
Show HN: GitBook Editor Beta – Markdown WYSIWYG, TeX - friendcode
https://www.gitbook.com/blog/releases/editor-5-beta
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JohnHammersley
You might also want to check out Overleaf[1] -- it offers a rich text
(WYSIWYG) layer on top of a full LaTeX distribution, with an automatic preview
of the compiled document alongside the source in the browser.

It's geared primarily towards research papers and associated material, but can
be used for anything! One of the first projects (not by the founders) was a
set of wedding invitations!

[1] [https://www.overleaf.com](https://www.overleaf.com)

PS: In case you can't guess, I'm one of the founders, and any feedback is
always appreciated, thanks.

~~~
_murphys_law_
I am a huge fan of overleaf. I use it almost every day to take class notes,
write up homework, etc. Two features which I see heavily requested are speed
(people who compare overleaf to sharelatex often cite this as the reason they
use sharelatex over overleaf) and offline editing. Thanks again for the great
software!

~~~
Fogest
I've got a question for you since you mentioned that you use it to take class
notes. I have attempted this in the past and I have found it pretty hard to
keep up with a professor while they talk and write things down. When it is
just straight speech I am taking notes of there is no problem of course since
it is just normal text. But when math starts being quickly written on a board
I find it hard to keep up.

Writing out all the symbols names and getting the formatting right seems to
take a fair amount of time and I typically get behind.

I have a Microsoft Surface I use for class, so what I have just switched to
handwriting the notes now on the surface.

~~~
_murphys_law_
I guess my reply wasn't worded so well. I don't really mean in-class notes. In
class, I do the same thing you do - I write everything down on paper. In the
past I have tried to type everything and ran into the same problem you stated.
What I currently do is move most of my written notes into class independent
documents on Overleaf. It then become easy to create study guides for exams
since all of my notes can be printed and shared from a single document. Sorry
for the confusion!

~~~
Fogest
Are you able to save your notes out of Overleaf in the free version? It looks
like a nice service but I don't want to pay to have offline access to notes
especially since I like to have a nice git repo with all my old notes backed
up.

~~~
JohnHammersley
Yes, you can use the git sync for this :)
[https://www.overleaf.com/blog/195](https://www.overleaf.com/blog/195)

~~~
Fogest
Is that available to free users?

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mangecoeur
Neat editor, I've long felt there's room for a markdown editor geared to
writing 'real' documents - been working with Atom which covers a lot of ground
with the right plugin - I even wrote a plugin that does something similar to
their inline math rendering: [https://atom.io/packages/preview-
inline](https://atom.io/packages/preview-inline)

~~~
davidandgoliath
If you're on mac, I'd give ulysses a try – it's pay to play — but well
executed.

~~~
seesharp
Agreed! I just wish tables were supported. I actually have to export it to a
.docx and then add the tables :/. I asked them a while back and they said they
weren't planning on supporting tables any time soon.

~~~
davidandgoliath
Well, that's no fun! Tables are handy for writing (particularly of the tech.
sort). Hopefully they get to it.

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cshimmin
This is perhaps a general question about 3rd-party auth, but how am I supposed
to trust an app like this when I click "log in with google/github/etc"? I'm
simply shown a new pane within the same application that could easily be a
phishing attack. There's no way to verify who the hell I'm sending my
user/pass to.

Is there some way for native apps to launch my preferred default browser to do
this task?

(Note: this is by no means an accusation towards OP; I just tend not to type
my gmail password into random apps I downloaded from strangers on the
internet).

~~~
daveguy
If you are already logged in with google/github/etc you shouldn't need to re-
enter your password, just give approval. The authentication and association
would be handled in the background. If you have to enter a password when you
are already logged in then it is a huge red flag and you should probably run.

EDIT: Done correctly, "Log in with ..." should NEVER need your password for
the site it will use separate authentication tokens to associate with your
account. It may try to redirect you if you're not logged in, just make sure
you log in by directly accessing the primary auth site first.

~~~
cben
Nice tip, thanks. But in this case it's wrapped in a destop app runtime
distinct from my browser (Electron?), so there is no way to be already logged
into Github/Google.

In an ideal world auth flows would always open in my system browser that I can
trust. On both mobile and desktop.

(Well, technically I already installed a proprietary .deb and am running the
process as my user, so game over.)

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SwellJoe
I'm working on a new book lately, and I've been trying to settle on the right
workflow. I've been posting the chapters as blog entries, as I complete them,
but editing in WordPress leaves a lot to be desired, and I don't really think
HTML is the right authoritative source for a book. I wrote my first book, and
a lot of old documentation in SGML DocBook, and then later converted it to XML
DocBook...it had many benefits, and with a decent vim setup wasn't too hard to
work with, and the output options were super flexible. Final format for
publication was a Word doc with extensive templates provided by the publisher.

All of that was a long time ago, though, and there's a lot more flexibility in
where a document can start and end up in various other formats. pandoc changes
the rules entirely, and markdown seems the most "native" format for pandoc.

In short, I think I need to be working in Markdown. But, this doesn't look
like the right tool for me, at all. A subscription service for a text editor
just feels wonky. I don't really want anyone else in the workflow until I send
it off to an editor or for print publication. And, the idea of paying for a
text editor, especially one as limited as this one seems to be (though it has
some neat tricks), when there are such good/flexible/powerful/free/open
editors, seems bizarre.

I think I just need to find a good set of vim settings for markdown, or give
Atom another try.

