6 ms·

ReText – Markdown Editor with Live Preview

64 points by redthrow 12y ago

KyleBrandt 12y ago
Alternative for Mac users: http://macdown.uranusjr.com/ http://macdown.uranusjr.com/
- shared4you 12y ago
  Another one for Mac: [Multimarkdown Composer][1]. A friend of mine uses it and I think it worked well. [1]: http://multimarkdown.com/ http://multimarkdown.com/
  - gabehammersmith 12y ago
    Yet another alternative for Mac users: http://25.io/mou/ http://25.io/mou/
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ExpiredLink 12y ago
Any alternative for Windows users?
- bdat 12y ago
  I wrote a chrome extension called Symplie that lets you write and view notes in Markdown: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/symplie/kjadigajmcobihfbbhmdeljohoccbejk https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/symplie/kjadigajmc...
  - andmalc 12y ago
    Pretty sharp. I like the preview toggle - seems to me that keeping the preview visable all the time like other editors is a waste of space. Since it saves to Chrome local storage, wouldn't notes get synced along with other Chrome data?
    - bdat 12y ago
      I'm actually just using IndexedDB so it doesn't sync. I use Chrome storage to cache the license (in case you were wondering about the permissions). There is a special Chrome storage sync api but it's limited to 800kb I think. I'm still exploring a good way to implement (unlimited) sync. Thanks for the feedback!
- sagarjauhari 12y ago
  http://markdownpad.com/ http://markdownpad.com/
aslakhellesoy 12y ago
What's the target group of Markdown editors with preview? I love Markdown and use it a lot, but do people really wonder what their headers and bullet lists are going to look like?
- lfowles 12y ago
  I like having a markdown preview available for the following reasons: * I can quickly tell if I screwed up my whitespace * I can experiment with features I'm unsure about (images with links) I like having a markdown preview available for the following reasons: * I can quickly tell if I screwed up my whitespace * I can experiment with features I'm unsure about (images with links)
  - Dewie 12y ago
    The thing with two spaces at the end of a line indicating line break doesn't make sense to me. It is invisible in most editors, so it is easy to mess up.
    - Nzen 12y ago
      That reminds me of a [joke response](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8767426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8767426) to a vid on the antagonistic programming language, intercal: block comments ought to be text between two lines of 5 spaces each :B In fairness to markdown, it probably isn't convention to break up a paragraph on different lines with the expectation that it will wrap.
- falcolas 12y ago
  Folks who use WordPress or other CMS, and want to (or are forced to) move to statically generated sites?
- lovelearning 12y ago
  I use my own markdown preview tool to preview what my WP blog post looks like. It's like MS LiveWriter but supports markdown. I find it easier to write text, insert code and add images in a desktop tool and get live visual feedback, than doing it in the WP editor page, saving and refreshing the post.
jakeway 12y ago
You can also checkout http://dillinger.io/ http://dillinger.io/ for a web-based Markdown editor
stcredzero 12y ago
All this stuff with Markdown. I suppose it's either a matter of time, or it's already happened: a Markdown literate programming environment, a la Donald Knuth.
- samatman 12y ago
  I gave it a shot at one point: https://github.com/mnemnion/marmalade https://github.com/mnemnion/marmalade Lately I've been using babel in org-mode, it's a bit clunky, but it works. Metalanguages require really, really good tooling; the first project to solve the basic problems is likely to prove quite popular. Note that while I used to think literate programming was cool, it's actually a subset of the kind of living programmable document which Babel can produce. I'm more impressed at the moment by the ways one can chain various languages together with the results of calling them.
pothibo 12y ago
Looks good! I've also worked on a markdown editor since january but it's web-based and while it's hooked on my blogging engine, I'm planning to make it available as a standalone library down the road. It might not be obvious, but the markdown on top is the actual editor. You can test ride it. http://ecrire.io/ http://ecrire.io/ More the merrier! (Small disclaimer: I have never tested it on IE...)
- barosl 12y ago
  I like this kind of partial rendering, which preserves the markdown markup. Months ago, I've investigated some alternatives in this regard, such as: https://github.com/lepture/editor https://github.com/lepture/editor https://github.com/airpub/ninja https://github.com/airpub/ninja But nothing was perfect for my criterion. I hope your solution will become the one I've been looking for. One concern is that it doesn't seem to support the ``` syntax, but the ~~~ syntax. Would that be possible to also support the former? Also, are you planning to conform to the CommonMark specification?
