Improving Text so that it becomes a great markdown editor would be awesome, and not so difficult

[jmfayard]

Hello,

Well first thank you for Text, I use it on my Chromebook and it proved to be very useful.

This entry is not an issue,

This a request for a feature that would be awesome to have

I think that Markdown matters a lot for a lot of people

Only the pedagogy around here is yet to be done. I'm actually trying to help on this, I want to launch a multilingual wiki called markdown.mobi

People that want to help, are more than welcome here :

https://github.com/internaciulo/markdown.mobi

Why Markdown matters ?

Because it's the missing open format between the most useful standards that we have currently

• Plain text, not ASCII of course, UTF-8
• HTML
• CSS

If you look on the internet, a lot of big companies are reinventing markdown badly, so for sure it is important.

For who matters Markdown ?

• For developpers and geeks of course
• But also for Writers, See My Daily Writing Routine & Tools -- By Leo Babauta http://zenhabits.net/daily-writing-routine/
• But also for smartphone users, see Draft on Android, and equivalents for iphone and iPad
• But also for forum users, once Discuss will be officially launched. It's so much better than phpbb and the like already, try it here : http://discuss.howtogeek.com/
• But also for people writing their emails with gmail or thunderbird, see http://markdown-here.com

So Markdown is useful virtually everywhere you don't write for a printer but for screens

What could that mean for Text ?

Being a very good text editor, Text is already a good markdown editor.

But Great Just Isn't Good Enough as you may know

So it would be awesome to add just what is needed so that Text become a great markdown editor (Preview, shortcuts, export to html, ...)

Please please see my github repository and/or ask questions if you are interested.

Rght now, when I use my ChromeBook, I have to switch all the time between Text and WriteBox and it it sucks

[mitranim]

Nicely written. I concur that Markdown is important and nice. I'm not sure though if Text is supposed to be more than a simple text editor. I mean, it doesn't even have a view mode, only the edit mode.

[jmfayard]

@Mitranim Thanks !

But you know, the point of markdown is that a good minimalist text editor can become quickly a good markdown editor : 1) the first step is to add one button that launch the markdown to html converter 2) then display the converted html with a good looking css 3) then details that matters like keyboard shortcuts

For 1), you have already plenty of converterd on the web 2) should be pretty easy for Text since it's based on web technologies

I don't think that a general view mode would be helpful, quite the contrary Too many open formats is a big killer for open formats. People just don't want to learn 10 things like Markdown

[mitranim]

Huh, I didn't realise Writebox had a Markdown preview / export function. Thanks for pointing it out.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around writing in Markdown and exporting to HTML as you imply many writers are doing. I'm under an impression that Markdown is usually utilised for formatting, like on Reddit, Discuss, or Ghost, so Markdown is basically used for headers, highlighting, bullets, and inline links. The host platform always takes care of CSS, doesn't it?

[jmfayard]

I'm still trying to wrap my head around writing in Markdown and exporting to HTML as you imply many writers are doing.

I have to clarify this.

Not many writers are doing that right now, because Markdown was created by a geek, it is used right now mostly by geeks, and there is very little pedagogy around it to explain that Markdown (or something like Markdown, but we really should standardize on ONE open format) is great for virtually anyone who writes for screens (hence with plain text, utf-8, html, css), not for printers (here is where Microsoft Word, PDF and latex are great)

That's why I am launching the markdown.mobi project is the first place.

Sadly, I have yet to launch the multilingual wiki, but see here https://github.com/internaciulo/markdown.mobi

But yes, I do think that many writers would really benefit from jumping in the Markdown bandwagon.

Do you know Leo Balbuta / Zenhabits ? He is the guy who convinced me to switch to markdown and then to launch markdown.mobi because he his a brillant proof that markdwon is not (only) a thing for geeks

My Daily Writing Routine & Tools -- By Leo Babauta http://zenhabits.net/daily-writing-routine/

[mitranim]

Thought about this a bit. Let me summarise my understanding.

