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Posted by satis
Mar 21, 2021 at 03:00 PM
FYI a year ago Markdown creator John Gruber asked on Twitter for recommendations for a Mac/iOS outliner with folding and a simple UI. He’s a years- (decade-?) long user of OmniOutliner but complained using the analogy that it’s like a word processor and he wants a simpler, snappier text editor.
He also has a conservative view of how Markdown should be implemented. (For example he hates apps like Ulysses which hide URLs inside linked text.)
I mentioned Springnotes to him last month, and after looking into it replied that it was interesting but he hates the app’s Markdown implementation, saying that people using Markdown like this should really just be using WYSIWYG-styled text. He’s entitled to his proprietary interest but that complaint doesn’t bother me; besides, the portability of Markdown means styling would survive better should one migrate to another app.
Posted by MadaboutDana
Mar 22, 2021 at 11:09 AM
Heh, John has a real thing about “hybrid” markdown displays – ironically, SpringNotes doesn’t have one, it shows all the code as entered, but other very popular apps like NotePlan (and a whole bunch of highly thought-of markdown editors like Typora) do.
I can see no good reason for this attitude, to be honest. The primary advantage of markdown is that it works with basic text files, so doesn’t tie you into a proprietary format. Insisting that you be able to see the code all the time is on a par, IMHO, with insisting that you be able to permanently view the HTML code of a web page. Most hybrid editors change to a “code” view when you click in the heading/line/table you want to edit, which seems perfectly acceptable and pragmatic.
I believe John is also irritated by markdown apps (like SpringNotes) that don’t use monospaced fonts – this despite the fact that one of the old markdown faithfuls, iA Writer, now produces its own not-exactly-monospaced – and hugely popular – fonts to give people a more natural (= easier) reading experience. But after all, there are a whole bunch of people on this forum who still swear by text editors as the ideal working environment. And if it works for you, I have nothing against it! I do have to say, though, that it doesn’t work for me… but does that matter?
Cheers!
Bill
Posted by satis
Mar 22, 2021 at 01:27 PM
Yes, recently he wrote about his use of IA Writer, and his choice of the (ugly, in my opinion) Duospace font. (I have the app and when I use it I use the monospace variant).
I’ve come to switch to using Lucida Sans - a variant of Lucida Grande included with macOS, but which comes with an italics version - for most of my longform writing. And I even use it to re-font websites, courtesy of the free Dark Reader extension for Chrome and Chromium apps. (Sadly, changing fonts isn’t in the pay-version of Dark Reader for Safari, which I also use.)
I still don’t quite get Gruber’s complaint, but he’s a little taciturn on Twitter and I’ve learned better than trying to tease out more info from him.
I like the concept of Springnotes and I’m watching its development for search and other features. I do a lot of prep work for longform writing in OmniOutliner, and it’s a solid app. But it’s not ideal, it’s often quite clunks, it’s not being improved upon with new or revised features, and something cross-platform that’s lighter and faster would be appealing.