8 ms·

MacDown: Open-source Markdown editor for OS X

172 points by shortformblog 12y ago

flxfxp 12y ago
Awesome! Could use a better icon though :) Any plans to implement the same shortcuts as Mou?
- jason_slack 12y ago
  The icon isnt bad. It fits.
- shortformblog 12y ago
  I actually asked the author about this, and at the very least, he plans to add the H1-H6 key commands that made me a fan of Mou: https://twitter.com/uranusjr/status/481901582104006657 https://twitter.com/uranusjr/status/481901582104006657 I'm impressed with the early results of this. Considering that Mou hasn't been updated in months, I'm glad to see a successor in active development. I've tried a lot of Markdown editors, and Mou was the only one in my experience that got the keyboard commands down pat.
  - bobbles 12y ago
    PS: On the homepage "This is how it looks like:" can be just "This is how it looks:"
    - shortformblog 12y ago
      Not my app.
- uranusjr 12y ago
  I’m open to new icons. I put the current one together myself and am certainly not proud of it. I suck at visual things.
jason_slack 12y ago
This is great. I like IA Writer but it lacks some features for me. I tried Atom and it is good too. This app feels like a one stop shop for me.
zyxley 12y ago
I like this, but I'm still waiting for something that has this kind of live preview but also has a folder/file project sidebar like Ulysses 3.
- NSCFType 12y ago
  LightPaper (free, not open source) has a project sidebar: http://cl.ly/WGSv http://cl.ly/WGSv http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-mac/ http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-mac/
  - daturkel 12y ago
    First I'm ever seeing this. This looks awesome, thank you. I also love Texts: http://texts.io/ http://texts.io/
  - zyxley 12y ago
    I also like LightPaper, but it using file tabs at the same time as the project pane is kind of weird.
jevyjevjevs 12y ago
Two solutions that people might also appreciate checking out: LightPaper Marked
samuelhalle 12y ago
Awesome! Just miss a file navigation pane and I can say bye bye to Lightpaper!
kemayo 12y ago
I'm conceptually a fan, but then I noticed its effect on my actual CPU fan. Whatever this is doing for rendering the Markdown is not cheap -- a single keystroke in the editor pane on the sample document triggers 5+ seconds of max-CPU usage. Typing causing loud fan noises from my laptop is not the most restful experience. https://www.dropbox.com/s/qy6szsbjs7cw3uv/Screenshot%202014-06-25%2020.17.17.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/qy6szsbjs7cw3uv/Screenshot%202014-...
- adamnemecek 12y ago
  I've had the same experience with like all Markdown editors that have a preview function. It does indeed suck.
  - copperx 12y ago
    That's shameful. It's not like they're running LaTeX behind the scenes. I think it boils down to the implementation of the Markdown engine.
  - m_eiman 12y ago
    I've been using Erato and haven't had that problem. Might be worth a try... https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/erato/id658913051 https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/erato/id658913051
muaddirac 12y ago
This is awesome because I like Mou but it had some pretty big pain points: - Large files caused it to slow unbearably/crash - Scroll tracking was terrible (TexWorks is the only similar thing I've seen that does it well). It looks like these aren't necessarily fixed in MacDown 0.1, but at least there's the opportunity to improve it with time.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ehPReth 12y ago
According to https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fitem.taobao.com%2Fitem.htm%3Fid%3D39011463240&sandbox=1 https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&... and a quick Wolfram Alpha hit Mou's asking price is ~US$80,220
- Nemcue 12y ago
  That's interesting; and way too much for such a rudimentary app -- which probably shouldn't even be a native mac app in the first place. I wonder how he came up with that price.
  - owenversteeg 12y ago
    It says in the translated description: * first in Google for "markdown mac" * domain name, logo, branding * source code * good reputation/press reviews I don't think it's worth what he's asking (500,000 RMB, which is ~80,000 USD.)
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
arikrak 12y ago
How do these mac markdown editors compare to in-browser editors like https://stackedit.io/ https://stackedit.io/ ?
webwielder 12y ago
I approve of the old school MacName.
beltex 12y ago
Nice work! What about Atom's markdown preview though? I found myself switching over to that from Mou. https://github.com/atom/markdown-preview https://github.com/atom/markdown-preview
- jasonlaster11 12y ago
  same!
stock_toaster 12y ago
I think I prefer Marked. It lets me bring my own editor (vim), and simply aut-updates when it detects the file has changed.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - geoffb 12y ago
    No plugin should be needed. As I recall, Marked simply watches the file for changes and reloads whenever you save from your editor.
- pwenzel 12y ago
  I use Marked and Sublime Text. Like peas and carrots.
jmromer 12y ago
Mou's live preview was neat for about a week, but eventually I just switched to Sublime Text with the MarkdownEditing, Markdown Preview, and Markdown TOC packages. Powerful stuff, and as-good-as-live preview in your browser. https://sublime.wbond.net/packages/MarkdownEditing https://sublime.wbond.net/packages/MarkdownEditing https://github.com/revolunet/sublimetext-markdown-preview https://github.com/revolunet/sublimetext-markdown-preview http://dotcypress.github.io/GitHubMarkdownPreview/ http://dotcypress.github.io/GitHubMarkdownPreview/
rodion_89 12y ago
