[HN Gopher] Panwriter - Distraction-free Markdown editor with pa... ___________________________________________________________________ Panwriter - Distraction-free Markdown editor with pandoc integration Author : amai Score : 81 points Date : 2022-01-26 16:07 UTC (6 hours ago) (HTM) web link (panwriter.com) (TXT) w3m dump (panwriter.com) | omarhaneef wrote: | Both these statements are true: | | -- There are ("too"?) many Markdown editors | | -- This is exactly what we need. | | I like composing drafts in Markdown but I have to export them (to | PDF to view and mark up in Remarkable, to Word to share with some | people and so) quite often, and going into pandoc and remembering | the commands adds extra layers. | | This is a huge contribution. | | p.s. because this is Hacker News, I hope some smart person is | going to point out an even more efficient way to switch contexts. | I am here for it if it doesn't involve trying to learn emacs for | the 87th time. | tombert wrote: | I would recommend finding out how to execute a shell command in | whatever editor you use, and then write a script that does the | exporting with the settings you care about. Then bind a command | in the editor to that renderer. | | Not emacs but not that different either; I personally use tmux | with Vim on the top pane, and a split with the command line on | the bottom, and a workspace split with Apple Preview on the | left. Here is a sample of it: https://i.imgur.com/oqss6SO.png | | It's not for everyone, but I can't think in anything but Vim | now. | xalava wrote: | Most editors have a plugin that does that: | | - https://github.com/OliverBalfour/obsidian-pandoc | | - https://packagecontrol.io/packages/Pandoc | | - | https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DougFink... | luckyorlame wrote: | oh well | | Uncaught Exception: Error: write EPIPE at | WriteWrap.onWriteComplete [as oncomplete] | (node:internal/stream_base_commons:98:16) | wanderingmind wrote: | Vscode or even Emacs has Markdown editing and view. Am I missing | something in them that are being satisfied by these other | editors? | loudmax wrote: | Since this is based on Pandoc, it should be able edit many | miscellaneous formats including MS Word docs. | andix wrote: | I wouldn't consider a split screen MD editor distraction free. | | My markdown editor needs to be just one combined edit/preview | window. Either with Typora like WYSIWYG or some syntax | highlighting. | riidom wrote: | Don't like displaying the same content twice either. It gets a | bit old mentioning Obsidian _all the time_ , but their source | code view is very close to the rendered view. This, and Typoras | approach, are two good solutions to avoid split screen. | | I wonder if there are more ways to solve that problem. | andrewshadura wrote: | Mark Text also does this, and is free software. | stronglikedan wrote: | Have you tried it? You ca switch views between edit, preview, | and split. | | But I think you mean combined edit/preview like Zettlr has, | where it's a hybrid. | sigzero wrote: | I prefer the split screen so I would ascribe "distraction free" | to it. It's a matter of taste. | tombert wrote: | Personally I hate when editors try and make my markdown look | like anything but plain text. Syntax highlighting is fine, but | I don't want you to make my font bigger when I type # and I | don't want my text to be italicized when I type an asterisk, | etc. Plain text has a purity and simplicity to it, and if I | wanted those features I would probably just use MS Word or | Pages or something. | | I don't personally find the preview to be distracting, and I | like seeing the rendered product with a distinct separation | from the code that generates it. | | I don't think I'll swap to this since I'm relatively happy with | just having MacOS preview and a terminal in a workspace split, | but I could totally see why someone would like this. | turnsout wrote: | I was so crushed to see that this is an Electron app. I'm a | longtime iA Writer craving built-in Pandoc export, and this is | basically my dream app. I just can't get behind running all of | Chromium to support a minimalist text editor. | [deleted] | brewdad wrote: | OTOH, being an electron app means there is Windows support from | day one. Windows is sorely lacking in Markdown support relative | to what's available on Mac. | Merg wrote: | More likely, it can actually render all of Markdown, which | allows HTML within. For that you at least need some kind of | HTML renderer. | qbasic_forever wrote: | Markdown by design allows arbitrary HTML, so every markdown | viewer at a minimum needs to support the entire HTML, CSS, etc. | DOM. It's easiest (and likely more secure) to use something | like Chromium. | turnsout wrote: | I get that, and I'm not disagreeing. However, two points: | | 1. I think writing-focused Markdown editors should not feel | obligated to render arbitrary HTML in their previews. The | format may support it, but the editor doesn't need to--one of | the great things about Markdown is that your editor can be | anything from vi to VSCode. | | 2. On the Mac, there is an extremely easy API to display a | WebView (WKWebView), which would cut