5 ms·
Show HN: Write.md – A free, open-source, themeable Markdown editor for macOS
- jdjejcjwjdj 2mo agoAnd of course it is MORE Electron bullshit to add to the “never install” pile. Christ. If I wanted to do everything inside a browser I WOULD FREAKING USE A BROWSER.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- andrevalleee 2mo ago[dead]
- cube00 2mo agoI'm not sure people seeing "Made for Apple silicon" will expect an Electron app.
- danielbilekq 2mo agoThat's fair enough. I'll change that, so it doesn't seem misleading
- yboris 2mo agoI recently migrated a few of my Electron apps to Tauri -- was easy and fast in my case -- went down from 130mb installer to 3mb installer. Worth considering! https://github.com/whyboris/Simplest-File-Renamer https://github.com/whyboris/Simplest-File-Renamer <- 130mb to 3mb from Electron to Tauri
- reaperducer 2mo agowill expect an Electron app. Whoops! Thanks for the warning. I'm out. Shame, too. I've been looking for a new text editor. Someone else in this thread recommended SubEtha. I'll take a look there, instead. Happy to keep my Mac Electron-free.
- tccole 2mo agoOut of curiosity; how come?
- bityard 2mo agoA web browser is one of the most complex pieces of software developed by human civilization, there should be no need to ship one with each and every trivial to semi-trivial app.
- crosskayla 2mo ago[dead]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- tetrisgm 2mo agoSome people think it’s bad performance and bloat. They learned it ten years ago and haven’t questioned it
- tccole 2mo agoSo what’s the alternative, Tauri?
- odo1242 2mo agoI've made some personal custom apps with it, it works pretty well. With the latest version you can also choose what language to use on the backend side, so you aren't limited to just the original Tauri + Rust framework and can also use Tauri + Node/Typescript (still faster than Electron since you don't need to bundle Chromium + Node) or Tauri + Swift / Kotlin / Go / etc.
- tetrisgm 2mo agoBoth Tauri and Electron are excellent
- 2mo ago
- 00deadbeef 2mo agoIt's 2026, I always expect an Electron app, unfortunately
- drcongo 2mo agoI've started getting warnings from MacDown about how it'll stop working soon because Rosetta or something. I like the side by side view, but sadly this isn't that. edit: Oh, electron?!
- danielbilekq 2mo agoYeah, it's an electron app. Is it causing a "not good" feeling on its own, or do you have another suggestion?
- timw4mail 2mo agoThat's the app I'm looking for a direct replacement for as well.
- michelb 2mo agoThere are a ton, there is Typora (paid) and there is https://github.com/joelbqz/writer-computer https://github.com/joelbqz/writer-computer (Tauri) But Macdown is a universal binary? https://github.com/schuyler/macdown3000 https://github.com/schuyler/macdown3000 So it should just keep working
- alwillis 2mo agoThere's a newer MacDown--MacDown 3000 [1]. It's a universal binary, so it'll keep running once Rosetta goes away. [1]: https://macdown.app https://macdown.app
- swiftcoder 2mo agoHonestly the first time I’ve seen an app use the glass aesthetic as a selling point
- danielbilekq 2mo agotbh I kinda dig the glass aesthetic. I understand it's not for anyone, that's why you can theme it
- jasonpeacock 2mo agoThere must be something fascinating about writing Markdown apps - either it scratches an itch, or AI is really good at creating them. There's a flood of them on r/macapps and similar places.
- danielbilekq 2mo agodidn't know about that, but when I looked around, most of them were paid and just didn't really scratch the itch. this really starte as a simple editor for writing blog posts
- illithid0 2mo agoProbably a lot of both. Writing is also a deeply personal exercise for many, and I can say from personal experience that the environment I write in, from the room/place I'm in to the color scheme of my editor, really matters sometimes. I haven't found a need to build my own editor, but I can see how someone else would.
