Marktext – Elegant Markdown Editor for Linux, macOS, Windows
github.com
github.com
What I immediately noticed looking at the README, is that the communication is centered around you and your values, rather than on the end-user:
You mention why you created it, not what it enables the user to do. You use Linux-lingo, like “free (speech and beer)” which many users are unfamiliar with and don’t know why they should care. Your installation instructions make it hard for users to pick which one they should choose. There are no Mac binaries, but Macs are wide-spread among developers. Windows binaries mention “x64”, which is very technical and might scare users away.
The Ubuntu screenshots make it look like “Linux only”. You could replace it with a Windows or Mac screenshot, to get people to understand it works on their platform.
You could still keep this technical (and potentially alienating) language in your documentation, but simplifying the README to make it easier for the 90% of your potential audience could make it more popular.
You mentioned in this thread that some people don’t want Electron. That’s true, and it’s a great USP for those that require it, but personally I would avoid assuming that it’s the USP that convinces the masses.
(Regarding Mac, I unfortunately don't have a Mac and neither does anyone who I know well enough to ask to borrow theirs, though someone did in fact contribute homebrew-based build scripts that supposedly work at some point. I just have no idea how to package the result to make it easy to install.)
- You don't want to give more priority to non-Linux users
- GTK feels terrible on those other platforms
- You don't believe those who care about licensing issues would use it
- You cannot build releases or installers for Mac
The first thing that comes to mind on reading your response is that the non-Linux users are a market you are not really interested in - and even if they were they are not a market you can effectively serve (installers, updates, issues).
You should consider formally abandoning official support for non-Linux, as in reality you don't currently have actual support for them anyway. Be honest, cut your losses, and choose your customers. Cross-platform is not a benefit if it is unsustainable.
To nitpick a little, I also didn't say I don't think that those who care about licensing issues would use [the Windows build]; rather, I think that those who don't care about licensing issues and are on Windows would not use it, because there is a Windows-only product that is closed-source which I am unlikely to be able to compete with on that ground.
I'm not really advertising Mac support beyond having some files merged from people who did get it to work (https://github.com/blackhole89/notekit/blob/master/screensho...).
Replace? I'm not Linux user but this sounds strange to me. He did native GTK app and he should not be considering Linux users?
In regard to getting the word out, it depends on the kind of person you want to reach. If you really want to reach a "general" public, the sibling's comments sound useful, in particular binary availability.
In particular for Windows. I've clicked on the link, ended up on the GH workflows page, looked around quickly, didn't see where to grab the binary and went on my way being happy that I'm on Arch Linux and there's a package in the AUR.
I don't know if I want to reach what you would call the "general public" (at least not until the program is quite a bit more polished than it is now), but I'd certainly want to reach typical Linux-using HN posters who are interested in Markdown notetaking, and the circumstance that this subthread played out as it did implies I haven't yet done so.
Hope your approach gets more widespread !
Who's good to only write stuff on a computer and on that alone?
Best solution to me so far is to just use Wiki.js.
Some of the other alternatives mentioned here, like Zettlr[1] and Dendron,[2] would be more suitable for users who prefer to handle their Markdown documents and notes with FOSS.
1. https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=lostinta... 2. https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=dendron.... 3. https://bear.app/ 4. https://roamresearch.com/
[0]: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Evergreen_notes
[1]: https://discuss.logseq.com/t/allow-non-outline-freeform-text... , https://discuss.logseq.com/t/how-about-separately-supporting...
I think there are a lot of different styles out there which manifest in how different people end up using these tools.
I ended up moving from Obsidian to Logseq basically just to get "native outline format", and LogSeq is in that sense an "offline, open-format version of Roam".
I've gotten to the point where I practically can't use an editor that doesn't let me run code, because that's become my second brain.
[1]: https://github.com/joplin/plugins/blob/master/README.md#plug...
[2]: https://github.com/agerardin/joplin-plugin-knowledge-graph
[3]: https://github.com/treymo/joplin-link-graph
It's nice when I use Google docs and it has that stuff. I wish I had it in markdown.
I don't know if you're wording it way because you're doing a bit or you didn't look at my username?
> you know what is a PR
This part doesn't make sense to me.
> and what is a demand for a free work
And this is not a demand for free work.
If I comment on a project that I'm going to keep using an existing product because it has this big entrenched feature base, that's the exact opposite of being demanding and binding myself to a project. It's an acceptance of the status quo. It gives some feedback as to what people find important, but it's not a request to implement half of google docs, and it doesn't make sense to try to invert it into an invitation to submit a PR that implements half of google docs.
> This part doesn't make sense to me.
A proper PR (pull request on GitHub, not public relations, just to be clear) contains a working implementation of some feature or a bugfix. Ideally it also follows the style of the said project, is well tested etc.
If somebody opens a "PR" with no source code and the whole body of PR is, for example, "Replace your project with google docs" or even "s/.*/docs.google.com/", that's not a PR, that's wasting project maintainer's time.
If somebody opens a PR that says "Hey could you add feature X?" that's also not a PR. At best that's a feature request.
Maybe you just do not consider wasting energy as an issue?
At the moment, I have Mark Text running on my Mac, and it's using 0.0% of a CPU (I have over a dozen processes using more power, totaling about 5% of a CPU).
