

Show HN: LightPaper for Mac – Free Markdown editor - jnardiello
http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-mac/
I&#x27;m not the author of the app (nor i have any connection with them, just a random user). iA Writer and Writer Pro aren&#x27;t well suited for me as a developer. They feel quite &quot;strange&quot; to me. Mou is a good option (free too) but still missing some features. So far this, this editor is the most complete user-friendly. Hope it helps!
======
rhythmvs
Thanks for sharing! I’ve added LightPaper to my curated list of Markdown
editors.

I’m maintaining a repo¹ with a collection of Markdown resources, listing the
abundances of 𝗠⬇ dialects, parsers, editors², stylesheets, … Please feel free
to commit!

[¹] [https://github.com/rhythmus/markdown-
resources](https://github.com/rhythmus/markdown-resources) [²]
[https://github.com/rhythmus/markdown-
resources/blob/master/m...](https://github.com/rhythmus/markdown-
resources/blob/master/markdown-apps.yml)

~~~
frik
Nice lists!

Maybe you can enable the GitHub wiki so that others can edit them using
"Markdown" too?

The lists are provided in yet another plain text format (YAML). Reading them
using the GitHub website is not so nice, and it feels weird especially as it's
about Markdown a direct format-competitor..

~~~
rhythmvs
Thanks for the hint! Done:

[https://github.com/rhythmus/markdown-resources/wiki/Nota-
ben...](https://github.com/rhythmus/markdown-resources/wiki/Nota-bene)

If there were only that much support for YAML (as regards parsers,
stylesheets, and integration in e.g. Github), as there is for MD…

IMO, Markdown is for text (i.e. continuous reading), while YAML is for
structured data (not sequentially read, but randomly accessed/queried).

------
Lazare
Interesting. Just yesterday I decided to start blogging again with Octopress,
and conducted a fairly extensive search for a good Markdown editor for OSX,
and found nothing impressive. Mau gets tons of attention, as does Marked, but
neither does a good job of handling an octopress post with code blocks.

I'd ended up giving up and just going back to Sublime, but LightPaper handles
my use case perfectly, so...nice. I think I'll be using this.

~~~
AYBABTME
Mou is really annoying in the way it handles history. I guess it's author
never heard of the command pattern, because Undo-ing the history doesn't
consider the autocompletions Mou did and just generally doesn't work and mess
up your document. Then Redo-ing helps cementing the mess.

Also the editor is very lacking in functionality, in term of text
manipulation.

I started by liking Mou, then working around the issues, then getting pretty
angry at it from all the time I wasted trying to make it work - all that just
to get a live editor. Ended up setting a Grunt task.

I've reported those problems to the author who didn't seem to give a damn.

------
wubbfindel
The title claimed it's "the best", but I find it hard to consider any software
the best of its kind when it's only available on one platform.

~~~
guptaneil
Good thing it's available on more than one platform?
[http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-
android/](http://clockworkengine.com/lightpaper-android/)

Although in my experience, the best software of its kind is usually limited to
one platform. Otherwise, you're stuck catering to the lowest common
denominator of all supported platforms.

~~~
smilekzs
The Android version is _not_ free.

~~~
intull
The pro is paid. There's a freeware version too

------
taude
No talk of Windows alternatives here, and since I just setup a Win machine
yesterday, I found Markdown Pad 2 [1]. There's both free and paid version. It
seems to get the job done for me for now. I am a Mou user on Mac.

Just installed this, will check it out, especially the git-hub jekyll pages
stuff...

[1]
[http://markdownpad.com/news/2013/introducing-](http://markdownpad.com/news/2013/introducing-)
markdownpad-2/

------
intull
Title should be - The best Markdown editor for Mac and Android (and it's
free).

------
lauriswtf
So far I was really enjoying Mou App[0], but this looks like a step forward.

[0][http://mouapp.com/](http://mouapp.com/)

~~~
SyneRyder
Any particular reason this is better than Mou? The only advantage I can see
from the website is the tabbed file viewer, but I guess I've missed something.
(10.8+ seems a disadvantage over Mou, it has versions for 10.6 & 10.7)

~~~
AYBABTME
Mou is not a very serious editor. It's just convenient because of the live
reload and some Markdown highlighting/styling. You quickly get insane working
with the lacking text manipulation features and the depressingly broken
undo/redo.

~~~
timtamboy63
The reason I use Mou is for the LaTeX integration. Haven't found another
editor that does that.

~~~
AYBABTME
It's just using MathJax.js

------
santa_boy
Looks like a good alternative.