~~~
delluminatus
Are you familiar with Ghost, the open-source Markdown-based blogging platform?
It might suit what you're looking for.

Also, I haven't written any books, but I wonder if Markdown is the best choice
for a canonical format. The syntax is lightweight but also limited. For
example, it doesn't support tables, and doesn't differentiate between source
code (which should be syntax highlighted) and literal text (which shouldn't).
You could define your own extensions, of course, but that breaks the
compatibility feature. I think reStructuredText (for example) might be a
better choice, although Emacs' Org-mode is my personal favorite document
format. I suppose that in the end, whichever's most comfortable for the author
to write in is the best.

edit: I should mention that this is in reference to a technical book because
I've been thinking about technical writing lately. It just occurred to me that
you could be writing the type of book that doesn't need tables or source code,
in which case Markdown is probably perfect.

~~~
SwellJoe
Yes, we support Ghost in Virtualmin. I like it a lot, but I like the huge
ecosystem of WordPress (and my higher level of familiarity with it) better.

It is a technical book, but no math. There is table support in some extended
versions of Markdown, so that's not a problem. And, I've found syntax
highlighting works OK on our website (which is Drupal with a geshi filter
setup for Markdown text format posts...it is a little clumsy in that it has to
be wrapped in <code></code> tags, but it works well enough that I'd be
comfortable using it).

I just started googling WordPress plugins for Markdown. Maybe that'll do the
job well enough, and I'll do my editing in vim or Atom.

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hesdeadjim
Curious to try this as an alternative to Evernote. I'm not wholly dissatisfied
with it, but I feel that I tend towards messiness with Evernote and find
myself never bothering to delete anything. I also get frustrated with
formatting, though I absolutely love their inline image markup functionality.

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atriix
As for consuming documentation, I find Read the Docs[1] way easier to
navigate. It feels like GitBook tries to strip away all sense of navigation
and makes it way too "minimalistic" or "slim".

[1][https://readthedocs.org](https://readthedocs.org)

~~~
nijiko
I actually like read the docs a lot, as far as the tips and notification boxes
go, the code boxes are really nice, but not a huge fan of the sidebar

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BooneJS
I've used a live-preview app ([http://marked2app.com](http://marked2app.com))
for a few years that I've been happy with for smaller projects, but I really
like how they've created a Scrivener-like IDE with integrated source code
control.

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jonathonf
I'm always wary of putting in-progress work on random third-party services.

LyX+Mendeley works pretty well for me...

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krisdol
Rust by Example[0] (and possibly the Rust Book[1]) uses gitbook, for those
curious as to how a language reference may look like with GitBook.

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

[1]: [https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/](https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/)

~~~
steveklabnik
Rust by example does, but The Rust Programming Language does not. The current
version uses "rustbook", and the next gen will (probably, we'll see) use
mdBook, both similar projects but written in Rust.

~~~
krisdol
Thanks (for being so active here)! I definitely want to check out working with
mdBook.

~~~
steveklabnik
Any time. :)

I've really been enjoying mdBook.
[https://github.com/azerupi/mdBook/issues/29#issuecomment-168...](https://github.com/azerupi/mdBook/issues/29#issuecomment-168270488)
for example is so awesome, can't wait until it lands.

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fudged71
This seems like it could be an incredible collaboration tool for university
class notes (either students or professors). I think I would have used this in
Engineering University instead of something like ShareLaTeX

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patrickfl
Excellent - I'm a big fan of GitBook and have been using it for my main
project. So far, so good. Would maybe be willing to beta test this but I'm
afraid I only use basic functions, no Latex etc support.

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nijiko
Oh hey, I designed the current gitbook layout :D This is nifty news!

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suyash
Any free service similar to Gitbook but primarily for blogs?

