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StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown

benweet.github.io

31–40 of 61 posts

Re: StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown

#31
post #20

I was searching for the best way to edit online content and Markdown was obvious choice. Until I saw what Medium has done. I believe that WYSIWYG is the only way. You still get emphasys on text but with no need to learn any kind of markup no matter how human readable it is. On the other hand Medium's approach is tied to their visual style and design, it does not support many things I'd wish it would. Still, I'm rooti…

Textile / Textile2 is an interesting half-way house; less semantic in some ways that Markdown but balanced by more control over the output ( e.g. using h1 / h2 headings, ability to force paragraphs with p ) without wandering into tag-soup territory.

http://redcloth.org/textile/writing-paragraph-text/

Re: StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown

#32
this arena is getting kind of interesting, what with all of the new tools being mounted, and the variations, in terms of interface, wysiwyg-ness, storage locations, online/offline wrinkles, auto-save-timer idiosyncrasies, and so on... plus, as a long-time observer of markdown, there are a lot of butts that are going to get bitten when people discover the inconsistencies and edge-cases that arise between the different flavors. so it's gonna be quite fascinating to see the shakeouts that'll happen.

-bowerbird

Re: StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown

#33

I quite like it, the UI is intuitive and functional. Sort of related: Is there a library or editor that could be used to create both markup for the web as well as export to LaTeX syntax? My use case: Software documentation where I'd like to have both a Wiki as well as creating a professional looking PDF document (or even print it for the old fashioned folks). That sort of functionality would be worth paying for in my…

pandoc

Also check out gitit (http://gitit.net), written by the same author as pandoc. It's a git-backed wiki that uses pandoc to let you write in a variety of formats. Markdown + latex for math works well for taking notes in a wiki format. The content is stored as flat files in the repo that you can just export as pdfs using pandoc if you wanted to.

Re: StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown

#34
post #9

What I want to see is an open source markdown editor that renders the preview as you type where you type (not side by side). For an example check out http://mangomarkdown.com/ (which powers foldingtext). There are a few projects that do this, but not open source, that I can find! It might not be that hard to change the current ones that go side by side to do this. (I am planning to work on one, but have not gotten ar…

I did a lot of work on that. But I found out most of the parser kinda ignore the complex stuff and are very sloppy about the white-space. So I am working on my own parser.

That turns out to be quite a challenge

For example Mango fails with any combination of bold and italic

Re: StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown

#35
post #9

What I want to see is an open source markdown editor that renders the preview as you type where you type (not side by side). For an example check out http://mangomarkdown.com/ (which powers foldingtext). There are a few projects that do this, but not open source, that I can find! It might not be that hard to change the current ones that go side by side to do this. (I am planning to work on one, but have not gotten ar…

The biggest problem for that kind of editor in a web environment is making it work consistently across platforms.

Getting everything nice in up to date desktop browsers is relatively simple (contenteditable div, little bit of javascript, easy). Try to introduce iOS into the mix and things get very messy, very quickly.

Re: StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown

#36
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

pandoc

Also check out gitit ( http://gitit.net ), written by the same author as pandoc. It's a git-backed wiki that uses pandoc to let you write in a variety of formats. Markdown + latex for math works well for taking notes in a wiki format. The content is stored as flat files in the repo that you can just export as pdfs using pandoc if you wanted to.

After a few weeks of trying to get Github's gollum gem to do what I want, this might be what I've been looking for.

Re: StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown

#37
post #20

I was searching for the best way to edit online content and Markdown was obvious choice. Until I saw what Medium has done. I believe that WYSIWYG is the only way. You still get emphasys on text but with no need to learn any kind of markup no matter how human readable it is. On the other hand Medium's approach is tied to their visual style and design, it does not support many things I'd wish it would. Still, I'm rooti…

My problem with WYSIWYG editors is that I have never, ever seen one that does not end up adding messy markup that sooner or later becomes a liability when you want to switch to another tool, or find yourself in a situation where you want to hand-edit the document.

This is motivated by multiple blog platform changes etc. that all have left me doing messy filtering of exported data to be able to import it properly when moving my sites.

That's the appeal of Markdown for me. I'd rather add some custom filters to let me use some additional stuff in my own Markdown (which works ok since my additional markup worst case is just treated as plain text, and I can easily enough commit the code to turn it into "vanilla" markdown in the same repository as the content) than get tied into yet another format that messes with my content.

I only use WYSIWYG editors of any kind for content I expect to throw away now. E.g. reports at work that will have a lifespan of days to month is fine. Articles I want to keep an archive of for years to come, not so much.

Re: StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown

#39

Very slick. Nice touch adding the delay between scrolling and moving the other page. Your logo looks like StackOverflow's, is there a relationship between the two? Otherwise I'd consider changing it. Also, the save/download buttons (the first thing I look for in an app like this) are hidden behind a sliding panel. Move them front and center!

Oh that delay is a feature. Its bloody annoying. I closed the site because its so frustrating. Markdown Pad 2 kills this.

Re: StackEdit: A free, open-source Markdown editor based on PageDown

#40
Nicely done! Throughout the day I'm very often jotting down notes in markdown and then pasting them into a Gist to share with someone.

The frustrating part is not seeing how it's going to be formatted while I'm actually taking the notes. This app could solve that problem. I'll give it a try this week.

Some questions/comments:

1. What are you using for the popover tour that appears the first time someone visits the page?

2. The logo looks very much like the Stack Overflow logo[1]. Are you associated with that group? If not I'd consider changing it.

3. I'm familiar with but haven't used Epic Editor[2] by Oscar Godson and friends[3]. Have you checked it out by any chance?

Again, great work and I'll be giving this a try over the next week or so.

[1] http://blog.moovweb.com/content/uploads/2013/09/stackoverflo...

[2] http://epiceditor.com/

[3] http://epiceditor.com/#credits

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