I write and edit a range of documents using Markdown. Until recently I’ve used Taio as my writing app of choice. I have switched to One Markdown (close to Taio) but am still looking for my ideal replacement editor.
Some requirements:
I store ALL my files in the Files app in iCloud (even my Mac files). I don’t want to use a proprietary “Library”. I wan’t to keep using Files and iCloud.
I want to use GitHub/Common Markdown but want to have highlighting either by “==selected text==” or “selected text”
Images are stored in the same folder as the Markdown file. Not in an “assets/” type folder.
So I have added all my document folders as “External Folders” but I don’t see any of the image files in those folders, only the *.md files.
An immediate problem I have is adding images to a document. The insert image dialog has no options for selecting photos, files, etc. as shown in the Ulysses tutorial video.
I’m sure I will have lots of other questions but this will do for a start.
As you know, Ulysses uses a proprietary format and library. If you are using Ulysses and only using an external folder or folders connected to Ulysses for your writing, I would recommend that you not use Ulysses. If you want to take advantage of Ulysses’s unique features, I recommend that you use Ulysses’s editor to compose your work, not the external folder, and then periodically export your documents to an attached external folder. I export my work to an attached iA Writer folder, which is indexed in DEVONthink.
It is important to understand that when you first create the external folder, you are offered format options, e.g., .md, TextBundle, etc. With TextBundle, everything associated with a particular sheet in Ulysses stays with it—images, annotations, etc.— but be aware that there are relatively few apps that will open TextBundle files. DEVONthink and Bear are two that come to mind. You can find a list of apps that support TextBundle here. If you use the standard .md format on the external folder, there are several things that will not export from Ulysses to that folder, including images, notes from the right side of the Ulysses side panel, and highlights. All text, footnotes, tables, and annotations will export over.
I have to endorse what @Bmosbacker says, and emphasize it. Don’t do that using Ulysses. Use it’s features and strong points.
I just reinstalled it actually, since it is so useful if you use it as intended, you can see pretty well where things are in it I find; which using outside folders defeats to some extent.
Like a lot of us here I have tried and use in fact a lot of writing/note apps. I do always seem to gravitate to Ulysses. Another reason is that export is reasonably easy. I put everything I need to keep for any period of time into DEVONthink 3 and use their note taking and clipping facilities too. I don’t actually ever write in that app though one can quite well.
The key is not so much which app I write in but where things end up. Which is DEVONthink 3 for me. I have a sort of short term ‘note keeping/early drafts’ system in both Ulysses and Tot which I can’t explain really, the rule, roughly is, either I will use them or move them shortly or it doesn’t really matter if they get lost.
I have several hundred text/MD documents. For a whole stack of reasons I will not move them out of a format that can be accessed on any computing platform.
Have you tried iA Writer? That is my markdown editor of choice. It has features similar to Ulysses but most of which are not propriety. Style check would be propriety.
Yes! And as my old dad used to say: “If you can’t say something nice then don’t say it at all”.
For what I do/my workflow One Markdown is much better than iA Writer. As I said in another forum “it’s the things that iA Writer won’t let you do are the things that would drive me nuts.
As a trial, try Taio. It is IMHO the best Markdown editor out there. It’s just such a shame that the developer has stopped supporting it.
“Have you considered iA Writer? It is also an awesome app, but designed around working with a regular file and folders structure. A word of warning though: the devs of Writer are incredibly opinionated. You cannot customize much, you have 4 fonts to choose from, no themes outside of light or dark, and they respect the markdown spec to the letter. It is the best typing experience I have ever had, but you have to adapt to the software, not the other way around. If it fits what you need, it is awesome, otherwise not so much.”
I have not checked the accuracy of the “All Knowing One,” but here is what it shared:
The phrase “have your cake and eat it too” has a long history, with its origins tracing back to the 16th century. The earliest recorded use of a similar expression appears in a 1538 letter written by Thomas, Duke of Norfolk. In the letter, he wrote:
“A man can not have his cake and eat his cake.”