the size of this | executable to roughly 1/100th of its current size, drop the | memory usage, and reduce energy consumption. You can even | keep most of the business logic in JavaScript if you want. | mxuribe wrote: | This is neat looking! I don't have loads of experience using | markdown editors, but the 2 features which i think really attract | me to wanting to use it are: | | 1. Exporting into soooo many formats (thanks to pandoc). | | 2. Importing into this app from other formats. The associated | website briefly talks about importing a Word doc (working on it | distraction-free, and then re-exporting as a doc file format), | which seems a little bit of an edge case *for my workflows* but | the fact that it is possible i think is/could be really handy! | | I think i'll give this a try. Kudos for releasing this! | heckelson wrote: | I've been using Zettlr for the last few days, and I've fallen in | love with it. The best feature that it has for lecture note | taking is that you can paste in screenshots and it automatically | handles it for you, putting a file in the right place and linking | to it. | neitsab wrote: | The "distraction-free" bit reminded me of a similar tool I used a | couple of years ago, Ghostwriter [0]. Differences between the two | AFAICT: | | - use of Pandoc as a converter is only optional in Ghostwriter, | and I don't know how well it is integrated | | - semi-official MacOS support: Ghostwriter requires you to build | the app from source (maybe its authors didn't want to notarize | the app?) and it has a few quirks apparently[1]. | | - more features for the more mature Ghostwriter. | | In any case good to see more choices in this space, cross- | platform Markdown word processors with Pandoc support were a rare | occurrences a couple of years ago! | | [0] https://github.com/wereturtle/ghostwriter | | [1] https://wereturtle.github.io/ghostwriter/download.html#macos | | edit: formatting | account-5 wrote: | I'm glad you mentioned this. I always mIention it in the | markdown editor threads. I use ghostwriter, its my go to editor | for markdown. | | I would like a markdown editor that supports pandoc in full. I | think sciter would be a better option than electron though. | porcoda wrote: | Why do we see so many markdown editors? Is there some library or | widget out there that everyone starts from to parse and render | markdown, and then it just turns into a simple exercise of | putting a UI in front of it and adding a tiny number of novel | features? I can't understand why so many people keep producing | basically the same application with tiny variations to edit and | view what is a relatively simple structured text format. I sort | of remember from the 80s the quick and dirty app that you could | find many of variants of for Commodore, Apple, and PC systems was | a recipe database, largely because it was an easy exercise. Is | the markdown editor todays version of that? | elcapitan wrote: | For a while it was todo-apps, now it's markdown editors. | orangea wrote: | There are a lot of features which a markdown editor can have | which are somewhat difficult to implement and get right, such | as WYSIWYG with css theming, support for latex equations, | support for nonstandard features like Pandoc markdown, plugins, | support for the textbundle format... Nothing exists that | implement these perfectly and so I think people make attempts | at making something that at least works for their specific use | case but no one can make the one true editor that does | everything because it would be a huge amount of work. | ReleaseCandidat wrote: | Markdown-it. | | https://markdown-it.github.io/ https://github.com/markdown- | it/markdown-it | | Using Haskell, you could of course use Pandoc directly ;) | | https://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc-2.17.0.1/docs/Tex... | | https://hackage.haskell.org/package/pandoc-2.17.0.1/docs/Tex... | riidom wrote: | I believe that markdown editors belong into a certain group of | software, which are seemingly simple, but people are for some | reason pretty picky about features, UI, and so on. | | Other members of this group are music/media players, simple | organization tools (e.g. time-tracking, to-do), and of course | coding-related text editors. I think I had one or two more | examples, but don't remember right now. | | And this leads to a lot of tools being very similar on surface. | atoav wrote: | I use _two_ markdown editors. One is for quick notes, the | other is for writing focused stuff without distractions. | | It works better that way for me. | approxim8ion wrote: | My distraction-free Markdown editor is vim. No UI clutter, not an | electron app, loads ginormous files super quickly, is powerful | when you need it to be and simple when you don't. | | I use Goyo for the minor convenience of limiting the column | width, but really it's all I need. | DerArzt wrote: | Same, but replace vim with Emacs. | seanw444 wrote: | Same but replace Emacs with Emacs. | rPlayer6554 wrote: | :%s/emacs/vim/g | ysleepy wrote: | Looks good. | | Pulls in two pretty huge dependencies though, electron and | pandoc. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-26 23:00 UTC)