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Yet another Markdown editor...
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Posted by satis
May 1, 2018 at 05:47 PM
Looking through the suggestions in this 2-yr-old thread I looked at the link for SmartDown and was intrigued to see it had shut down and apparently had become the basis for the Windows version of IA Writer!
Posted by jaslar
May 1, 2018 at 08:57 PM
All things are mortal. Even software.
I really liked the first version of Smartdown, which I bought. I had high hopes for the second, which I also bought. But I find that I don’t use either. I do believe that we have to support developers doing work we like. But as has been noted here before (not by me), we should buy what actually does what we need, not just what might eventually become that.
Things that hit the mark: Editorial on iOS. Haroopad on many platforms. And of course, emacs (markdown-mode and org-mode). Lately, even Google Docs with outline view is pretty acceptable, and I just discovered that it has keyboard commands to move to various headings.
As much as I like markdown, it needs at least the following to be what I want:
- folding
- navigation by heading
- commands to rearrange folded sections.
Several editors do the first two, now. But with the third one, there’s a confluence of markdown and outlining. Emacs has it. Workflow, Dynalist, Checkvist, can get there. But none of it is quite as seamless and easy as it ought to be.
Therefore, CRIMP.
Posted by satis
May 1, 2018 at 10:28 PM
jaslar wrote:
>as has been noted here before (not by me), we should buy
>what actually does what we need, not just what might eventually become
>that.
>
Sigh. Yes. I went an purchased a copy of Gingko Desktop the minute I heard it was out in (early early) beta, but I don’t feel comfortable using it even at the current v. 2.0.11 - there’s still no search, no ‘About’, no File menu even. Lots of potential, considering the online app (and its own potentiality), but….
I happen to be a fan of IA Writer, and I was using the heck out of it on iOS and Mac before I went for a Ulysses subscription. (Existing users of older versions got a permanent yearly rate $10 less/year than the standard $39/yr, so it’s worth it to me, especially when apps like the new iOS-only Drafts 5 cost $20/yr.) But I still like IA Writer and if I had to go back for some reason I wouldn’t mind at all, and I’m happy they found a away to expand their product to more platforms.
Posted by jaslar
May 1, 2018 at 11:13 PM
Yes, Gingko was and is cool. I was very taken with several things:
- markdown
- cards - a nice metaphor for dragging things around. Visually discrete.
- many outlining functions
I suspect the problem is not the software. It’s that I have a pathetic attention span. Hence my interest in minimal interfaces that keep getting complicated by my idiosyncratic desires.