I agree. I just want a simple editor that I can double click a markdown file, edit it in wysiwyg (never seeing any markdown code) and closing it. I don’t want the editor to clutter up with “project” stuff because I use Finder for that.
2 Likes
You can open markdown files in obsidian in the default app in the right click menu, when I do this it opens it on it’s own without the folder sidebar.
I acknowledge this is might be different from other editors, but isn’t the simple solution that you adjust your workflow to use CMD+Shift+N?
The dev has shared his thoughts and supplied a very valid alternative?
Hi:
Short time lurker, first time poster. I’m on team @Somnesis. I’m not coming in as Bear user so I don’t have that experience. I’m looking for a Markdown editor for files that may or may not be part of a project.
I agree the current default new document behavior is atypical. Normally I’d name and locate a document on the first save.
If we’re feature stealing, BBEdit lets you have (seemingly) unlimited untitled text ## unsaved documents. They even survive a quit and relaunch of BBEdit. When you save them you chose location and name.
The typical approach to “I want to add a file in my current folder” is a + button in the “project” sidebar. Just expose these options more directly:
Thanks for the thoughtful reply, Matteo, and for acknowledging that the current shortcut mapping differs from the standard macOS document model. I think there’s a stronger case here than personal preference, so I wanted to explain why the distinction matters from a user‑experience standpoint.
Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines treat ⌘N as the system‑wide shortcut for creating a new document, alongside things like ⌘O, ⌘S, ⌘P, and ⌘W. Their guidance is that apps generally shouldn’t repurpose these because users rely on them behaving consistently.
In the conventional Mac document model:
- ⌘N creates a new, untitled document
- The document isn’t tied to whichever folder happens to be selected
- The user doesn’t need to choose a file location before starting to write
- Autosave may store the document behind the scenes, but that’s separate from choosing its eventual name and location
That’s why the TextEdit comparison feels relevant: even though TextEdit autosaves immediately, the document is still conceptually “untitled,” and its location is something the user decides later. Nothing about ⌘N implicitly picks a folder.
Lettera’s current behavior differs meaningfully. ⌘N creates a file right away in the selected folder — or, if no folder is selected, it reopens another folder and creates the file there. So the effect of the standard “New” command depends on sidebar state and can place a file somewhere the user didn’t explicitly choose.
I completely understand the speed‑of‑capture goal, and I think the folder‑scoped behavior is genuinely useful. I’d expect it to live behind something like ⇧⌘N or a dedicated “New File in Folder” / “Quick Note” command, while ⌘N retains the conventional untitled‑document behavior.
Right now the mapping feels reversed: the platform‑standard behavior is on the modified shortcut, and the Lettera‑specific behavior is on the standard one.
I’m glad to hear configurability is on the table. I’d still advocate for swapping the defaults — it seems like the least surprising experience for a standalone Mac Markdown editor, while still keeping the faster folder‑based workflow easily accessible for people who prefer it.
1 Like
It sounds like this is already resolved as far as Shiny Frog is concerned, but as an everyday user who doesn’t have any insight into Human Interface Guidelines or “good citizen” behavior, I’ll say it makes perfect sense to me that if you’re in a folder and create a new file, it defaults to putting the file in that folder. There might be a sophisticated UX point that I’m missing here, but if every time I created a new file I had to manually move it to my current working environment, that would be needlessly cumbersome.
Also, doesn’t the more recent “default folder” setting solve a lot of this?
Indeed. However, I would hazard a guess that almost every editor you’ve used on a Mac follows this Apple guideline. Even Microsoft Word, for example. Open Word, then press Command-N for a new document. It opens a blank document with no name that’s not automatically saved to the filesystem. Once you Save the new document, it’s named and written to the file system, whether in a folder of your choosing, the last folder you used, or the default folder set for that app, like the new default folder Lettera has now added — however you’ve configured your settings. Splitting hairs? Perhaps, but it is non-standard per Mac guidelines.