mode — turn it on while you copy someone else's writing to learn from it. Nothing you type counts against you while it is on.

7. The dashboard

⌘4 opens it. The seven tabs:

Voiceprint lives here too.

8. Projects and writing types

A project is work with an end — a book, a series. Choosing a writing type when you create one brings the right skeleton and tools with it.

9. Goals

File ▸ Goal… sets one on a sheet, an ocean or a project.

• Units — words · characters · lines · pages
• Conditions — at least · at most · about
• Add a deadline and it works out how much a day that is.
• The dashboard's Progress tab keeps your history.

10. Export and Style Studio

Export

⇧⌘P, or the export icon in the editor toolbar.

• PDF · DOCX · ePub · HTML · Text
• Scope — this sheet, this group only, or down through the sub-groups
• Table of contents — none / titles / titles and headings
• Footnotes — at the foot of the page, or at the end of the document
• Copy to clipboard as well

Style Studio

View ▸ Style Studio…, or Settings ▸ Styles ▸ Open Style Studio…

• 80 styles, grouped by writing type.
• Choose in the middle grid; see it at real page size on the right.
• Sample / Mine switches between the specimen page and your own manuscript.
• Bundled styles can't be edited. Right-click → Duplicate, then edit the copy.
• Korean type at the bottom picks the Korean face for all 80 styles at once.
• Print with ⌘P — margin for corrections, page numbers and paragraph numbers are there.

11. Sync

Settings ▸ General ▸ Sync.

• iCloud gives Mac, iPhone and iPad the same library.
• The original is on this device. iCloud only mirrors it, so losing the connection never costs you your writing.
• Sync Now pushes immediately; the count of what's still waiting is shown.
• Writing in an on-this-device ocean never syncs.
• External folders exist only on the Mac — iOS has no way to watch a folder. Text that arrived from a folder you linked on the Mac still travels as sheets.

When something won't go up

The screen says which of these it is:

• no connection — it goes up by itself when the connection returns
• iCloud storage full — free some space and it resumes
• one sheet is too large — that sheet stays here on this device and only the trip to your other devices is blocked. Splitting it into shorter sheets lets it through

12. Three layers that keep your writing

① Autosave

Within half a second of your hands stopping, within five seconds even if they don't, and immediately when you quit. That's why there is no save button.

② Versions and trash

• ⌘S — Save Version. It marks where you are now.
• File ▸ Browse All Versions… compares and restores.
• Deleted things go to the trash, where you can still read them.

③ Automatic backups

Settings ▸ Backup.

• Browse Backups… picks a point and restores it. Restoring happens on the Mac.
• ⚠️ Backups carry your writing, not the files attached to it. Photos, recordings and other attachments live beside the library and are not copied — use Time Machine or another whole-disk backup for those.
• ⚠️ Restoring from a backup brings back the text only. Keywords, notes, saved versions and the ocean a sheet used to sit in do not come with it.

13. Password lock

Settings ▸ Privacy.

• Set a password and the app asks for it when it opens. Touch ID / Face ID work too.
• On the Mac you can also lock after idle time, when you leave the app, and when the Mac sleeps.
• ⚠️ It locks the app's windows, not the file. The library file itself is not encrypted. To protect the whole machine, turn on FileVault.
• ⚠️ The password cannot be recovered. If you forget it, nobody can open it for you. Your manuscript is still readable, though — the lock guards windows, not files.

14. Trial and purchase

• Installing gives you five days with every feature. No card is required.
• The trial is counted per device — Mac, iPhone and iPad are fifteen days between them.
• After five days only editing locks. Reading, searching, exporting, printing and the whole Settings window stay open.
• The purchase is once. No renewal, no next charge.
• Mac, iPhone and iPad all open on that one purchase.
• On a new device: Settings ▸ Purchase ▸ Restore Purchases. You must be signed in to the same Apple Account that bought it.
• Refunds are handled by Apple — https://support.apple.com/HT204084

15. Keyboard shortcuts

Making and opening

Catching and files

Writing

Looking and moving

16. Common questions

Where is my manuscript kept? In one database file in the app's own folder — not as loose .md files. Use Export to take it out.

Can I bring in writing from another app? On the Mac, link the folder with your Markdown files under External Folders and they arrive as sheets. Drag and drop works too.

PDF won't build on my iPhone. That's right — the page typesetter is on the Mac. Printing on iPhone uses the HTML rendering instead.

Are there any AI features? No. The app will not write your sentences, and it does not send what you wrote anywhere.

Is it a subscription? No. You buy it once.

Can I write without an internet connection? Yes. Your manuscript is on this device. The network is used only for iCloud sync and App Store purchases.

I restored a group and writing I had deleted separately came back with it. That can happen to things deleted before 1.0. Just delete those sheets again — nothing is lost.

My attached photos aren't in the backup. Automatic backups carry your writing only. Use Time Machine or another whole-disk backup for photos and recordings.

Contact

RoyWorkx@gmail.com