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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

#131

Post by Pulcinella »

marxisttemp wrote: post #129
kmelve wrote: post #98

I wrote a piece a few years ago that still reflects a lot of my thoughts on the tension between Markdown as a format and the actual experience of writing and publishing on the web: [“Thoughts on Markdown” – Smashing Magazine]( https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2022/02/thoughts-on-markdow... ). What Apple seems to be doing with Notes—embracing Markdown syntax but not treating it as a source format—feels like a pragmati…

See also SwiftUI’s AttributedString, which can be directly instantiated from a string literal containing Markdown syntax.

Nitpick: AttributedString is a member of the Swift Foundation framework. It's not limited to SwiftUI.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/attribu...

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

#132

Post by alwillis »

RS-232 wrote: post #73
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #58

I’d love to see Markdown added to Apple Messages. I’m constantly sending URLs to people, like https://somesite.com/login . The point of these links is usually that people read them and understand them. But the automatic behavior is to replace the text with OpenGraph links, big obnoxious bubbles of graphics, which distort or destroy the meaning that I’m trying to convey. Given the opportunity, I would send most links…

It would be awesome if Messages, Mail, and Notes rendered Markdown. System-wide Markdown editing would also be awesome, perhaps as a feature of the keyboard.

If you want a Mac email program that renders Markdown, definitely checkout MailMate[1]. Indie developer, has already shipped a lot of updates this year.

[1]: https://freron.com

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

#133

Post by stevekemp »

philistine wrote: post #110
jamesgill wrote: post #102

My original description of what it is still stands: “Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Yes, that's how John Gruber defines it. But like every creation you share with others, it can evolve. If popular, it will evolve. People create their own versions and uses and intentions with it. I've used markdown for 12 years or so, for two reasons: 1. As a way to write plain text but still get visual la…

Gruber is Markdown's father but the overall Markdown community has stopped listening to him a long time ago. Doesn't help that he hasn't fixed the bugs in his Perl script since 2004.

Indeed. His post says:

    It’s trivial to create malformed Markdown syntax
That's because his specification is loose, and there are no test-cases nor updates to clarify ambiguities.

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

#134

Post by accrual »

Personally, I just want the ability to export from the stock iOS Notes app as plaintext at all. Currently I need to copy/paste my notes into my own editor or dump them .pdf and extract. I won't even be using markdown, I just want simple local-first backup.

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

#136

Post by accrual »

astrange wrote: post #103

Why do all these people like taking notes? I recommend a very simple process, which is to delete them and just remember everything.

I'm sure this in jest, but my real answer: I remember so much more when I have notes to look back on. I store mine as some YYYY-MM-DD-Notes.txt and edit via local web UI or terminal/SSH. It's a blast to browse and see what I was thinking and doing, and how I've changed over time.

I save working knowledge elsewhere as Topic.md in subfolders so I can remember how I deployed an app or fixed a recurring issue etc.

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

#137

Post by accrual »

sylens wrote: post #108
anentropic wrote: post #59

I'd love to see Markdown support in MS OneNote...

OneNote feels like such a laggard in this space. They don't even have support for code blocks

And it's odd because Teams has first class support for many Markdown elements. I wrap code blocks in "```" all the time.

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

#138

Post by jeeyoungk »

diggan wrote: post #126
larrywright wrote: post #111

I don’t want Notes to become a Markdown editor. I think that would be confusing for the majority of users. What I would like is for it to understand Markdown syntax and just convert it to the right thing. If I type “# My Note”, it should convert that to note title format. If I type “## Heading” it should convert it to a heading format, and so on. Most apps do this already, to some extent. If you start a line with a -…

> I don’t want Notes to become a Markdown editor > I’m just asking for it to handle a few more things. How is what you're asking for not making Notes into a Markdown editor? Those are all features that come from Markdown, and the reason "most apps" already handle those, is because they're aiming to support Markdown to at least some extent.

I think the parent's suggesting that they should be "one way" shortcuts; i.e. "# Heading" auto-formatting as a heading is a shortcut, and it doesn't allow you to go back and modify the original markdown.

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

#139

Post by woah »

modernerd wrote: post #105

He's right: Markdown was built for web editing in an era where physical keyboards outnumbered virtual ones. It doesn't really make sense for Notes outside of export. There's little benefit to it as an input system on iOS/iPadOS (likely the dominant platforms for Notes) where formatting menus are just as close as `#` and `_` characters. Several Markdown rules wouldn't make sense in the context of Notes. e.g. "end a li…

I use markdown all the time on iOS with Notion. It functions as a shortcut for formatting operations like creating headings and bullets.

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

#140

Post by eduction »

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…

Many formats these days are cleartext. Microsoft Office documents and LibreOffice documents, to name two collections of formats, are both xml based. Not to mention HTML, Latex - the list is long. Markdown is fine but overused, to the point where even the creator is now warning it’s not for everything.
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