- orangea 2mo agoIt's because it's effectively impossible to make a markdown authoring app that meets everyone's needs, and people tend to be picky about what they want in a writing environment. People have strong preferences about WYSIWYG, flavor of markdown (pandoc/quarto/GFM/etc), theming support, some want notes to be able to link to each other, etc. As an example, I require math notation support for basically everything I write which automatically rules out 90% of markdown editors for me.
- pbowyer 2mo agoAll of this, but underlying it I've come to the conclusion that Markdown isn't a good format for a writing environment beyond just simple prose. There's too much left up to the flavour of it and it's got weaknesses. I've been experimenting with using Markdown (in Typora) in place of Word, but it (and others I've looked at) have zero support for image positioning or sizing, or a way to have different (pre-defined) styles on different tables. Which is a shame because I like keeping my documents in plain text, in version control and efficiently read by my LLMs. LyX (https://www.lyx.org/ https://www.lyx.org/) for LaTeX is the closest to what I'm thinking of that I know of, but maybe something exists for Asciidoc or Typst.
- nikhila57 2mo agohow is it different from obsidian?
- danielbilekq 2mo agoit does much less, not really an alternative to Obsidian
- pixelesque 2mo agoObsidian's closed-source is it not?
- ForHackernews 2mo agoHow does this compare to Typora? That's the leader in this market as far as I can tell.
- danielbilekq 2mo agomuch worse than Typora. this is a very basic markdown editor for writing blog posts in "minimalist" space. and it's just free
- nodesocket 2mo agoPaying Typora user here, and wondering the same.
- codazoda 2mo agoAside: The Typora website is horrible on mobile.
- mrbombastic 2mo agosmall bit of feedback, "Rice it until it feels like yours." is pretty jargon heavy for a landing page, i don't think all that many people outside linux/tech use that term, why not "customize"?
- danielbilekq 2mo agothink that's valid. gonna change that. thanks!
- reaperducer 2mo agoi don't think all that many people outside linux/tech use that term, The term is quite a bit older than today's tech bubble. It came out of hotrod car modification clubs that specialize in Japanese brands. Some consider it pejorative. (See: "rice rocket.")
- brendoelfrendo 2mo agoIt's funny that you say not many people outside of Linux/tech use that term when "ricing" started in car mod culture. It was used to describe the act of customizing your (typically Japanese import, hence the term "rice") car with an abundance of cosmetic mods, without investing in performance mods. So your car would look really sleek and custom on the surface, but it would still drive like a stock '94 Honda CR-X del Sol. Before anyone asks: "race inspired cosmetic enhancement" is a backronym, not the origin of the phrase.
- gritzko 2mo agoFor Macs, there is iA Writer already. Why don't you make something equally polished for other platforms? I am genuinely interested, I always wanted iA Writer for Linux. Everything I tried falls short.
- insane_dreamer 2mo agoiA writer: neither free nor open source
- OvidStavrica 2mo agoSubEthaEdit is still around and open source. It supports Markdown side-by-side view along with numerous other languages. Excellent lightweight (26mb, native) editor, available directly via the macOS store at no cost. https://subethaedit.net https://subethaedit.net
- hartator 2mo agoNo image support though.
- hartator 2mo agoI wish we can have a good markdown support with images ala GitHub (good days).
- cxr 2mo agoBut GitHub has _bad_ Markdown support. GFM is the reason why so many projects on GitHub are besot with Markdown that's unreadable in a text editor.
- Sha1rholder 2mo agoANOTHER.md YETANOTHER.md YETANOTHERAGAIN.md
- noelectron 2mo agoElectron? No thanks.
- ale42 2mo agoEspecially if it's not even cross-platform...
- yboris 2mo agoSince it's Electron why not have a Windows version of the app too?