chuckouellet 12y ago
I mostly use StackEdit https://stackedit.io/ https://stackedit.io/ By far the most elegant markdown editor I found.
- pothibo 12y ago
  StackEdit is very nice, it's certainly one of the best.
redthrow 12y ago
This is the first time I learned about WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM Both plain text editors (e.g. gedit) and word processors (e.g. LibreOffice Writer) frustrated me so this is perfect for my needs.
- auxym 12y ago
  Check out LyX! Not affiliated or anything, just great software that for me hits the sweetspot between Writer and hand-coding Latex. It's simple and lightweight yet powerful and easy to learn. http://www.lyx.org/ http://www.lyx.org/
  - redthrow 12y ago
    Thanks! Does it have live preview? (It's not listed in the features page.) Also the UI looks really complex compared to ReText. It looks good for people who write complex documents (e.g. math textbooks) though.
    - auxym 12y ago
      It does not have live preview, it uses latex in the backend so you have to compile to view your changes. I have found the interface mostly intuitive myself (ymmv). It has absolutely no problem doing simple documents, quite the opposite actually, it makes it very simple. Looking at the web page, I agree it does not make this very clear. The docs come as LyX documents packaged with the software, if you feel like having a look, install it and hit help > tutorial
- sheremetyev 12y ago
  Texts (http://texts.io http://texts.io) is a WYSIWYM editor for Markdown.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  That's pretty much the prime directive of semantic formatting systems -- LaTeX, HTML (as originally envisioned), Markdown, and the like. The ironic truth is that "responsive" design is a horribly late-to-the-party awareness of this, and often accomplished by tremendously convoluted design -- adding more complexity to systems in which less is preferred. But yes, it's quite an epiphany when you finally get it.
Dewie 12y ago
Markdown seems to be a lightweight, readable, unobtrusive markup language for relatively simple documents. Considering that, hasn't markdown (or one of its dialects) failed if someone feels motivated to use a dedicated editor for it? The side-by-side preview feels particularly ironic considering markdown's purpose, though I guess it is nice to have as a check that you didn't mess up closing a paren and other syntax-things.
- redthrow 12y ago
  > nice to have as a check I think this is exactly the purpose of having live preview, just like it's nice to have spell checker even for experienced writers. It's nice to know when something goes wrong immediately. Also, Markdown's syntax spec, while relatively short, is not something people can memorize immediately, especially for syntax elements they don't use often.
tlarkworthy 12y ago
Will someone please develop one with spell check? Dillinger.io fails this too. I use ia writer but its not ideal for other features.
- redthrow 12y ago
  ReText has spell checker: Edit -> Spell check -> Enable
- simple10 12y ago
  StackEdit [1] has spell check. Or more specifically, it does not block the browser's native spell check in the editor. It also doesn't suffer from slow down with larger documents [2]. [1] https://github.com/benweet/stackedit https://github.com/benweet/stackedit [2] https://github.com/joemccann/dillinger/issues/301 https://github.com/joemccann/dillinger/issues/301
robbiep 12y ago
Sorry to take this off topic but seeing as many here have developed their own markdown editors - I have a specific use case where I want to integrate a markdown editor with my backend (multiple technically unskilled users adding information in markdown, to render in html and eventually be pushed to mobile devices) I MUST HAVE a side-by-side editor (currently I use mark able.in which I have found satisfactory) but it doesn't have an api and often doesn't maintain scroll position. If anyone is interested in making available their editor/working with me in implementing this solution then my humble startup could spare a few peanuts, please reach out to me(Python/flask backend, with PostgreSQL for persistence)
- sdsk8 12y ago
  This guy: https://stackedit.io/ https://stackedit.io/ It's opensource and have export hooks!
bdcravens 12y ago
They're probably not as feature-rich, but I find the plugins available for Atom and Sublime Text to meet this need.
insin 12y ago
vmd [1] is handy for quick previewing, especially if you're editing for GitHub. If I had to jump out of my regular editor to write Markdown or reStructuredText, I probably wouldn't be using them. [1] https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/vmd https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/vmd
btreecat 12y ago
I didn't find it's usability for RST docs all that great.