Kinda surprised by the rise in markdown editors whose selling point is the live preview mode. I always felt that the best feature of markdown was that the raw text made it somewhat obvious how it should be rendered. If a preview mode is need I almost want to jump straight to a WYSIWYG editor
- rbritton 12y ago
  The one place I find that useful is for blog posts. I like having the ability to apply the blog's CSS to the markdown source before posting to make sure it looks right.
- samuli 12y ago
  It is probably because live preview is considerably easier to implement than a good code editor like "Markdown completion".
- hunvreus 12y ago
  Agreed. We actually wrote a WYSIWYG editor on top of Markdown last year (https://github.com/wiredcraft/moleskin https://github.com/wiredcraft/moleskin) but never ended up pushing it out: Markdown is simple as it is, syntax highlighting should be enough.
  - gog 12y ago
    Call me lazy, but do you have a demo somewhere?
    - hunvreus 12y ago
      Somehow, in my head, I heard it as "Call Me Maybe". You can `git clone git@github.com:Wiredcraft/Moleskin.git` and then open the example in `examples/angular/index.html`.
    - vadvi 12y ago
      https://rawgit.com/Wiredcraft/Moleskin/master/examples/angular/index.html https://rawgit.com/Wiredcraft/Moleskin/master/examples/angul...
santa_boy 12y ago
There are lots of open source editors coming of late. [Haroopad](http://pad.haroopress.com/ http://pad.haroopress.com/) is my favourite markdown editor of late. It is based on node-webkit and is also open source. The main points I wish it could include is word completions similar to sublime and spelling corrections.
paulrov 12y ago
The number of Markdown editors that exist pretty much prove that Markdown has failed at its job.
tempodox 12y ago
This might be useful, but I'd prefer it if there was a way to turn the live preview off. I don't need a new preview with every letter I type.
Luyt 12y ago
MacDown requires OSX 10.8 or later.
- coldtea 12y ago
  Which one should be running anyway, seeing that 10.9 is the current version for a year, and we're on to 10.10 soon. OS X releases are like minor Linux distro updates -- not in they have limited changes, but in that you don't want to fall far behind the latest version. It's a different approach than Windows, where people can still run XP with no problem -- not that you couldn't run 10.4 or 10.3 (and some people do), but the Mac world changes and software is updated to reflect that (takes advantage of new APIs, integration, changes in style etc). In Windows there is software available in new versions in 2014, even MS made, that still uses stuff like file open dialogs from 1998.
Malarkey73 12y ago
I like Dillinger which is online. It has preview pane and links/saves with your Dropbox/Github/GoogleDrive or a local folder. http://dillinger.io http://dillinger.io
- btd 12y ago
  Looks interesting, will give it a try. Also nice project is https://stackedit.io/ https://stackedit.io/.
- iamtew 12y ago
  Dillinger is indeed nice, but I would like a native desktop program with the same functionality, as I'm not always connected to the internet. Of course, I could just run it locally on my laptop, but for some reason I still prefer my web browser for web browsing, and native programs for other stuff. Or if I could get the same functionality in Sublime Text 3 that'd be even better, but I don't know how to build a plugin to do that, or haven't found one that does.
  - lloeki 12y ago
    Try Atom[0], start a new file or open a markdown file and toggle the preview pane. I liked the feature so much that I made svg-preview: write SVG code on the left, live preview on the right. [0]: https://github.com/atom/markdown-preview https://github.com/atom/markdown-preview [1]: https://github.com/atom/svg-preview https://github.com/atom/svg-preview
    - felipesabino 12y ago
      your svg-preview url return 404, isn't it https://github.com/lloeki/svg-preview https://github.com/lloeki/svg-preview ?
      - lloeki 12y ago
        indeed, thanks. sorry for the stupid s/markdown/svg/
talles 12y ago
Another Markdown editor for OS X! Anyone besides me ever noticed how there are many options for markdown editors for Macs, but really few (decent) ones for Windows or Linux?
- filmgirlcw 12y ago
  Well, historically I think it was because Markdown was created by a Mac user. And most of the early Markdown hackers were Mac users. Obv. Markdown is now much broader, but I still think the market of people who actively care about a Markdown-based editor for desktop or mobile are more likely to be using a Mac and iOS than Windows/Linux/Android. If you think about it, however, that's a huge market opportunity for Markdown devs on those platforms.
cabalamat 12y ago
One problem with Markdown is that every Markdown app uses a different version of it.
rubiquity 12y ago
Does anybody have any experience with this and LightPaper[0]? I'm curious if I should switch. There's so many markdown editors out there. How can I know that I'm using the best one for me? (joking) Markdown editors feel like it should be the example for the paradox of choice. 0 - http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-mac/ http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-mac/
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
filmgirlcw 12y ago
My only real issue with these is that there isn't an easy way to do a RegEX to remove certain types of formatting when copying the HTML. In an ideal world, I'd prefer to not have <p> tags, for instance, because most of the time, the place I'm pasting the content inserts them at any line break automatically. I realize this isn't always the case but it's one of those "frustrating" aspects that makes me continue to use an old-as-hell TextMate bundle a friend customized for me 5 years ago.

