MacDown: Markdown-powerful editor with preview panel
Makradar Technologies / / December 19, 2019
No good deed goes unpunished, but the man a strange creature that is always on the lookout for something new. I tried many different editors, but always returned to Byword and still all the articles I write only in it. WordPress has recently started to work with the Markdown markup and I made several attempts to use it in the preparation of materials. Byword with Markdown «friends», but the problem is that in its raw form it is badly perceived, and to see how it will look already typeset text, you can only after you save the post in WP and page previews - a chore and uncomfortable. I threw this business to better times, but yesterday I came across an interesting text editor with support for Mardown and superpoleznoy preview function. The project is young, but despite this, he showed himself very, very bad. let's not get ahead, so first things first.
At the first start Macdown shows us the reference page, executed in an unusual mode. The text drawn up with a markup using Markdown and opens directly into the editing pane. FAQ covers the description of the huge amount of markup and immediately in the preview pane displays the type of mark up text. Why, why this idea to anyone not occurred before? It's brilliant!
Design
The application interface is very minimalistic and, in fact, in addition to editing and preview panels we have nothing before my eyes. I believe that this is more a plus than a minus, as all of the text layout is spread by using codes and keyboard shortcuts, and you have nothing distracts from the creative process.
Both are customizable panel selection is enough: Fonts (font style, size, color) background color, line spacing and width of the text block, to render the preview templates and more. That is the possibility of customization for yourself, there are plenty of them.
editing is possible
Merely just what MacDown supports Marcdown markup gives us tremendous opportunities. In addition to the banal headlines, highlighting Bold text and italics, you can do cool stuff like unreal tables; insert links, images, and even the footnotes. All of this is very simple with a minimum of problems, and if you are already familiar with markup Markdown - you can immediately start writing text steep. If not - do not rasstaivaytes, you will learn everything in just a few minutes.
A couple of examples:
- headers are set using the # symbol. And the number #, will mean zagogolovka level.
- split text You can use the ***, which will turn into a line.
- select the code can be quoted As a result we obtain
'the code'
. Instead, the quotes can also be used ~. - insert a picture can be like that . In this case, the name is not necessarily the main thing - the brackets.
Such methods mass, eventually you will remember them and be successfully used in work.
Format menu and hotkeys
All formatting options are available from the appropriate menu item and there is literally everything (in the same Byword these options are presented rather poorly). Select the text and apply it to a particular action by selecting the desired menu item.
For those who used to work with hot keys - there are all the usual shortcuts, and they are tied to the standard keyboard. Well, you know, that can be printed in bold text by clicking ⌘B, and italics ⌘I, right? It works in the usual way and MacDown.
Practical use
As a check on the practice, I decided to write this article in its entirety in MacDown, in WordPress simply copy ready code and a surrounding section, tags and more. As you can see this task, do and I must say, not without pleasure on my part.
Work in MacDown nice and the result, so to speak, "on the face", that is, immediately visible. Read the prepared text is a pleasure, because once it is visible all the flaws that can be skipped in the editor, lost in the midst of the code. As a result, the work went much faster and more convenient.
Summing up, I can say that the editor is quite promising and powerful, but even if you use its functions at least 10-20% (I, for example) - you can write text faster and better, less time spending on proofreading and editing the markup, because all of this will happen in the course of case.
Not to say that I immediately delete byword, but I guess I still popolzuyutsya some time MacDown, but we'll see. Only positive impressions from using it.
Download MacDown (Free)