Earlier quoted context omitted.
Markdown is "rich text". What distinction are you trying to draw here?
no it isn't.
It's not rtf, but it is rich text as opposed to plain text.
NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels
61–70 of 277 posts
Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting to see differences in desired features here, because I'm currently writing my third novel, and ditched my previous editors because I realised I needed basically no features - I need a clean canvas without distractions, and ability to do some basic tagging for cross-references. That's it. So now I'm writing in my own editor, in windows with nothing but the text - not even a menu or title bar - and lit…
You can define arbitrary work views in Papyrus Autor, including distraction-free fullscreen mode, and there are plenty of reasonable "view" templates to chose from, too. It even has a special "typewriter mode" scrolling. I don't want to advertise the expensive subscription (don't think it's really worth it), but this program has been sold commercially since the 80s for a reason.
It does seem like a fantastic tool for those who want more functionality. I'm absolutely not surprised there's a market for it - as I said, there's clearly a huge span in terms of what writers want.
Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're assuming and probably wrong.
I think you are assuming. I also think there's a confusion here and that you're talking specifically about RTF while the people responding to you are talking about the capabilities provided when they use "rich". The point being that Markdown has far more formatting features than most people who write novels need, and so it is "rich enough" as a format. I've written two novels and I'm writing my third, and as others h…
But I am not assuming at all. In fact most professional writers still use Microsoft Word. It's sort of how people don't realize the world still runs on Microsoft Excel. Markdown is not "rich" in any way. It's syntactical representation for what you want the "exported" text to look like. It is not a drop in replacement for rich text editing.
Of course people who come here are going to be the outliers of this use case and say markdown is fine. Go ask Neil Gaiman or Stephen King if they know markdown and after explaining what it is ask if they need it? And I'd be willing to put money on them just stating "why not just make my italic text italic, why do I really need to put special characters around it?"
Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels
#64The proliferation of markdown forks is a mess. Can't you just use something better to begin with, like asciidoc? I think you can likely just use existing asciidoc mechanisms to support the same thing and then existing editors will still be usable.
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Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels
#65Outside of the more technically inclined; Does anyone who is a long-form (novel) writer actually use markdown? Outside of blogging, which it was invented for and makes total sense for syntax conversion of free formed text to html is there any real use for it? Obviously you don't have to use it if you don't want to, but it sort of feels odd to me that all these developers making writing/notes apps that neglect rich te…
I’m halfway through my second novel. Both in very barebones markdown (using pretty much only headings). Plain text is a blessing. I can keep everything in git, searching in emacs with swiper is fantastic (and good search is a must as the material grows) and any tool I lack I can hack together.
Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels
#66I am currently making my way through "The Fantasy Fiction Formula" by Deborah Chester. It's my first stab at this kind of thing, so it has been really eye opening. When I read any kind of fiction now, I can't help but map out all the elements of plot and scene described by Chester. (This has had the unpleasant side effect of making reading fiction less pleasurable. ah well) So, I can see this kind of tool being very…
> This has had the unpleasant side effect of making reading fiction less pleasurable. ah well
If it helps, I think this side-effect is likely to fade for good fiction. Bad-but-tolerable fiction gets ruined forever when you get better at spotting what they do and what it gets wrong...
I haven't read the book you mention, but when I've read similar type of books before it's definitively been annoying for a while, but then it goes to the background and it seems to usually just pop into my mind when I either spot particularly good or bad examples. When I notice particularly good uses of techniques now, it tends to make me appreciate the work more, if anything.
Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm close to 60,000 words into my latest novel and I'm writing in Ulysses using Markdown. Novels, in particular, rarely need more than headings and occasional italics or boldface.
I also use Ulysses and very happy with it (except for it being a subscription based product). The feature that I would miss the most by switching to novelWriter or another open source solution would be the following: - auto cloud sync across all devices (I can even write on my phone if I think of something while waiting for the bus) - print quality output in PDF and epub with a single click (and many available themes…
"auto cloud sync across all devices"
hmmm - if it is an editor that handles text files, then myself, I would rely on one of the myriad of sync tools/platforms available, rather than have someone else's implementation
Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels
#68Looks fantastic! But, too late for me.
I'm writing a novel now in emacs' orgmode (spacemacs) with lots of customization. The killer app for me is orgmode's foldable hierarchies of text. Beyond that even typing speed isn't my main bottleneck, it's ideas and sitting down in front of the keyboard and actually typing.
Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
no it isn't.
It's not rtf, but it is rich text as opposed to plain text.
The point I am getting at is that if an editor wants to use markdown in place of rtf, fine. But it should hide the syntax just like rtf editors do (unless you want to see it). No editor that supports markdown to date has been able to achieve the quality of editing that rtf editors already have. So in essence outside of markdowns original use case of web publishing, why bother using it?
Re: NovelWriter 1.0 – A markdown-like editor for writing novels
#70awesome, gonna give this a try. i've tried making something like this but got to a point where it was becoming more sophisticated and difficult, so i shelved the project. i've decided that my time is better spent working on writing projects, so thanks for sharing.