This older version conveys the same meaning as the modern phrase: you can’t consume something and still have it intact.
The wording of the phrase has varied over time. Historically, it was more common to phrase it as “eat your cake and have it too,” which logically emphasizes that once you eat the cake, you no longer have it. The modern version, “have your cake and eat it too,” became more popular over time, despite its reversed order.
Interestingly, the phrase gained a degree of notoriety in modern history due to its use in the 1996 ransom note for the kidnapping of JonBenét Ramsey, where the wording reflected the older style: “You will be denied your banker’s millions and your husband’s position unless you eat your cake and have it too.”
The idiom has since become a widely understood way of describing contradictory or impossible desires.
Is this true or not. I paid for the Mac version of iA Writer many years ago but it still lets me install the latest version on my Mac Mini. I am attracted to well supported apps like iA Writer because they are likely to be supported over a much longer period of time. But I am reluctant to change my workflows and stylistic requirements.
The reddit forum member’s views are what I remember from some recent testing. I also have a feeling that iA uses a proprietary syntax for inline locally stored images.
Which Markdown editor I use aside; I have used a common CSS stylesheet for more than twenty years (a combination of sans-serif headings and sans text - currently using the IBM Plex font family). I used this stylesheet back before I used Markdown and all my documents were formatted in HTML. So you see, it’s important to me to be able to make changes to style sheets used in an editor.
I call MY style sheet “normal.css” (after “normal.doc” in MS Word . I have created a “Normal” stylesheet for One Markdown (works also in the MWeb app). One Markdown lacks a few features that my previous Markdown editor (Taio) had but I have overcome these issues by using Shortcuts.
In my previous post I mentioned that I have paid for iA Writer for my Mac. I’ve just reinstalled the app and am having another look.
I am having a few very minor issues with inline local images. If I open an existing document which has inline local images then they display perfectly in Preview mode. However, if I go to add another local image using the syntax:
The image won’t display in the preview (even though the syntax is similar to the original image. Really odd.
However, if I just drag the new image into the document (getting a non-standard Markdown syntax of Local image in the same folder.jpg) it works fine.
iA Writer’s image handling is clearly non-standard (what else is also non-standard) but is it such an issue if I use iA Writer on both macOS and iOS?
Happy to chat further about iA Writer; either here or via PM.
The generated response has fallen into the same “have” verb trap that folks have been for a long time. Using “keep” helps, I think: “You can’t eat your cake and keep it too.” though I’d agree that reversing the order would probably be clearer. Or just go get more cake, which is the best answer to many of life’s problems.
What is working for my purposes is a combination of Ulysses and iA Writer:
Write in Ulysses
If, as needed, export the Ulysses sheet(s) to PDF or Word
Periodically export all Ulysses work to an externally connected iA Writer folder (I do this every six months)
The iA Writer folder and subfolders are indexed in DEVONthink
This requires very little work but has the advantage of giving me these features:
Use of Ulysses’s outline view and grammar, spell check, and revision features. I find the outline view in Ulysses to be indispensable for longer articles. In the screenshot below, Ulysses is on the left showing the outline view, iA Writer is on the right showing how the Ulysses Markdown looks in iA Writer. Note: the colored text in iA Writer is showing the style checking highlights. Those can be universally or selectively turned on and off in iA Writer.
Because I add images of Keynote slides in Ulysses, these will not show up in standard Markdown files. But that is fine because I simply make an annotation in Ulysses where an image goes. In the future, if I need to embed those images in a standard Markdown editor, I know what images I need and can easily add them.
From what I’ve been able to gather, the original phrase (16th century) is purported to have been: “A man can not have his cake and eat his cake.”
. I have created a “Normal” stylesheet for One Markdown (works also in the MWeb app). One Markdown lacks a few features that my previous Markdown editor (Taio) had but I have overcome these issues by using Shortcuts.
Using “keep” helps, I think: “You can’t eat your cake and keep it too.” though I’d agree that reversing the order would probably be clearer. Or just go get more cake, which is the best answer to many of life’s problems.