- brycewray 2mo agoThere's also MarkEdit[0], which is essentially "TextEdit for Markdown" and is definitely _not_ Electron-based: > For perspective: at just 4 MB, MarkEdit is much smaller than Electron apps. Handling a 10 MB file with ease puts it ahead of TextKit-based editors. Performance-first editors built with Rust lack native features, while correctness alone rules out editors that rely on regex-based Markdown parsing. [0]: https://github.com/MarkEdit-app/MarkEdit https://github.com/MarkEdit-app/MarkEdit
- olav 2mo agoWhy is everybody so stoked about Markdown? Isn't Asciidoc better in about every aspect?
- dewey 2mo agoBecause with formats it's always about what's the most common, not what's necessarily the best or the most powerful one for one specific use case. Every AI agent creates markdown files, Google Docs supports markdown etc.
- anonfunction 2mo agoI've been looking for a markdown editor that let's me print the rendered view and have yet to find one. Which is quite surprising given how many there are. I just use my own webapp for now, should probably open source it in case anyone else is looking for this functionality. If you know of a nice mac app that let's me easily write / view and print markdown I'd love to hear from you!
- maxweylandt 2mo agoObsidian has a pdf export, but it's overkill for just writing
- alfons_foobar 2mo agonot an app per se, but pandoc is great...
- emehex 2mo agoI've been using Typora for years. It has a pretty great export/print.
- vunderba 2mo ago+1 for Typora. One of the things I like is that it gives you some flexibility in how it handles images you drag into a document for embedding purposes. My favorite option is the one where it automatically colocates assets by creating a folder with the same name as the file, appends `.assets` to it (<filename>.assets), copies the image there, and then automatically sets up the preview and embed.
- wyzer 2mo agovscode + pandoc ... work like a charm (incl. side by side preview)
- kelvinjps10 2mo agomost of these editors offer pdf exports and the ones that don't they offer html ones that can easily be exported in the browser too. Isn't this enough?
- syx 2mo ago[dead]
- crossroadsguy 2mo agoI've compromised a lot with Electron (because I finally had to!) but never for a lightweight text editor app. Never! Here are some alternatives if anyone is looking https://editorio.crncevic.org https://editorio.crncevic.org https://macdown.app/ https://macdown.app/ (FOSS) https://github.com/MarkEdit-app/MarkEdit https://github.com/MarkEdit-app/MarkEdit (FOSS) And if you must have an electron one then here are some FOSS options https://marktext.me https://marktext.me
- 4thguy 2mo agoI want to piggy-back off this: if there must be an electron application, then at least make it available on different platforms
- arajnoha 2mo agoI mean, most of us already use either IDE or a text editor for work, so why not just type non-work markdown files in them? Be it VS Code or JetBrains. Thread hijacking but, I wonder more why Apple keeps the built-in TextEdit at its crappy state, it would be a fantastic text editor if fixed
- vismit2000 2mo agoExactly - I have been using VS code for work as well as non-work markdown for more than 5 years now. Never had to look for any other note-taking tool.
- tagyro 2mo agoI’m going to post this every time there’s a new markdown to pdf submission: quarto (https://quarto.org https://quarto.org) is my go to tool. You can use it in R Studio, visual studio code or the cli. Uses pandoc under the hood, has support for latex and many more niceties.
- yitchelle 2mo agoAre markdown editors the new todo list app? There so many of them published, and probably thousands more that are someone's introduction to coding and just sitting is a github rotting away.
- dan_man 2mo agoNot to be banging the same drum - but with AI it's so much easier to write a native app. No need for electron app esp. in the days when RAM costs more than a used car.
- Naitik88 2mo ago[dead]
- johnryzon123 2mo agoAmazing job on this
- yunusislegel 2mo ago[flagged]
- duohuo888 2mo ago[dead]
- vancekai 2mo ago[dead]
- Naitik88 2mo agoThe is refreshing. There are so many writing tools adding AI features and collaboration and everything else that a focused Markdown editor almost feels unusual now. I want to know what made you decide to keep it intentionally focused instead of turning it into a more feature-heavy editor.