

Markdown Editor for web developers, on Mac OS X - chenluois
http://mouapp.com

======
_frog
Those using MultiMarkdown[1], which this app seemingly doesn't support, may be
interested in the MultiMarkdown Composer app[2] that should be out within a
month or so. It's being worked on by the (very) active developer of
MultiMarkdown and looks perfect for fans like myself.

[1]: <http://fletcherpenney.net/multimarkdown/>

[2]: <http://multimarkdown.com/>

~~~
dgallagher
That looks very nice, especially the TOC. I'd love to see it have a file-
browser too similar to TextMate's, which is very nice if you like to organize
MMD notes/docs in different files and folders.

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wladimir
MacOS only :(

Why don't people add that to the title? It would prevent non-mac users from
getting their expectations up.

~~~
bambax
I launched last week an online Markdown editor that works in all recent
browsers (IE support not perfect yet but will be).

It does intelligent preview (the paragraph being edited is kept into view and
highlighted), has autosave and a simple document manager that lets you export
HTML or markdown (RTF coming soon), and also has a converter, to convert rich
text TO markdown (for your legacy content).

Check it out! It's called "Akayame" for Yet Another Markdown Editor, at
<http://akaya.me>

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Void_
Okay...

<https://github.com/vojto/markdownlive#readme>

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ttjervaag
There's also Marked: <http://markedapp.com/>

I have no affiliation, just a happy customer. MacVim + Marked side by side is
a neat combo.

~~~
chenluois
Marked is a Previewer, not Editor. :)

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MatthewPhillips
Could anyone explain to me the trend to write HTML in some other markup
syntax? I write HTML in HTML. Going from one markup language to another seems
like an extra unnecessary prereq.

~~~
qjz
Ideally, we would write everything in plaintext, but it doesn't support even
the most basic features offered by typesetting (bold, italics, etc.) or
hypertext (embedded links), so we turn to markup languages at the expense of
readability.

Markup syntax like markdown, asciidoc, reStructuredText, etc. strive primarily
to preserve readability with the least obtrusive syntax, and with a smaller
learning curve (at least for the most basic usage).

So why use it instead of HTML? Like you, I typically write HTML in HTML, but
often use asciidoc for other purposes (documentation, recipes, quick notes,
etc.), because:

\- One source document can output to multiple formats, like XHTML, LaTeX, PDF,
DocBook, EPUB, Man page, etc. It's even trivial to output to a specific HTML
DOCTYPE. That's pretty neat!

\- Diffs are far more readable when not swimming in markup soup.

\- HTML is overkill for many purposes. In fact, lightweight markup has its
roots in email/newsgroup markup. HTML email is still a compatibility
nightmare. Wouldn't it be great if a new standard for rich text email was
developed, based on something as simple as markdown? It would be trivial to
support it in webmail interfaces and the source would still be readable in
plaintext email clients or if the sender went overboard with style choices.

\- Archivability. Many old HTML documents render poorly in modern browsers,
mainly due to style choices that seemed sensible at the time. Lightweight
markup focuses more on the content and discourages going off on a stylistic
tangent you may regret later. In other words, it does a good job of separating
content from presentation, so your source documents will always remain
readable and transform to something readable with relatively few tweaks in
external stylesheets or configuration files.

Because it's easy to learn without getting lost in the arcane details of
validation and compatibility, it's understandable why it's gaining popularity.

------
lux
Awesome, and very handy! One important feature request for developers: Support
Github-style code blocks, e.g.

```

some code

```

~~~
chenluois
Thanks for your suggestion!

------
chenluois
Hi all!

There're just too many comments and I can't watch this page minutes by
minutes.

If you have questions or suggestions, please email me directly.

Thank you very much!

:)

------
chenluois
A new Markdown editor for Mac I made, it's still in early beta stage. Requires
OS X 10.7+ to run.

:)

~~~
msy
Why does a text editor and a renderer with a fraction of the complexity of a
browser engine require 10.7?

~~~
chenluois
It can runs on OS X 10.6 but not officially supported. Features like Layout
Orientation, Find bar, Full screen, auto save are using OS X 10.7's API.

------
mcantelon
Every time you make a change it scrolls the preview window back up to the top,
making the live preview kind of useless.

~~~
chenluois
I'm thinking a way to improve the scroll behavior. :)

~~~
mcantelon
Awesome... if there was a mode where it could auto scroll to where the cursor
was then that would be _heavenly_.

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exogen
Looks great. Just a suggestion, I'd add another download link to the top of
the page.

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troels
Very fine. I would suggest that you let the right pane follow the scroll
position of the left pane (Or really - just have one scrollbar for them both).
I know this isn't easy to accomplish, but it would really make a difference.

~~~
chenluois
Thanks for your suggestion! I'll see if I can find a good method to implement
it.

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chubs
Looks pretty sweet. Markdown really is coming into a golden age, its
everywhere: git readmes, stackoverflow posts, i'm even using it to write my
presentations in these days! Love it :)

~~~
kib2
I'm just wondering why Creole wiki syntax failed on this particular point: for
me, the syntax is much more consistent and easier to parse.

