Some apps will get more votes than others, so when looking at the results, take that into account. There’s nothing wrong with such apps, but we have to draw a line in the sand. Please don’t suggest Web apps, apps without notable Markdown functionality, iOS-only apps, or anything that’s not in active development. To keep this manageable, we’re focusing on Markdown-capable text editors for the Mac. We’ve listed a lot of apps in the survey, but if we missed the one you use, let us know so we can add it. Don’t enter ratings for apps you haven’t used. That means weeks or months of use, not something that you launched once before discovering that it lacked a feature you need. Please rate only those apps with which you have significant personal experience.Notes on Ratings - A few important notes before you start clicking your answers: The survey is embedded at the bottom of this article on our Web site or you can navigate to it directly. We’ll collect and summarize the results, as we’ve done for other software categories in the “ Your Favorite Apps” series. Now it’s time for us to turn to you, the TidBITS reader, and ask you to share your opinions about the Markdown-capable text editors you have used on the Mac. Likewise, we think of Coda and Espresso primarily as Web development apps, but they turned out to be decent Markdown editors in their own right. Microsoft’s Visual Studio Code can apparently be transformed into a top-notch Markdown editor. You may be as surprised as we were by some of the apps that made the list. While Emacs has a plug-in that adds Markdown previews, MacVim’s plug-in adds only Markdown syntax highlighting. We bent the rules slightly to include MacVim. We also included Mac adaptations of two Unix mainstays: Emacs for Mac OS X and MacVim. All four of these apps have iOS siblings, which adds to their popularity. BBEdit is likely the best-known text editor on the Mac, and it can colorize and preview Markdown-formatted text files, but it’s probably used more commonly by programmers and Web developers.īyword and iA Writer have been darlings of the Apple community, but have recently been overshadowed by Bear and Ulysses. While Microsoft Word was unquestionably the 800-pound gorilla of word processors, we have no sense of which Markdown editors will stand out in this survey. These features can be either built-in or come via a plug-in or extension. Must have features to help write and preview Markdown.Also, no iOS-only apps and no online-only apps. We aren’t considering apps that you access only inside Terminal, but Mac adaptations of Unix apps are fine. Must be a native Mac app with a menu bar, Dock icon, etc. As always, we have to focus, so we’re considering only apps that meet these criteria: doc for importing into word processors, and even LaTeX for scientific writing.Ĭlever Mac developers have created numerous editors that go beyond the basics to assist in writing and editing in Markdown, and that’s where we’re going to direct our attention in this week’s survey. Because Markdown is relatively straightforward and standardized, Markdown files can easily be converted to other formats, including HTML for posting on Web sites, RTF or Word’s. It’s plain text, which keeps files small, easily manipulable, and portable across multiple apps on every computing platform. Markdown, which took some of its design cues from the setext markup language that Adam Engst helped Ian Feldman develop 25 years ago (see “ TidBITS in new format,” 6 January 1992), has become popular over the last decade. Although the results were useful, many people made it clear that they have traded traditional word processors for apps that support the Markdown text markup language, originally designed by John Gruber of Daring Fireball fame. We recently asked TidBITS readers to vote for their favorite word processors (see “ Vote for Your Favorite Mac Word Processor,” 10 July 2017). Vote for Your Favorite Mac Markdown Editor #1666: Air quality websites and apps, The Password Game.#1667: OS Rapid Security Responses, 1Password and 2FA, using Siri to request music.#1668: Updated Rapid Security Responses, OS public betas, screen saver bug fixed, “Red Team Blues” book review.#1669: OS security updates, ambiguity of emoji, small business payments with Melio, Twitter now X. #1670: Arc Web browser hits 1.0 release, “Do You Use It?” polls about Apple features.
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