
Abricotine – WYSIWYM Markdown editor – open source and cross platform - jenningsjason
http://abricotine.brrd.fr/
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coleifer
Too bad it's electron. I'm working on a just-for-fun markdown editor using
GtkSourceView and GtkWebkit and, despite a slight learning curve getting
familiar with gtk, it's been a pleasure to work on. Ugh...electron? Really??

~~~
always_good
These kinds of dismissive comments make me wonder if the writer ever created
anything of substance in their life.

For example, notice how this project is actually accessible for people to try
today. Building something in the privacy of localhost is pretty worthless if
you think it equips you with the power of judgement. That's the easiest part
of building something. Congratulations on your unreleased hobby project that
doesn't use Electron.

Let's keep this sort of comment off HN. You'll notice it only squanders
interesting discussion from the pool.

In fact, that it's built with Electron suggests that the core can be factored
out into a library that you can embed in a website or another project, and
that's great.

So, please, spare us next time.

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kej
One, you're replying to a guy with thousands of stars on his released github
projects.

Two, there are tradeoffs in using electron, and it's not unreasonable to
discuss those. This place would lose a lot of its value if we're not allowed
to discuss the pros and cons of technical decisions that go into a project.

~~~
ianai
It’s weird, but I think you’re both right. My first reaction to anything
html/javascript/etc is a mix of “ew” and “that’s not very impressive“. But I
also think it’s important to be inclusive and flexible. Society’s best off
when people fight past their internal prejudices, but my past experiences with
html/JavaScript put a bad memory in my mind.

Ultimately, this looks like a well executed program from the screenshots. I
say kudos to the developer of it. They did something productive and made
something useful.

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drenvuk
This is cool but it makes me wonder about all of the electron apps that are
coming out. Is there something more efficient that could do the same? Why are
QT and GTK not nearly as popular?

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jahewson
"More efficient" how? At saving developer time? At producing shippable end
products? At debugging? Will using GTK result in a better product that
increases the end-user's "efficiency" more? Or will it really result in the
developer shipping a product with 1/10th the features, or nothing at all?

~~~
drenvuk
Funny how you mentioned nothing of the computing resources required to run any
of these. Sometimes it's alright to spend more time creating a product when
the end result uses less CPU and less memory. It's not all or nothing.

~~~
tomtimtall
If it makes no notisable difference to the user and cost you more time, you
are just wasting time that could have been spend better on improving the users
experiance.

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turbinerneiter
Is the editor really a problem to solve for Markdown? Philosophically I regard
Markdown as a language in the text-only-editor-unimportant family.

I recently built a (simple, only works for me) filter for pandoc that allows
for formulas in Markdown tables. org-mode features is what Markdown is
missing, but without the marriage to the editor.

At the same time: an editor like this makes Markdown more accessible for non-
hackers, which is always good.

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masukomi
> Is the editor really a problem to solve for Markdown?

I don't think it's a "problem to solve" i think it's an opportunity to grasp.

I love markdown and can read it just fine without an editor like this, but I,
and many others, find it useful to have headings actually be darker and
bigger. There's value to those typographical changes. There's value to links
being a different color. Having an editor that can provide your eyes with
helpful things.... helps.

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NightMKoder
On a related note: I’ve recently started using
[https://hackmd.io/](https://hackmd.io/) for markdown. It supports the full gh
markdown and more. The best part is the collaborative editing. Big thumbs up
to the guys working on the product - I haven’t missed desktop apps for
markdown at all. I’m looking forward to trying their slideshow features.

Disclosure: I have no affiliation with them :). I’m just a fanboy at this
point.

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jitl
This is an electron app.

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rraghur
I think the way electron apps abound when there are possibly better
alternatives is similar to the way markdown abounds in spite of other better
'lightweight' markup alternatives.. after years of using markdown, I've
migrated to asciidoc and couldn't be happier that I don't have to rely on
custom extensions..

I guess it's a mindshare thing and a learning curve thing.. I guess markdown
is good enough for the vast majority of cases.. but when it isn't, it becomes
a pita..

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rayalez
This looks really awesome! I really wish I could use it as a library and embed
it into my SaaS app. Is there a way to extract just the rendering
functionality and add it to a website?

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fastball
Why not just use a markdown rendering engine with added features like
kramdown[1]?

1\. [https://kramdown.gettalong.org/](https://kramdown.gettalong.org/)

~~~
rayalez
Because I want realtime WYSIWYG markdown editing, kinda like in SimpleMDE or
Typora.

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mikedelfino
Just tested it and it seems really promising. Great work!

I wish it could replace the formatting syntax as you type, like Typora [1]
does. The document becomes much cleaner to read while still being efficient to
write.

[1] [https://typora.io/](https://typora.io/)

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timwis
Anyone know of a markdown editor that has quick, notational velocity style
file search/creation and just saves files to the hard disk? (So I can sync the
directory via Dropbox or Google drive myself)

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jamessb
I use nvALT.

>nvALT 2 is a fork of the original Notational Velocity with some additional
features and interface modifications, including MultiMarkdown functionality.

[http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/](http://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/)

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kennydude
Never heard syntax highlighting referred to as "code coloration" before. Looks
nice though.

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fiveFeet
Does anyone know of a similar project for editing mediawiki files?