~~~
masklinn
Markdown took email/mailing list/usenet conventions and turned them into
syntax.

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friggeri
It's great !

I just have two small requests. First, it seems you're using libdiscount (or
objc bindings to libdiscount) to compile markdown, could you give the ability
to pass flags to the compiler ? (e.g. activate footnotes). Second but less
critical to me, I'd love to be able to tweak the CSS of the generated page
(less critical because I can just tweak the style.css file in ORCDiscount).

If Mou had those two (small) features I'd gladly donate/buy it when it comes
out.

~~~
chenluois
Thanks for your suggestion! Replied you in Email. :)

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arthurschreiber
Reminds me a lot of iA Writer (which is a commercial markdown editor):
<http://www.iawriter.com/>

------
derpapst
StackOverflow published their greatly extended bugfix of the original markdown
web editor as OpenSource. They named it pagedown IIRC.

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zemanel
Eclipse.org Aptana has a plugin for editing markdown, but i don't remember
coming across a live preview feature. Usually use Dingus for preview
<http://daringfireball.net/projects/markdown/dingus> so i'm gonna give this
app a go in about 15m

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hieronymusN
Thanks for this, I've been looking for a nice simple markdown editor that can
kick out HTML for a while. I used to use TextMate's with it's Markdown
preview, but since I stopped using TextMate I've needed something to fill that
space. (Sublime Text 2 doesn't seem to have a preview feature)

~~~
chenluois
You know, I'm glad you like Mou. :)

------
pooriaazimi
I'm on snow leopard, so this might not be a bug as you said it runs on SL
unofficially, but it's VEERY annoying that every time I edit the 'source' on
the left, preview jumps up to the beginning and I have to scroll all the way
down to where I was. This is unbearable for long articles.

~~~
huskyr
Having this issue on Lion as well. The 'flashing' in the preview pane in
general is pretty noisy on the eyes.

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latch
Looks great. Any chance you can make the line-height adjustable? I find the
editor a little too squished.

It would also be useful if users could supply their own css for the preview
rendering...that way you could see what it'll look like with your own
stylesheet.

~~~
latch
The scrolling needs some work as well. It seems as soon as I write anything,
the preview just shoots back to the top. Ideally it would follow me as I type
and the two would link up transparently and smoothly.

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_frog
Just a note, it'd be awesome if there was some way to specify the stylesheet
used in the preview pane, I'd love to be able to see exactly how the result
will look on my site.

~~~
chenluois
It's already possible. Simply edit the css file inside Mou's app bundle:

<http://cl.ly/AaUT>

But do backups first!

:)

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headsclouds
This is already awesome, great work. However, if you integrated this with
Simplenote, or a similar service, it would be even better.

~~~
chenluois
Thanks for your suggestion!

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dongsheng
Very nice, love the color scheme and content preview. Will it be free once off
beta?

~~~
chenluois
Not decided yet. But if 1.0 turned into shareware, all the people who donated
during beta will receive a license for free.

~~~
dongsheng
That's what I was wondering, donating or buying it eventually, will be good to
write a note on donation, so people like me know what will be happening :)

~~~
chenluois
Thanks! I just added a note below the download button. \- "Note: All the
people who donated during beta will receive a license for free when Mou 1.0
released."

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dearjohnlee
Hashify.me may not have as many features but it is a web-based version.

~~~
chenluois
Yeah Hashify.me is made by my friend David Chambers.

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breckinloggins
Darnit! I had this EXACT same idea. Even the layout was the same in my mind.
I'm not mad at the developer, major props for the hard work. But I AM mad at
myself and hopefully this will serve as a reminder to future me that I should
execute on my ideas.

------
goblin89
Possibility to write using vertical layout is a pleasant surprise.

~~~
chenluois
Yeah, Chinese and Japanese people will enjoy vertical layout. And perhaps
Korean will like it too. :)

~~~
goblin89
Don't forget about people learning these languages—they sometimes are even
more concerned about vertical writing than natives, AFAICT =)

(OT: Nice clean personal website you have there.)

~~~
chenluois
That may be true. :)

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josscrowcroft
This looks amazing, but is it available for snow leopard?

~~~
chenluois
It can run on snow leopard, but not officially supported, some features will
be lost.

If possible, run it on Lion. :)

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winter_blue
Is there anything similar for LATEX?

~~~
tikhonj
Check out WhizzyTex mode for Emacs, which also lets you have an auto-updating
preview beside your code for LaTeX.

------
d0vs
Please someone do this with HTML.

~~~
geoffb
While it's probably not exactly what you're looking for, Safari's Snippet
Editor is great for whipping up some quick HTML with auto preview. Accessible
via the menu, Develop > Show Snippet Editor.

No syntax highlighting which is kind of a bummer.

<http://i.imgur.com/omtFb.png>

~~~
_frog
Wow I'd never seen that before, very useful little tool.