172 points by shortformblog 12y ago

flxfxp 12y ago

Awesome! Could use a better icon though :) Any plans to implement the same shortcuts as Mou?

jason_slack 12y ago
The icon isnt bad. It fits.
shortformblog 12y ago
I actually asked the author about this, and at the very least, he plans to add the H1-H6 key commands that made me a fan of Mou: https://twitter.com/uranusjr/status/481901582104006657 https://twitter.com/uranusjr/status/481901582104006657 I'm impressed with the early results of this. Considering that Mou hasn't been updated in months, I'm glad to see a successor in active development. I've tried a lot of Markdown editors, and Mou was the only one in my experience that got the keyboard commands down pat.
- bobbles 12y ago
  PS: On the homepage "This is how it looks like:" can be just "This is how it looks:"
  - shortformblog 12y ago
    Not my app.
uranusjr 12y ago
I’m open to new icons. I put the current one together myself and am certainly not proud of it. I suck at visual things.

jason_slack 12y ago

This is great. I like IA Writer but it lacks some features for me. I tried Atom and it is good too. This app feels like a one stop shop for me.

zyxley 12y ago

I like this, but I'm still waiting for something that has this kind of live preview but also has a folder/file project sidebar like Ulysses 3.

NSCFType 12y ago
LightPaper (free, not open source) has a project sidebar: http://cl.ly/WGSv http://cl.ly/WGSv http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-mac/ http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-mac/
- daturkel 12y ago
  First I'm ever seeing this. This looks awesome, thank you. I also love Texts: http://texts.io/ http://texts.io/
- zyxley 12y ago
  I also like LightPaper, but it using file tabs at the same time as the project pane is kind of weird.

jevyjevjevs 12y ago

Two solutions that people might also appreciate checking out: LightPaper Marked

samuelhalle 12y ago

Awesome! Just miss a file navigation pane and I can say bye bye to Lightpaper!

