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This is great for content writers. For most article writing, the markdown workflow is inferior to using even a basic word processor. Often, when I write, I wa
by ijidak 5y ago
This is great for content writers.
For most article writing, the markdown workflow is inferior to using even a basic word processor.
Often, when I write, I want to see the structure of the document visually.
Markdown doesn't allow that.
Also, I'm always writing for the web.
I don't need the extra markdown to HTML step. What does that buy me?
I think this aspect of HTML Wysiwyg is somewhat overlooked.
Is this the next Hemingway app? Probably not.
But for many of us, who write a lot of content intended for the web, this is a great tool to add to the toolbox.
- madsbuch 5y agoWhat you find futile I find the strength of the Markdown workflow: I really like the separation of writing and layout.
- c-smile 5y agoUnfortunately Markdown is too limited even for basic tasks. I wanted to write documentation in Markdown, it should be perfectly suitable for that, right? But this construct for example: <section> <header>method ABC</header> <p>Arguments</p> <dl><dt>...</dt><dd></dd> ...</dl> </section> has no Markdown representation at all.
- enriquto 5y agothis html is a bit "outdated", isn't it? in html5 you would ommit the unnecessary closing tags for p, dt and dd.
- madsbuch 5y agoI am not sure why this is a basic task? One could call documentation a very specific domain for writing and perhaps Markdown is not ideal for that? Personally I use it to write letters, notes, blog articles, and such. When I need to write something more complex I might or might not use markdown while embedding some other language. Eg. my thesis is written in Markdown but uses Latex. Depending on the context you can indeed use the concrete code you wrote as Markdown. You could insist on embedding the the <section> pieces into a Markdown document and use a markdown to HTML preprocessor. But you are the judge on whether this is a good idea.
- c-smile 5y agoYou just highlighted problems of Markdown. HTML supports wide range of applications. Even basic HTML provided more semantic value. You can use it as for articles as for structured documentation. As it supports hierarchical structure + classes. And pure markdown is not structural and not extendable by design - essentially just a flat list of paragraphs. Yes, you may have some containers there like <blockquote> and <ol> but that's pretty much it. Why there are no sections or any other form of grouping content? Markdown has exactly the same problem as MS Word / Richtext - they are very good in WYSIWYG but are terrible in semantic. Markdown.Next shall be in the golden middle between HTML and current MD - with modularity built-in by design.
- formerly_proven 5y ago> Markdown.Next shall be in the golden middle between HTML and current MD - with modularity built-in by design. Sounds like restructuredtext ("That weird markup language used by Sphinx") from around 2000.
- zoomablemind 5y ago> ...has no Markdown representation at all Well, Markdown accepts body HTML verbatim. Sure, this makes it non-homogeneous, but nevertheless possible, when needed.