64 points by redthrow 12y ago

KyleBrandt 12y ago

Alternative for Mac users: http://macdown.uranusjr.com/ http://macdown.uranusjr.com/

shared4you 12y ago
Another one for Mac: [Multimarkdown Composer][1]. A friend of mine uses it and I think it worked well. [1]: http://multimarkdown.com/ http://multimarkdown.com/
- gabehammersmith 12y ago
  Yet another alternative for Mac users: http://25.io/mou/ http://25.io/mou/

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ExpiredLink 12y ago

Any alternative for Windows users?

bdat 12y ago
I wrote a chrome extension called Symplie that lets you write and view notes in Markdown: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/symplie/kjadigajmcobihfbbhmdeljohoccbejk https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/symplie/kjadigajmc...
- andmalc 12y ago
  Pretty sharp. I like the preview toggle - seems to me that keeping the preview visable all the time like other editors is a waste of space. Since it saves to Chrome local storage, wouldn't notes get synced along with other Chrome data?
  - bdat 12y ago
    I'm actually just using IndexedDB so it doesn't sync. I use Chrome storage to cache the license (in case you were wondering about the permissions). There is a special Chrome storage sync api but it's limited to 800kb I think. I'm still exploring a good way to implement (unlimited) sync. Thanks for the feedback!
sagarjauhari 12y ago
http://markdownpad.com/ http://markdownpad.com/

aslakhellesoy 12y ago

What's the target group of Markdown editors with preview? I love Markdown and use it a lot, but do people really wonder what their headers and bullet lists are going to look like?

lfowles 12y ago
I like having a markdown preview available for the following reasons: * I can quickly tell if I screwed up my whitespace * I can experiment with features I'm unsure about (images with links) I like having a markdown preview available for the following reasons: * I can quickly tell if I screwed up my whitespace * I can experiment with features I'm unsure about (images with links)
- Dewie 12y ago
  The thing with two spaces at the end of a line indicating line break doesn't make sense to me. It is invisible in most editors, so it is easy to mess up.
  - Nzen 12y ago
    That reminds me of a [joke response](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8767426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8767426) to a vid on the antagonistic programming language, intercal: block comments ought to be text between two lines of 5 spaces each :B In fairness to markdown, it probably isn't convention to break up a paragraph on different lines with the expectation that it will wrap.
falcolas 12y ago
Folks who use WordPress or other CMS, and want to (or are forced to) move to statically generated sites?
lovelearning 12y ago
I use my own markdown preview tool to preview what my WP blog post looks like. It's like MS LiveWriter but supports markdown. I find it easier to write text, insert code and add images in a desktop tool and get live visual feedback, than doing it in the WP editor page, saving and refreshing the post.

jakeway 12y ago

You can also checkout http://dillinger.io/ http://dillinger.io/ for a web-based Markdown editor

stcredzero 12y ago

All this stuff with Markdown. I suppose it's either a matter of time, or it's already happened: a Markdown literate programming environment, a la Donald Knuth.

samatman 12y ago
I gave it a shot at one point: https://github.com/mnemnion/marmalade https://github.com/mnemnion/marmalade Lately I've been using babel in org-mode, it's a bit clunky, but it works. Metalanguages require really, really good tooling; the first project to solve the basic problems is likely to prove quite popular. Note that while I used to think literate programming was cool, it's actually a subset of the kind of living programmable document which Babel can produce. I'm more impressed at the moment by the ways one can chain various languages together with the results of calling them.

pothibo 12y ago

Looks good! I've also worked on a markdown editor since january but it's web-based and while it's hooked on my blogging engine, I'm planning to make it available as a standalone library down the road. It might not be obvious, but the markdown on top is the actual editor. You can test ride it. http://ecrire.io/ http://ecrire.io/ More the merrier! (Small disclaimer: I have never tested it on IE...)

barosl 12y ago
I like this kind of partial rendering, which preserves the markdown markup. Months ago, I've investigated some alternatives in this regard, such as: https://github.com/lepture/editor https://github.com/lepture/editor https://github.com/airpub/ninja https://github.com/airpub/ninja But nothing was perfect for my criterion. I hope your solution will become the one I've been looking for. One concern is that it doesn't seem to support the ``` syntax, but the ~~~ syntax. Would that be possible to also support the former? Also, are you planning to conform to the CommonMark specification?