kemayo 12y ago

I'm conceptually a fan, but then I noticed its effect on my actual CPU fan. Whatever this is doing for rendering the Markdown is not cheap -- a single keystroke in the editor pane on the sample document triggers 5+ seconds of max-CPU usage. Typing causing loud fan noises from my laptop is not the most restful experience. https://www.dropbox.com/s/qy6szsbjs7cw3uv/Screenshot%202014-06-25%2020.17.17.png https://www.dropbox.com/s/qy6szsbjs7cw3uv/Screenshot%202014-...

adamnemecek 12y ago
I've had the same experience with like all Markdown editors that have a preview function. It does indeed suck.
- copperx 12y ago
  That's shameful. It's not like they're running LaTeX behind the scenes. I think it boils down to the implementation of the Markdown engine.
- m_eiman 12y ago
  I've been using Erato and haven't had that problem. Might be worth a try... https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/erato/id658913051 https://itunes.apple.com/se/app/erato/id658913051

muaddirac 12y ago

This is awesome because I like Mou but it had some pretty big pain points: - Large files caused it to slow unbearably/crash - Scroll tracking was terrible (TexWorks is the only similar thing I've seen that does it well). It looks like these aren't necessarily fixed in MacDown 0.1, but at least there's the opportunity to improve it with time.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ehPReth 12y ago

According to https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fitem.taobao.com%2Fitem.htm%3Fid%3D39011463240&sandbox=1 https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&... and a quick Wolfram Alpha hit Mou's asking price is ~US$80,220

Nemcue 12y ago
That's interesting; and way too much for such a rudimentary app -- which probably shouldn't even be a native mac app in the first place. I wonder how he came up with that price.
- owenversteeg 12y ago
  It says in the translated description: * first in Google for "markdown mac" * domain name, logo, branding * source code * good reputation/press reviews I don't think it's worth what he's asking (500,000 RMB, which is ~80,000 USD.)
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]

arikrak 12y ago

How do these mac markdown editors compare to in-browser editors like https://stackedit.io/ https://stackedit.io/ ?

webwielder 12y ago

I approve of the old school MacName.

beltex 12y ago

Nice work! What about Atom's markdown preview though? I found myself switching over to that from Mou. https://github.com/atom/markdown-preview https://github.com/atom/markdown-preview

jasonlaster11 12y ago
same!

stock_toaster 12y ago

I think I prefer Marked. It lets me bring my own editor (vim), and simply aut-updates when it detects the file has changed.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- geoffb 12y ago
  No plugin should be needed. As I recall, Marked simply watches the file for changes and reloads whenever you save from your editor.
pwenzel 12y ago
I use Marked and Sublime Text. Like peas and carrots.

jmromer 12y ago

Mou's live preview was neat for about a week, but eventually I just switched to Sublime Text with the MarkdownEditing, Markdown Preview, and Markdown TOC packages. Powerful stuff, and as-good-as-live preview in your browser. https://sublime.wbond.net/packages/MarkdownEditing https://sublime.wbond.net/packages/MarkdownEditing https://github.com/revolunet/sublimetext-markdown-preview https://github.com/revolunet/sublimetext-markdown-preview http://dotcypress.github.io/GitHubMarkdownPreview/ http://dotcypress.github.io/GitHubMarkdownPreview/

rodion_89 12y ago

Kinda surprised by the rise in markdown editors whose selling point is the live preview mode. I always felt that the best feature of markdown was that the raw text made it somewhat obvious how it should be rendered. If a preview mode is need I almost want to jump straight to a WYSIWYG editor

rbritton 12y ago
The one place I find that useful is for blog posts. I like having the ability to apply the blog's CSS to the markdown source before posting to make sure it looks right.
samuli 12y ago
It is probably because live preview is considerably easier to implement than a good code editor like "Markdown completion".
hunvreus 12y ago
Agreed. We actually wrote a WYSIWYG editor on top of Markdown last year (https://github.com/wiredcraft/moleskin https://github.com/wiredcraft/moleskin) but never ended up pushing it out: Markdown is simple as it is, syntax highlighting should be enough.
- gog 12y ago
  Call me lazy, but do you have a demo somewhere?
  - hunvreus 12y ago
    Somehow, in my head, I heard it as "Call Me Maybe". You can `git clone git@github.com:Wiredcraft/Moleskin.git` and then open the example in `examples/angular/index.html`.
  - vadvi 12y ago
    https://rawgit.com/Wiredcraft/Moleskin/master/examples/angular/index.html https://rawgit.com/Wiredcraft/Moleskin/master/examples/angul...

