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Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts

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Re: Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts

#41

Post by dotdi »

When Gruber mentions that he never uses Markdown outside of his blog, and hinting at the fact that it was not intended for text editors (and other apps), there's one important point I want to make.

Yes, Markdown has disadvantages, and a few rough edges for uses as the format for editors et al, but there are two very big advantages and/or sideffects of it's widespread use: (1) it's cleartext and therefore very good as a measure against vendor lock-in and (2) it has, to some extent, dampened the rampant "not-invented-here"-esqe tendency to use proprietary formats. Even in open-source apps, proprietary formats make it hard for non-dev users to get their stuff out. If it's markdown (or at least supports markdown export) from the beginning, at least you know you can take your data with you.

Re: Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts

#42

Post by frantathefranta »

nonethewiser wrote: post #39

I cannot understand how Apple notes works sometimes. For instance, sometimes after indenting a line I cannot un-indent on future lines. Just fighting the tool. Stuff like this really makes me dislike it. I find syntax highlighting with markdown preferable than a WYSIWYG rich text editor. I get why people who don't know markdown prefer it, but the advantages diminish significantly if you know markdown.

> For instance, sometimes after indenting a line I cannot un-indent on future lines

I feel like this is why a lot of us use Markdown/Org, because this is the most annoying issue in Word to me since 2003. Why are the indentation rules so arbitrary?

Re: Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts

#43

Post by diggan »

Isn't it a bit early to have thoughts about something we don't know the UI/UX of? Could be that "Markdown support" is just "Import/Export as Markdown", or even just export. Or it could be a fully fledged WYSIWYG editor.

The rumors seem to indicate just "Export as Markdown", which seems to be exactly what Gruber wants, according to the last 10% of the blogpost. So the rest is ranting against an implementation that doesn't seem like it'll happen?

Re: Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts

#44

Post by [deleted] »

nonethewiser wrote: post #39

I cannot understand how Apple notes works sometimes. For instance, sometimes after indenting a line I cannot un-indent on future lines. Just fighting the tool. Stuff like this really makes me dislike it. I find syntax highlighting with markdown preferable than a WYSIWYG rich text editor. I get why people who don't know markdown prefer it, but the advantages diminish significantly if you know markdown.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts

#46

Post by empath75 »

dotdi wrote: post #41

When Gruber mentions that he never uses Markdown outside of his blog, and hinting at the fact that it was not intended for text editors (and other apps), there's one important point I want to make. Yes, Markdown has disadvantages, and a few rough edges for uses as the format for editors et al, but there are two very big advantages and/or sideffects of it's widespread use: (1) it's cleartext and therefore very good as…

It's also great for writing documentation in a plaintext IDE, which I think is what _really_ drove a lot of the adoption.

Re: Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts

#47

Post by egypturnash »

kennywinker wrote: post #7

John Gruber, creator of markdown, wrong about markdown again. ( https://airsource.co.uk/blog/2014/09/04/markdown-has-been-st... )

Alternatively: Giant Apple nerd is bemused to see Apple implementing something he created.

Re: Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts

#48

Post by shermantanktop »

criddell wrote: post #33
terhechte wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

He probably was blacklisted in some way and his recent complaints (which attracted a fair amount of attention here) probably led to dang et al reconsidering. I can’t imagine there are a lot of Stallman-types here. After all, HN is the discussion forum for Y Combinator, a startup accelerator and VC group.

Cognitive dissonance is easy to overcome, if you want to.

Re: Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts

#49

Post by diggan »

empath75 wrote: post #46
dotdi wrote: post #41

When Gruber mentions that he never uses Markdown outside of his blog, and hinting at the fact that it was not intended for text editors (and other apps), there's one important point I want to make. Yes, Markdown has disadvantages, and a few rough edges for uses as the format for editors et al, but there are two very big advantages and/or sideffects of it's widespread use: (1) it's cleartext and therefore very good as…

It's also great for writing documentation in a plaintext IDE, which I think is what _really_ drove a lot of the adoption.

> which I think is what _really_ drove a lot of the adoption

That GitHub used it as a "native" format everywhere from the beginning (as far as I remember), probably helped Markdown become at least as popular (or maybe even more) as GitHub itself.

Then everyone and their mother started doing static blogs, and since people already wrote their READMEs and issue comments with Markdown, I guess it was natural to want to write your blogposts with Markdown too, just like Gruber.

Re: Apple Notes Will Gain Markdown Export at WWDC, and, I Have Thoughts

#50

Post by chrisweekly »

iambateman wrote: post #4

It makes sense that Markdown is a good tool for a specific purpose, and generalized note taking isn't it. As an aside, I have a dream that Apple Notes could be piped into a website as a form of blogging. As it is, I haven't found a way to do it...

"Markdown is a good tool for a specific purpose, and generalized note taking isn't it."

As someone who enjoys note-taking in Obsidian (by far my favorite super-powered markdown editor), I respectfully disagree with the premise and conclusion. On the contrary, IME, MD isn't single-purpose, and it absolutely can and does serve as a first-rate format for note-taking.

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