FWIW, I am very happy now with:

1\. [Haroopad - The Next Document processor based on
Markdown]([http://pad.haroopress.com/](http://pad.haroopress.com/))

2\. [mouapp.com]([http://mouapp.com/](http://mouapp.com/))

Haroopad mainly because it is open source and based on node-webkit and very
compatible across platforms.

~~~
zaroth
Thanks for the link to Haroopad! I installed it and looks really nice, super
easy and fast.

A couple initial downsides...

\- I thought Chromium had spell checking, but you don't get it in node-webkit
apparently, or it's been disabled. Must have spell check, even poor Chrome
spell check.

\- Export to HTML - The resulting document doesn't look quite as good in
Chrome as exported HTML as it does in the preview pane in the editor; so it's
not quite WYSIWYG. There are ways to customize the style of the export, the
preview pane itself is HTML... (Export to 'Plain HTML' and put your own .CSS?)
But it would be really nice if 'Export as Styled HTML ' got you a matched
document at least in Chrome.

\- I think word wrap is broken on the editor pane - it should wrap entire
words at the end of the line, not cut words in half, right?

Saving documents directly as .md is an interesting trade-off. It's just plain
text, which makes things oh so simple. But I'm not sure if this eliminates the
possibility for having any non-visible text or meta-data at all inside the
document, so that might cut off future features. Not a downside of Haroodpad
really, just a consideration for using naked markdown. Most will probably see
this as a pro not a con.

------
Argorak
Sadly, it doesn't deal with YAML frontmatter, that is often used in blog
engines like jekyll (github pages) and middleman.

(found that issues can be filed here:
[https://github.com/ClockworkEngine/LightPaper-
Support/issues...](https://github.com/ClockworkEngine/LightPaper-
Support/issues?state=open))

------
swombat
I don't see how it's "best" or even "better". Mou, mentioned by others, works
better. Mou struggles with large Markdown files, but at least it doesn't have
strange display issues when scrolling up and down in the editing window, and
it shows more useful visual cues in the editing window.

Currently my workflow for writing blog posts is: iA Writer for the initial
draft, then tidy up in Mou, then stick it on swombat.com. LightPaper seems too
fragile to fit in that without hassling me along the way.

------
ing33k
any looking for a decent web app dedicated to markdown editing
[https://stackedit.io/](https://stackedit.io/)

~~~
jnardiello
Super nice! Thanks for suggesting

------
TobbenTM
Also only for Mac. Should say in title.

------
Matrixik
There is also nice Texts[1] and working on Windows and Mac OS X.

[1] [http://www.texts.io/](http://www.texts.io/)

------
johnchristopher
Seems nice. Unfortunately I feel a bit left out since the old 2006 intel iMac
(core2duo) I was given (for free) won't ever be updated past Snow Leopard
(10.6).

Any reasons why more and more applications are 10.7 or 10.8 only (like Sublime
eg) ? This iMac is still responsive and a joy to use (much more than my Vaio
i5 laptop).

~~~
city41
This is how OSX has always worked. Not upgrading to the latest really isn't an
option in Apple land. Because new apps tend to only support the two most
recent versions of OSX. Both to take advantage of new APIs, and to not have to
expend the energy to maintain compatibility with old versions of OSX.

This is the same company that has jumped across three processor families and
two major OS architectures. Apple has never been very concerned with backwards
compatibility.

------
suprjami
Android user here. When you link with Dropbox, Lightpaper wants to create its
own folder to store documents in, and cannot get out of that folder.

It would be nice if I could access, oh you know, all the pre-existing Markdown
content I have arranged in multiple folders and already syncing down to
different places.

This is a fail for me.
[Draft]([https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mvilla.dra...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mvilla.draft&hl=en))
does nicely on Android, and
[Dillinger.io]([http://dillinger.io/](http://dillinger.io/)) on
desktop/browser.

~~~
asimov42
Looks like they have chosen to only use App Folder permissions rather than
full Dropbox. I suppose it helps in getting production approval, but then if
other apps are able to get them I wonder why can't lightpaper.

------
yaj
Looks good. I will check it out.

My current setup is Marked 2 and vim (most of the time). Simple and works
well.

[http://marked2app.com/](http://marked2app.com/)

------
Skoofoo
The best markdown editor for me would be a minimal web app (vertical split,
implicit URL generation, no settings). There is no particularly good solution
for efficiently writing and sharing Markdown notes.

~~~
RaphiePS
Have you tried out [http://socrates.io/](http://socrates.io/) ?