santa_boy 12y ago

There are lots of open source editors coming of late. [Haroopad](http://pad.haroopress.com/ http://pad.haroopress.com/) is my favourite markdown editor of late. It is based on node-webkit and is also open source. The main points I wish it could include is word completions similar to sublime and spelling corrections.

paulrov 12y ago

The number of Markdown editors that exist pretty much prove that Markdown has failed at its job.

tempodox 12y ago

This might be useful, but I'd prefer it if there was a way to turn the live preview off. I don't need a new preview with every letter I type.

Luyt 12y ago

MacDown requires OSX 10.8 or later.

coldtea 12y ago
Which one should be running anyway, seeing that 10.9 is the current version for a year, and we're on to 10.10 soon. OS X releases are like minor Linux distro updates -- not in they have limited changes, but in that you don't want to fall far behind the latest version. It's a different approach than Windows, where people can still run XP with no problem -- not that you couldn't run 10.4 or 10.3 (and some people do), but the Mac world changes and software is updated to reflect that (takes advantage of new APIs, integration, changes in style etc). In Windows there is software available in new versions in 2014, even MS made, that still uses stuff like file open dialogs from 1998.

Malarkey73 12y ago

I like Dillinger which is online. It has preview pane and links/saves with your Dropbox/Github/GoogleDrive or a local folder. http://dillinger.io http://dillinger.io

btd 12y ago
Looks interesting, will give it a try. Also nice project is https://stackedit.io/ https://stackedit.io/.
iamtew 12y ago
Dillinger is indeed nice, but I would like a native desktop program with the same functionality, as I'm not always connected to the internet. Of course, I could just run it locally on my laptop, but for some reason I still prefer my web browser for web browsing, and native programs for other stuff. Or if I could get the same functionality in Sublime Text 3 that'd be even better, but I don't know how to build a plugin to do that, or haven't found one that does.
- lloeki 12y ago
  Try Atom[0], start a new file or open a markdown file and toggle the preview pane. I liked the feature so much that I made svg-preview: write SVG code on the left, live preview on the right. [0]: https://github.com/atom/markdown-preview https://github.com/atom/markdown-preview [1]: https://github.com/atom/svg-preview https://github.com/atom/svg-preview
  - felipesabino 12y ago
    your svg-preview url return 404, isn't it https://github.com/lloeki/svg-preview https://github.com/lloeki/svg-preview ?
    - lloeki 12y ago
      indeed, thanks. sorry for the stupid s/markdown/svg/

talles 12y ago

Another Markdown editor for OS X! Anyone besides me ever noticed how there are many options for markdown editors for Macs, but really few (decent) ones for Windows or Linux?

filmgirlcw 12y ago
Well, historically I think it was because Markdown was created by a Mac user. And most of the early Markdown hackers were Mac users. Obv. Markdown is now much broader, but I still think the market of people who actively care about a Markdown-based editor for desktop or mobile are more likely to be using a Mac and iOS than Windows/Linux/Android. If you think about it, however, that's a huge market opportunity for Markdown devs on those platforms.

cabalamat 12y ago

One problem with Markdown is that every Markdown app uses a different version of it.

rubiquity 12y ago

Does anybody have any experience with this and LightPaper[0]? I'm curious if I should switch. There's so many markdown editors out there. How can I know that I'm using the best one for me? (joking) Markdown editors feel like it should be the example for the paradox of choice. 0 - http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-mac/ http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-mac/

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

filmgirlcw 12y ago

My only real issue with these is that there isn't an easy way to do a RegEX to remove certain types of formatting when copying the HTML. In an ideal world, I'd prefer to not have <p> tags, for instance, because most of the time, the place I'm pasting the content inserts them at any line break automatically. I realize this isn't always the case but it's one of those "frustrating" aspects that makes me continue to use an old-as-hell TextMate bundle a friend customized for me 5 years ago.