It's a reasonable choice not to use this (free) product because of disk usage (285MB, which is a lot, although I have 275GB free), memory usage (165MB, although it's compressed to about 65MB) or CPU usage (see above). But others may decide that this app provides great value for the resources used, and that's also a reasonable choice. There's no reason to shut down the discussion.
Electron seems like a great way to get a cross-platform app out there without having to hire three separate departments of code developers.
Let's see, Discord uses 450mb of memory after being open for 3 hours, and Spotify has gone through 1.6gb after 8. If these people with infinite resources at their disposal can't do good resource management, I'm not sure who out there is "debunking" the fact that running a web browser as a wrapper for your application is (surprise surprise!) resource heavy.
The UI is not where the resources are used, but rather the active connections continuously streaming and caching content for you to consume.
Too be honest I wouldn’t be surprised if gif rendering is one of the most memory intensive parts of the app. They have them everywhere and people paying for their premium subscriptions get a 50Mb upload cap and they will store the full uncompressed version of that resource and display it in the chat (although I think you have to click to load resources over 8Mb).
It will do it even without lots of users or voice or video.
And you're not really going to have more than five images on screen at once.
> they will store the full uncompressed version of that resource and display it in the chat
So don't do that.
Nope.
Electron has it’s place, but I think you can go to small. VSCode can use 2GB of memory, because it’s an IDE with a ton of feature. The overhead of Electron doesn’t matter in the context of an IDE. For a markdown editor, Electron alone will push the system resources way above what’s reasonable.
Then there’s the problem that Electron application fails to provide a native look and feel on all platforms.
I don’t know that the look and feel can be fixed. Solutions like QT and WXWidgets never really got it right, so assuming the Electron can seems unrealistic. What can be fix is resource requirements and performance. We should push for a more lightweight Electron, if we want to use it for smaller application.
The only one I cannot do it is VSCode.
I love native apps, but it’s hardly a difficult choice to make for a business. Only nerds like us notice apps that use gigabytes of ram.
Spotify is on every platform and probably they wrote that interface once. That’s a gigantic win for everyone involved.
8GB of ram is very typical being the base spec in most laptops today.
Other than that, it looks pretty promising. I'll definitely be following the project! :) (By the way, I can't find the "install" button on app.bangle.io that is mentioned in the FAQ.)
On a different note, IMO using Electron for an app is not a bad choice per se. It's just that editors written in web technologies usually suck because they are so slow compared to, say, Vim/Emacs/Sublime. Is ProseMirror really that much better (faster) than Monaco/VS Code? If not, what's the benefit of using Bangle over Marktext? (Sure, running Marktext/Electron will use up additional RAM compared to running Bangle in an existing browser. But to be honest CPU load is much more important to me.)
[0]: https://github.com/bangle-io/bangle.dev
[1]: https://github.com/Microsoft/monaco-editor , https://vscode.dev/
It is just a personal preference but I find VS code's UI, especially the command palettes (inspired by sublime?) a good interface for notes.
> By the way, I can't find the "install" button on app.bangle.io that is mentioned in the FAQ.
If you open the app in Chrome (or any chromium browser), you will see a sign to install the app as a PWA (progressive web app) next to the URL.
> On a different note, IMO using Electron for an app is not a bad choice per se. It's just that editors written in web technologies usually suck because they are so slow compared to, say, Vim/Emacs/Sublime
In my opinion going the Electron route is a lot of work for a single developer and you loose the portability of a web application.
> But to be honest CPU load is much more important to me
I think you will be delighted to see that Bangle is pretty performant. I would recommend opening a heavy app like 10000-markdown-files[0] to get a rough idea.
> what's the benefit of using Bangle over Marktext?
I haven't used Marktext, though it looks like a great project. I think the differentiating factor would be:
- Bangle.io is focused more on the overall note taking experience, like backlinks, workspaces, collaboration etc.
- I am planning to allow the ability to add extensions to add more functionality. Being a web app is really conducive for such things.
- It allows you to open multiple tabs, split screen.
I hope you give Bangle.io a shot, there are a bunch of things currently missing, but we will get there <3.
[0]: https://github.com/Zettelkasten-Method/10000-markdown-files
Two questions (to anyone who's able to answer them):
- Is there a general-purpose (possibly configurable?) popup window to fuzzy-find files, search the command palette et cetera, like in Sublime/VS Code/IntelliJ? I've found this UI feature incredibly useful (as long as it's fast – IntelliJ, I'm looking at you!)
- Are there plans for creating a similarly neat-looking Android app? I've been using Writer Plus[0] for years but it's no longer being maintained and it does have a handful of annoying bugs.
[0]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.easy4u.writ...
With Mark Text I can immerse myself much better into writing, reading or editing. It is visually much more appealing to me.
Also, just needing one pane saves screen space.
Note that these include editors that aren't as good as a standalone editor but work fine for most content.
This looks promising. Thanks for sharing!
it's for the web, and the browser happen to support linux/macos/windows
you need a browser to run it
it's like building a skyscraper just so you can use the bathroom in the lobby
Still waiting for that editor that comes with autocomplete
theremin sound goes here
programming gone wrong