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Smartdown - lack of activity
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Posted by jaslar
Jan 22, 2018 at 03:57 AM
After beta testing and buying two versions of Smartdown by Aflava, I got this message on Jan 19,2017:
“I always wanted to make SmartDown the best markdown editor for Windows. Developing a good application, while dedicating enough time to make it popular, has proven difficult for a single person.
“As a long time user of iA Writer for Mac, one of the reasons to develop my own app, was to bring a similar writing experience to Windows. In order to move forward, I decided to contact iA, and ask them if they would be interested in collaborating. We met one month later, and sketched out a plan.
“Today, I am pleased to announce that I will help iA in developing iA Writer for Windows. The latest version of SmartDown remains available here (https://aflava.us8.list-manage.com/track/click?u=767c335f8f457936b5dd69028&id=a58cbd0e28&e=b70f648df8). But the future happens within iA Writer. This is a new beginning, a huge step forward.
“In terms of design and user experience, we have started from scratch. Because of the existing flexible code base, we were able to rebuild a much more powerful markdown editor in a timely fashion. Folding already is part iA Writer for Windows. Even more exciting things are coming with iA’s plans for a Web version.
“To get an early beta and support the development, you can help us by chiming in on the Kickstarter campaign. Later, when the brand new iA Writer for Windows comes out, we will be offering a discount to existing users of SmartDown.
“Thank you all for your support and I wish you a good start into 2018.”
On the one hand, I guess I get it. I’m sure the developer challenges (plus sales support) are real. But I’ve already bought it twice and don’t actually use it, so I wish him well, too, but probably won’t buy it again.
Posted by Paul Korm
Jan 22, 2018 at 09:54 AM
iA Writer for macOS is nice, but I believe it doesn’t support folding, so it looks like the Windows version might be an interesting departure
@jaslar wrote
>@smartdown wrote
>“In terms of design and user experience, we have started from scratch. Because of the existing flexible code base, we were able to rebuild a much more powerful markdown editor in a timely fashion. Folding already is part iA Writer for Windows. Even more exciting things are coming with iA’s plans for a Web version.”
Posted by Dr Andus
Jan 22, 2018 at 02:04 PM
I never warmed to SmartDown 2 (it was a total redesign based on the code of another outliner the name of which escapes me), but SmartDown 1 was so light, nimble, and simple that I’ve kept it, especially as it has implemented CriticMarkup, which is great for editing plain text docs with colour-coded tags.
I’ve even created AutoHotkey shortcuts to make it easier to deploy CriticMarkup in SmartDown by just highlighting text and hitting shortcuts for specific tags (“comment”, “delete”, “highlight”, “addition”, “substitution”).
Posted by jaslar
Jan 22, 2018 at 04:03 PM
I liked Smartdown 1 better, too, although it had some non-standard editing things. I don’t recall right now - I think home and end didn’t work as expected, I couldn’t move by paragraph - just the basic navigational keys were idiosyncratic. Smartdown II is slow to load.
I tried WriteMonkey, which I liked a lot. But it didn’t have folding, or at least I couldn’t find it in the menus or pluig-ins. Lately, with a Chromebook, I seem to be using a combination of Dynalist and Google Docs. In some ways, the iOS Editorial is my favorite writing app. Or org-mode. :)