Joplin looks very good !
My usual work environment is Mac Os but I switched to Linux and looked for similar software as MacJournal, just to tell you about my background.
Mark down is the latest hype nowadays and many applications seem to build around this idea. Which per se is fantastic and I mean it that way.
Let’s come to the point.
Basically, rtf is also a formatted raw text.
Maybe you won’t like my idea if I suggest you to implement a WYSIWYG option to for the rest of us .
Mark down is for folks who code, not for everyday users.
I’d suggest to add the option to hide the mark down section and make the WYSIWYG section editable. For those who don’t like mark down or “coding text in a raw editor”
My post isn’t a critique and everybody should be free to write as he or she likes. WYSIWYG capabilities wouldn’t destroy the image of Joplin
That, and once you learn it (which takes like 10 minutes), typing formatted text in it becomes very fast. No clicking or keyboard shortcuts necessary.
(There are other advantages as well: I often move text between various systems; and since so many nowadays support Markdown, it’s mostly just a matter of copy-pasting. When I have a note in Joplin and want to share it with someone, I can paste to HackMD.io; When I want to use my notes as a basis for a blog post, I can copy to Ghost; and many others.)
I typed markdown for several times and it’s OK but still a layer between me and the text. And quotes in text create always problems with formatting codes. I’ve no patience to deal with such issues
Writing text in a WYSIWYG editor is very simple and there’s no need for a 2nd window to check how text looks like (e.g. my goal isn’t about coding a website)
I always add formatting in a second step. So there’s no delay or button press slowing down my workflow.
Obviously, this concept is hard to explain to people how love markdown. My goal isn’t too criticize mark down. If you code for css it’s another thing. There you need several windows to organize your work.
Nothing, I found Joplin because I need a kind of journal app. Not a kind of libreoffice.
Ha, don't worry, we can understand that all right.
And you're not the only one; there's been plenty of users asking for WYSIWYG in this forum.
It's interesting for me to see other people's usage patterns; for example the fact that you write first, add styles later.
For the record, I don't use Joplin to write code, or css, or anything. Just formatted notes. I just really hate these formatting issues. And I often use Typora to edit Joplin notes - it's basically a mix between WYSIWYG and plain Markdown entry, which works quite well for me. You can enter MD, but as soon as you finish typing a tag, the formatting is rendered in-place, so there are no two editor windows. And there's WYSIWYG buttons and context menus as well. (Not sure how it handles quotes, though. I don't particularly want anything but the plain, symmetric, vanilla quotes, and often turn related features off.)
I think keeping a journal is a basic need, without exaggeration. Files on a hd are always plain pain mess! A journal is THE way to keep everything together
Journals seem just of marginal interest by most (I’m not talking about us here as we wouldn’t be here else ^^ )
You don’t use joplin to write code ; neither do I : I do use recent tools, as eclipse ;
long, long time ago, as you do, I was fearing these formatting issues, but that was 2006, and a lot of water flooded under my bridge since those old events occured.
Today, a lot of tools writes formatted notes without any formatting issues, and if any, it is really easy to identify and fix them.
So, I feel penalized when having to switch between two windows, losing the thread of my thought : Sad to say, but I just use joplin in edition mode, and plain text, avoiding any significant tag.
I am waiting for a true wysiwig tool, incorporated into joplin !
I was initially put off a bit by using a markdown pane as the editor but it did not take long to get used to it.
One of my main grievances with Evernote and its wysiwyg editor was the formatting nightmare when copying and pasting between notes. If I copied parts from, say, three notes into one new note I would often have to try to remove all formatting and then start the formatting all over again. Even then its hidden formatting codes would “hang around” and mess things up. Admittedly this is due to the system Evernote uses and a markdown wysiwyg “front end” may not be so bad.
My personal view is that Joplin is a note-taking program not a word processor or code editor and its simplicity (markdown) is its strength.
Hi maybe an other suggestion could be a mix of WYSWYG and plain markdown code like it is handeld in the editor from ghostwriter or in marktext.
In addition marktext is also a JavaScript application. So maybe @laurent you would like to have a look at the code.
In addition they also do have a cool css stylesheet handling (in my opionion) So propably a look worth?
Sure feel free to give a try. I expect it won’t be easy to swap the editor though, so on my side my plan was just to try a proof of concept, just to see if it can be done at all.
I’m divided about this question of a wysiwyg editor, and the behavior of MarkText and Typora is making me more divided ! The very philosophy of markdown is to see the markup, in order to be able to know what you’ve done with your text, and they are fixed by every flavor. That’s the meaning of WYSIWYM (M for mean), and the entire philosophy of markup languages… a WYSIWYG editor is just a way to switch to an opposite philosophy; so why using markdown ?
The way MarkText or Typora handle is worse to me : it troubles my thoughts to have this permanent animation when I write. I nearly can’t use one those to write, especially a long text.
So if you find a solution to implement the behavior of Marktext, please add it to the plain WYSIWYM editor, do not replace it.
The other part of my reflection is pedagogical. What is the point of using markdown without learning markdown?
Yes, direct Markdown edition will always be possible. Either the editor we switch to incorporates it (which is likely) or we have the current editor and the wysiwyg one side by side.
I’ve been playing with a few different WYSIWG markdown editors today (including the ones noted above), and the one that’s cleanest and also has the functionality I personally prefer is Slate’s “Markdown Preview” demo: https://www.slatejs.org/#/markdown-preview
Would love to get your reactions to it! One thing I particularly like about it is that it doesn’t hide the markdown characters upon render, it simply adds the styling around it, which makes it very easy to see where the styles came from.
I must have not give mark down a try but I find it so distracting, annoying and bloated to have two windows for writing the note. I don’t understand what’s the point in such a messy GUI, could please someone enlight me?
Also, please (very OT, but must be a silly problem just of mine), where should I look for issue related to the Android app? Is it a different program?
Thanks
Joplin is a note taking app with its primary focus on notes and being able to sync between several different OS and devices while using your own cloud system.
If you want a text processor, use Word or some other crap. Notes are usually text. For people who like to style their text, there's markdown that renders text into something more presentable.
Why do you think that professional typesetting is done in LaTeX and not some shitty WYSIWYG word processor?
For my part I seriously dislike anything that includes invisible format and styling markers, like WYSIWYG word processors. But that's a personal choice. If a WYSIWYG editor ever made it into Joplin, I would only hope it's a choice and not mandatory.
