the perfect markdown editor

Posted by jaslar
Mar 7, 2015 at 05:49 PM

MadAboutDana wrote (in the Ulyssses thread):

“Going back to the perfect Markdown editor, in no particular order:
- support for access to different folders, and ideally different synchronisation systems (Ulysses, LightPaper, TextNut; Quiver to some extent)
- shortcuts to favourite folders/groups of folders (Ulysses, LightPaper, TextNut, Quiver)
- sidebar with good navigation options (see above) (Ulysses, LightPaper, TextNut, Quiver, Scrivener)
- tagging, ideally with support for multiple tags per note (Ulysses, Letterspace, TextNut, Quiver)
- a really good Markdown editor, ideally supporting hybrid Markdown (i.e. indicating what codes are doing even in “edit” view) plus editable HTML preview (Ulysses, Letterspace, Quiver)
- support for the widest possible variety of Markdown variants (including e.g. GitHub-style tasks, Multimarkdown tables etc. etc.) (probably only TextNut, so far)
- support for grouping of notes (Keep Everything, Ulysses, Scrivener)
- folding! (Quiver - kind of, FoldingText; a good Markdown outliner is sorely needed. I can only think of one so far: CottonNotes on iOS, and that seems to have died)
- a toggle allowing you to default to “view” rather than “edit” mode when reading notes (rather than editing them). I don’t understand why more Markdown editors don’t have this, in fact, since Markdown per se is actually rather ugly, despite its convenience. Keep Everything is a good example of an editor that defaults to preview mode - you have to switch to edit mode to change something (I prefer this in any case, it’s just good discipline in my view)
- a good range of export options, including exporting of multiple notes or folders, into at the very least HTML, PDF, OPML
- cross-platform versions that all have more or less the same features (Letterspace, eventually also Ulysses, maybe also Scrivener, hopefully also Quiver)”

I would have laid that out as:

- consistent editing commands within the editor
- ability to work, in tabs, with more than one file
- robust search and replace within a file
- ability to search across files in a folder
- folding and navigation by structure
- spellcheck, word count
- definitely multiplatform
- definitely multiple export
- GitHub markdown, yes
- adherence to zenware guidelines: minimalist, quick, spare
- tags
- toggle between editor, view, side by side

I notice that many of these things do seem to fit into programming editors. I seem to be looking for a combination of WriteMonkey and and Worfklowy.

Others?