When you write for a website, you typically have to import as plain text, then do post-formatting. A WYSIWYG format other than HTML is not applicable, and an HTML file generated by an editor program would carry a lot of junk tough to clean up. So writing in plain text with an established standard of inline formatting would allow to avoid post-formatting. It's important for those who reject WYSIWYG editor programs and only write in plain text (count me in). The same goes for the writers who want distraction-free editing, which is greatly helped by lack of formatting controls in plain text. Additionally, wide Markdown support on publishing websites might make it easy to port documents across.

Another important part of Markdown formatting in web writing, as opposed to HTML formatting, is that it artificially constrains what formatting a writer can use. It only allows basic stuff. This enables easier maintenance of site-wide styling, and applies additional pressure on site admins to make default styling look good. But this problem doesn't require plain text or Markdown. It has been solved on Medium in a WYSIWYG environment, with mostly contextual formatting. So far, I'm torn between writing in plain text (as usual) and writing on Medium (only applicable to weblog posts but still luresome). It has the same premise of minimal formatting and good default styling the writers have no control over, except it doesn't have a layer of abstraction between editing and viewing.

There are, however, people for whom it doesn't matter: ◌ Those who write directly on blogging websites, using their formatting tools. ◌ Those who write in non-plaintext editors, use their formatting and export functions, or just copy to WYSIWYG web editors. ◌ Those who don't mind doing post-formatting when importing to the web.

To me, it looks like Markdown needs a 2.0 format and widespread support on publishing websites, as a wiki-like underlying format for articles. I don't quite get what kind of Markdown support a text editor could have, aside from maybe syntax highlighting.

[jmfayard]

Wow, thanks a lot, on a lot of topics, you wrote precisely what is difficult to me to say since english is not my mother tongue.

I happen to have just launched a blog in english on medium too, so yes, I think too that it is nice.

The difference is that markdown is an open format (that needs a 2.0 official version, you are absolutely correct on this)

Which means you are not at all constrained by using one editor, one bloggin software, one operating system, etc... Moving my content with its formatting away from medium.com is more difficult than it should be

When Leo Balbuta is in a hurry, he wrote his posts directly in Wordpress. When I am in a hurry, I do the same in dotclear (another blogging tool) on my french blog But as he explains, when he has time ByWord for macosx is an essential part of his daily routine, since it's a great text editor with markdown support Same thing for me when my macbook pro was my main laptop. But since a month I use more a (awesome) chromebook, so I write in Text and in Writer when I am offline

[mitranim]

The pros are clear now. What I don't get is what kind of Markdown support a text editor could provide. You've already mentioned that you don't want a view mode. What's left? I can imagine syntax highlighting and keybinds for basic formatting conventions like bold or italics. This sounds like a complicated feature, so it's probably best to describe in more detail what you'd like to see in the program.

[jmfayard]

Ah yes, I have been unclear once again.

The thing that would be counter-productive would be a general view mode in Text, because where would this stop ? A view mode for latex is obviously too much to ask no ? Ok, but maybe a view mode for Markdown, and Textile and txt2tags... and probably Wikipedia wiki syntax too since it's important ? But there is Markdown 1.0 official syntax from http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/ but there is also the markdown from github, from stackoverflow, from markdown-extra, from from from. There is even someone who re-invented latex in a markdown-like syntax. I think that's crazy. I wouldn't mind to use txt2tags instead of Markdown 1.0 for example Just that too many open formats is the same as no open format.

---

So what I would like to see in Text ?

• A preview mode but only for markdown 1.0 official syntax and later Markdown 2.0 official syntax if it comes out one day
• A zen mode like like in ByWord or here in github (the button on the top right)
• Ad-hoc shortcuts (only when I edit a markdown file) that helps to type markdown-formatted text so that inserting links, images references, going to preview mode, ... is even easier. I made a sheet on Google Drive of which shortcuts already exist. Of course, there is no need to implement all of them, only the most important

PS: about the preview mode, using this library is probably the fastest way to get started https://github.com/evilstreak/markdown-js

[eterevsky]

We'd like to keep Text as simple as possible and this means keeping the core features to a minimum. Adding a button specific to MD doesn't play well with this ideology. On the other hand, we plan to implement a plugin API at some point (#81). When it happens, the functions like MarkDown to HTML and MarkDown preview can be implemented as plugins.