chuckouellet 12y ago

I mostly use StackEdit https://stackedit.io/ https://stackedit.io/ By far the most elegant markdown editor I found.

pothibo 12y ago
StackEdit is very nice, it's certainly one of the best.

redthrow 12y ago

This is the first time I learned about WYSIWYM (What You See Is What You Mean). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WYSIWYM Both plain text editors (e.g. gedit) and word processors (e.g. LibreOffice Writer) frustrated me so this is perfect for my needs.

auxym 12y ago
Check out LyX! Not affiliated or anything, just great software that for me hits the sweetspot between Writer and hand-coding Latex. It's simple and lightweight yet powerful and easy to learn. http://www.lyx.org/ http://www.lyx.org/
- redthrow 12y ago
  Thanks! Does it have live preview? (It's not listed in the features page.) Also the UI looks really complex compared to ReText. It looks good for people who write complex documents (e.g. math textbooks) though.
  - auxym 12y ago
    It does not have live preview, it uses latex in the backend so you have to compile to view your changes. I have found the interface mostly intuitive myself (ymmv). It has absolutely no problem doing simple documents, quite the opposite actually, it makes it very simple. Looking at the web page, I agree it does not make this very clear. The docs come as LyX documents packaged with the software, if you feel like having a look, install it and hit help > tutorial
sheremetyev 12y ago
Texts (http://texts.io http://texts.io) is a WYSIWYM editor for Markdown.
dredmorbius 12y ago
That's pretty much the prime directive of semantic formatting systems -- LaTeX, HTML (as originally envisioned), Markdown, and the like. The ironic truth is that "responsive" design is a horribly late-to-the-party awareness of this, and often accomplished by tremendously convoluted design -- adding more complexity to systems in which less is preferred. But yes, it's quite an epiphany when you finally get it.

Dewie 12y ago

Markdown seems to be a lightweight, readable, unobtrusive markup language for relatively simple documents. Considering that, hasn't markdown (or one of its dialects) failed if someone feels motivated to use a dedicated editor for it? The side-by-side preview feels particularly ironic considering markdown's purpose, though I guess it is nice to have as a check that you didn't mess up closing a paren and other syntax-things.

redthrow 12y ago
> nice to have as a check I think this is exactly the purpose of having live preview, just like it's nice to have spell checker even for experienced writers. It's nice to know when something goes wrong immediately. Also, Markdown's syntax spec, while relatively short, is not something people can memorize immediately, especially for syntax elements they don't use often.

tlarkworthy 12y ago

Will someone please develop one with spell check? Dillinger.io fails this too. I use ia writer but its not ideal for other features.

redthrow 12y ago
ReText has spell checker: Edit -> Spell check -> Enable
simple10 12y ago
StackEdit [1] has spell check. Or more specifically, it does not block the browser's native spell check in the editor. It also doesn't suffer from slow down with larger documents [2]. [1] https://github.com/benweet/stackedit https://github.com/benweet/stackedit [2] https://github.com/joemccann/dillinger/issues/301 https://github.com/joemccann/dillinger/issues/301

robbiep 12y ago

Sorry to take this off topic but seeing as many here have developed their own markdown editors - I have a specific use case where I want to integrate a markdown editor with my backend (multiple technically unskilled users adding information in markdown, to render in html and eventually be pushed to mobile devices) I MUST HAVE a side-by-side editor (currently I use mark able.in which I have found satisfactory) but it doesn't have an api and often doesn't maintain scroll position. If anyone is interested in making available their editor/working with me in implementing this solution then my humble startup could spare a few peanuts, please reach out to me(Python/flask backend, with PostgreSQL for persistence)

sdsk8 12y ago
This guy: https://stackedit.io/ https://stackedit.io/ It's opensource and have export hooks!

bdcravens 12y ago

They're probably not as feature-rich, but I find the plugins available for Atom and Sublime Text to meet this need.

insin 12y ago

vmd [1] is handy for quick previewing, especially if you're editing for GitHub. If I had to jump out of my regular editor to write Markdown or reStructuredText, I probably wouldn't be using them. [1] https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/vmd https://github.com/yoshuawuyts/vmd

btreecat 12y ago

I didn't find it's usability for RST docs all that great.