Sophia, I could respond that if you want to create a Markdown document, you should use, you know, a Markdown document editor.
We use document editors for documents and we use notes editors for things that are not full documents: research, ideas, random thoughts, lists, etc. Some people like using markdown for notes and that is fine, others feel the larger WYSIWYG feature set saves them time in writing notes, and that is fine too.
You clearly have a preference based upon your personal needs and likes. However, I don’t think the OP intended to take a poll. (Again, I don’t want to speak for the OP so the OP can correct me if I’m off base here). It appears the OP’s point is to understand why the founders of Joplin choose to aim the app towards the small Markdown user base vs the vastly larger WYSIWYG user base.
I’m interested in that question also. What fascinates me about Joplin is the application architecture and the synchronization between the nodes. That architecture has large use cases in collaboration software (e.g. Slack), social media (e.g. Facebook), CRM, secure communications, etc. It decreases the server cost for an app provider and increases security for the users. If I were the Joplin founder I’d be looking at the big markets rather than tiny niches. I’m a primarily a business guy first rather than primarily a coder, so I’m thinking more about the entrepreneurial opportunities rather than my personal needs or wants.
Well Joplin has a Rich Text editor and it's as important as the Markdown editor. It's still not perfect but it's been getting better over time, improving copy and paste from/to other rich text editor (Word, etc), handling of images and tables, compatibility with plugins, spell checking, etc.
This editor is not neglected and it won't be deprecated or anything like that.
Actually, not at all. I said that I prefer Markdown over the proprietary Evernote editor, but that is like saying that I prefer pizza over hamburger. Both are food and both are sufficient to still some hunger pangs, but that doesn't mean there aren't any better dishes available.
What I responded to is that both you and OP were saying that Joplin basically forces people to manually type a bunch of codes like we're still living in the 90s, and that is simply not true. As Laurent said, there is the rich text editor, and there is the fact that you can use your favorite ctrl-combinations to make text bold or italic, plus you can place your text in a block and select those formats from the menu.
So I vehemently disagree that Joplin is only suitable for a tiny niche market, but I don't disagree at all that there might be better editors than Markdown. That said, I can see why it was chosen as Joplin's editor because it is the best of a lot of worlds.
"that both you and OP were saying that Joplin basically forces people to manually type a bunch of codes like we're still living in the 90s,"
That is undisputedly true. Have you actually seen Wordperfect for DOS?
"you can use your favorite ctrl-combinations to make text bold or italic, plus you can place your text in a block and select those formats from the menu."
Sure. And there are many things that it cannot do: change typefaces in a page, control line spacing in a paragraph, add a blank line between paragraphs, control the amount of indentation, insert a table then change the width of the columns, etc. These are things that the world expects. Startups cannot be successful by telling the market "you shouldn't want that!" or by saying, "sure it will do that and all you have to do is learn Markdown, html and CSS."
"So I vehemently disagree that Joplin is only suitable for a tiny niche market..."
I guess we have different definitions of niche or tiny. I will wager that 98% of desktop or laptop computer users in the world have no idea what Markdown is. Markdown is a valuable form of text formatting for certain types of users: devs and text writers whose work will go in websites. And yes, users who like WYSIWYG will eventually find that they cannot easily export 500 pages of notes from, say, OneNote to Slack. Yet software entrepreneurs must be responsive to what the market wants, and the market wants ease of use over portability regardless of how much we might think they are being short-sighted.
Yes, our company worked extensively with Word Perfect 5.1 until they went with Lotus Notes, of all packages. I'm not a spring chicken So yeah I remember the macros and codes and quirks. But that is besides the point really and not relevant to this thread.
I don't want to get sucked into an argument here, but your definition of "WYSIWYG editor" is not the dictionary description of "what you see is what you get". That is okay, but it explains why we weren't on the same page. To you, it means an editor that can (to quote you) "change typefaces in a page, control line spacing in a paragraph, add a blank line between paragraphs, control the amount of indentation, insert a table then change the width of the columns, etc".
So taking your definition, then yes, you are correct, Markdown is not capable of all of those formats. You say that these are things that the world expects. Joplin's main "competitor" is Evernote, and you can't do those things with their editor either. In fact it really bothered me that it decided the line spacing of web clippings and then flatly refused to allow me to edit it. And their new version 10 has even less formatting options. Yet, we probably have to agree that Evernote is hardly catering to a small niche.
Anyway, this discussion is kinda moot because Joplin made its choice long before either of us joined, so... we have to agree to disagree on the points we disagree on (there are probably way fewer of those than you seem to think)
So yeah I remember the macros and codes and quirks. But that is besides the point really and not relevant to this thread.