I like the way the Lettera is much more WYSIWYG than a typical markdown editor.
However, I still see traces of markdown while I am typing. For example, if something is bold, when I edit it, I then see double asterisks pop up on either side of the text. To me, that is not WYSIWYG and is conflating the display with the file format. I never typed in the asterisks - I just pressed command-B.
I realise it’s a deep design issue to separate user input from file format… but is there a way to have a full WYSIWYG mode that insulates the user from seeing the markdown code? I guess what I am asking is a WYSIWYG editor that just happens to save as natively markdown.
Well, it wouldn’t be a markdown editor if it didn’t have those characters. It would be an RTF app. As someone who writes a lot in markdown, I want to be able to see the control characters when I click; not so much for bold or italic, but for links and some other formatting.
There’s a setting under the Format menu → Auto Hide Markdown that turns off the Markdown tags for an open file, but for some reason it doesn’t always appear as available.
I think I am looking for the opposite of everyone else if after (unless I am mis-reading / -understanding).
There are times when I just write (Ulysses focus mode), I don’t want distraction of any kind, this includes formatting. I don’t care what my headings look like just that they are headings and of the right level.
therefore I want to see just the markdown, I don’t want to see any formatting. I have tinkered with Tolaria recently which gives you this. I love the principle but it has a horrible refresh issue that jumps you to the top of the page every few minutes.
Now, when I have finished the writing dump, I want to jump to the good looking stuff to review and adjust.
Can Lettera give me a just type with full markdown visible, mode and then allow me to switch when I am ready. Switching off Auto-hide markdown does not do this. Tables are still rendered in their “good looking” format.
Thanks, I’ve tried that, but I still see the Markdown when the cursor is in the middle of bold text.
My use case is that I wanted to edit some bold text, but when I click on the text, the text moves two characters to the right to allow it to display the asterisks. I find this jarring (text moving by itself) and unnecessary (I already see the text is bold, I don’t need to have asterisks around it to tell me twice).
If you could do that, it wouldn’t be markdown, it would be RTF. The point here is that you only see the formatting characters when you click in formatted text.
You could use any RTF app and convert to markdown, with an app like Marked.
RTF is not stored the same way as Markdown. While Markdown relies on human-readable text characters directly typed into the document, traditional rich text editors hide complex data structures or code behind the scenes to render changes visually in real time. (Thanks, AI)
Besides, RTF—at least as Apple implements it—is crap. Just take a look at TextEdit or, sadly, Apple’s relatively new Journal app. Whenever I use TextEdit I feel like I am in a time warp and am working in the age of the first Macintosh computer. It feels sad.
I think another way to say what @bearly-awake wants is:
Lettera in its current form appears to be a “WYSIWYG-except-for-the-text-actively-being-typed-which-displays-as-unrendered-markdown”. What they (and I) really want is an editor that hides markdown always. When I am typing in italics, show me the italics—but don’t show me the asterisks, ever (well, unless I ask). The editor is already capable of hiding them when I’ve moved on to another part of my document; why can’t it also hide them while text is being typed?