~~~
StavrosK
Or [http://dillinger.io/](http://dillinger.io/)

------
adrianhoward
I currently use Sublime Text 2 in distraction free mode + the SmartMarkdown
package + a tweaked Solarized theme with some extra markdown syntax
highlighting. Works for me ;)

------
macco
I dont't know. Why do need people a specialised markdown editor? Use your
favorite editor, install a markdown add-on and your done.

Do I miss something?

~~~
taude
Having a live preview is pretty nice when you start getting into slightly more
complicated documents? Especially when you start working in specific markdown
varients, like github, table addons, code, etc...

------
siscia
I love markdown, but sometimes I just wanted to share my MarkDown with the
world and a github repo was too much, so I created:
[http://gorgeapp.appspot.com/](http://gorgeapp.appspot.com/)

It is completely free, also it has a preview...

Fell free to use it and leave feedback...

Sorry, I just don't make money out of it, so I won't consider this ads... :)

~~~
StavrosK
The title says "beatiful".

~~~
siscia
I like it... Anyway I agree that my sense of beauty is not conventional...

~~~
StavrosK
Your sense of "beaty", you mean!

------
mundizzle
i'm surprised no one has mentioned Marked 2 from Brett Terpstra -
[http://marked2app.com](http://marked2app.com)

it's a Markdown document viewer that displays changes as you make them in your
favorite editor (ST3 in my case).

what puts it over the top for me is its perfect rendering of Github Flavored
Markdown.

~~~
taude
Oooh, nice find. I almost didn't learn about this because it was so far down.
This fits my workflow perfectly...

------
thes_kumar
I have been using [https://stackedit.io/](https://stackedit.io/) for sometime
and I find it way too satisfactory in terms of it's features, can be popped
open anytime in a browser and works offline too.

I would like to hear, what is the core problem that LightPaper is trying to
solve here!

------
michaelmcmillan
Claiming something is the best without backing it up with solid arguments
seems like link-bait to me.

------
denrober
Would be nice if it supported the git extensions for syntax highlighting.

------
jawngee
What? No Syntax Control?

Looks great. Does it support Github flavor?

~~~
jnardiello
I'm using it right now and it supports Github flavor partially. No
strikethrough, no autolinking, no code syntax highlighting.

------
mr_spothawk
bah! "Can't open because it's from an unidentified developer"

Anyway, fixed that:

System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Allow Apps Downloaded from Anywhere

~~~
willthames
A better workaround is to right-click the download and then select Open, which
will then ask you if you really want to open. That way you maintain the
additional protection in general while still bypassing it for this (and
similar) instance.

------
kazuki
If you use Mac, kobito
([http://kobito.qiita.com/en](http://kobito.qiita.com/en)) is also a nice
editor, there is not much English information though.

------
rxaxm
the best markdown editor BY FAR is IPython Notebook. What other markdown
engine will render math (mathjax) and do syntax highlighting for you. I ended
up grabbing all their js for a markdown-based blog platform I built myself

another neat markdown hack is to get the quicklook markdown renderer (if
you're on os x) and then use copy in the github markdown CSS. you can see
immediately what you're README.md files are gonna look like right away in
finder

------
oddshocks
Well hey, this isn't Vim/Emacs! False advertising! ;)

------
apetrov
looks like it doesn't know that markdown supports tables.

~~~
Khaine
Markdown itself does not support tables, you need to fall back to pure html
tables as per the spec

[http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax](http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/syntax)

~~~
reirob
Well at least the Pandoc markdown dialect supports three types of tables:
[http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/README.html#tables](http://johnmacfarlane.net/pandoc/README.html#tables)

I have to admit that none of them satisfies me completely (sometimes I wish
for mediawiki table support) - but at least they are faithful to the principle
to be recognizable as tables in text editors.

------
lobster_johnson
The syntax highlight latency is very unnerving. Why is it not real-time?
NSTextView is certainly up to the task.

------
flym4n
Scrolling is unusable on mountain lion.

------
bigd
I find the refresh of the preview very slow, and I miss the latex math
expressions. But great job!!

------
asselinpaul
How does it compare with Mou?

~~~
jnardiello
Quite similar to be honest (Mou was my favurite editor so far) but this is
really a step forward - IMHO. Interface is a lot better and it supports
flavored markdown (having to double-space for newline makes using Mou quite a
pain).

------
mihok
Came here hoping that there would be a linux release? :/

------
LukeHoersten
Thank you so much!

------
LukeHoersten
iOS in the plans?

