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TextNut – a WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac

textnutwriter.com

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Re: TextNut – a WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac

#11

Post by maguay »

zyxley wrote: post #9
maguay wrote: post #4

That looks like a pretty close copy—or rip off, rather—of Ulysses ( http://ulyssesapp.com/ )...

Ulysses' problem is that, despite saving as Markdown, there's no "real" Markdown editing mode. Certain things, like images, can only be entered through the GUI, and its clumsy parsing means that certain formatting gets permanently mangled in a way that messes up copy-paste, since what you see when editing isn't actually Markdown. Among other issues, for example, it adds escape characters, of all things, to anything w…

Agreed. That's one of the reasons I'm not able to use it as much as I'd like to. Basically only works perfect well for basic Markdown (and adding images with their GUI)—if you need any extra code or tweaks on Markdown, you'll be escaping a lot of characters.

Still a nice app in so many ways.

Re: TextNut – a WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac

#12

Post by detaro »

codebeaker wrote: post #3

I find the "100% Compatible with CommonMark" a bit confusing, without looking I'd assume CommonMark was another product from the same people, and they'd done a re-branding, and wanted to make the association. That said, whilst writing this comment it occurs to me that CommonMark might also be an effort I've never heard of to standardise out some of John Gruber’s original undefined spec behaviours, but as a developer…

http://commonmark.org/

> We propose a standard, unambiguous syntax specification for Markdown, along with a suite of comprehensive tests to validate Markdown implementations against this specification.

Re: TextNut – a WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac

#13

Post by SG- »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #2

Why are pretty markdown editors such a thing on Mac specifically? Is that the favored platform for bloggers, or something?

That's been generally how things are on OS X for years (even before the Mac App Store). Small companies like Panic (much smaller originally) have found out that people are willing to pay for quality tools.

Re: TextNut – a WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac

#14

Post by hamstergene »

I believe the correct term is WYSIWYM ("what you see is what you mean"): editing happens in rich text mode, with pretty styles and no markup, however, those styles are merely part of editor's UI, not written into the document.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM

Re: TextNut – a WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac

#15

Post by 3stripe »

zyxley wrote: post #9
maguay wrote: post #4

That looks like a pretty close copy—or rip off, rather—of Ulysses ( http://ulyssesapp.com/ )...

Ulysses' problem is that, despite saving as Markdown, there's no "real" Markdown editing mode. Certain things, like images, can only be entered through the GUI, and its clumsy parsing means that certain formatting gets permanently mangled in a way that messes up copy-paste, since what you see when editing isn't actually Markdown. Among other issues, for example, it adds escape characters, of all things, to anything w…

That might be the case, but it doesn't make it ok for TextNut to clone 75% of their UI

Re: TextNut – a WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac

#18

Post by outworlder »

JulianMorrison wrote: post #2

Why are pretty markdown editors such a thing on Mac specifically? Is that the favored platform for bloggers, or something?

Not only pretty markdown editors. Software applications tend to be prettier in general under OSX.

There's the financial incentive, as pointed out in other comments.

Then, what I think it is most important, the technology support. Take just Cocoa, Core Animation and Quartz Composer and you are already light-years ahead of the competition. I won't even talk about things like the Win32 API or the existence of Swift.

'Pretty' Windows apps, in particular, are a royal pain to create. Unless, maybe, if you target Metro.

You can make them pretty even on Windows. However,if you want to keep using native controls, the effort will be enormous. Many applications switched to using embedded browsers because of that. If you are not using standard controls, then you lose things like screen readers.

Re: TextNut – a WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac

#19

Post by joshstrange »

So while this is common trend I really wish developers would stop using the "Download on the Mac App Store" graphic when it should be "Buy on the Mac App Store". Also there is NO MENTION of the price or even the fact this is not free (other than linking to trial which implies that). I really hate this practice of baiting and switching.

Re: TextNut – a WYSIWYG markdown editor for Mac

#20

Post by pikzen »

outworlder wrote: post #18
JulianMorrison wrote: post #2

Why are pretty markdown editors such a thing on Mac specifically? Is that the favored platform for bloggers, or something?

Not only pretty markdown editors. Software applications tend to be prettier in general under OSX. There's the financial incentive, as pointed out in other comments. Then, what I think it is most important, the technology support. Take just Cocoa, Core Animation and Quartz Composer and you are already light-years ahead of the competition. I won't even talk about things like the Win32 API or the existence of Swift. 'Pr…

>'Pretty' Windows apps, in particular, are a royal pain to create. Unless, maybe, if you target Metro.

1. Learn how to work with XAML

(1.5. Know how to make good looking UIs)

2. Done.

Really. If you're forcing yourself to use WinForms, you're doing yourself a disservice. Any Windows Dev that wants to push out good looking application should learn how to use XAML. You can even ignore the databinding part if you want.

That said, TextNut looks an awful lot like OneNote UI wise.

I believe the major problem comes from the fact that most people developing for Windows are either doing it for free or for internal tools. There are very few tools that fit Apple's market of consumer focused applications, and the financial incentive clearly isn't there on Windows.

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