Panda Sneak Peek: A Work-in-Progress Markdown Editor and Library 🐼

[wdiadamo]

Could not agree with this more. I love Bear but would very much like to have individual notes filed with other project related documents.

This might already be answered, but I am assuming that Panda will retain the ability to link to other files, emails, etc?

[Mauricioflores]

HEAVEN On EARTH FOR NOTE TAKERS!!!
Can’t wait for both betas for Mac and iOS!!!
Also try to support unsupported Mac’s such Macs with macOS Big Sur and above, can’t upgrade to newer Mac at this time.

[Mauricioflores]

For real!!! Seeing those images I can clearly see its identity. I love the folder structure and beautiful UI. Linking folders feels like a great idea for me.
Can’t wait for the Beta.

[Mauricioflores]

I didn’t know about that til you mentioned.

[JackHansonC]

This is something I have been waiting for a long time.

I wish I could separate where I work and where I do personal things.

If this happens, I can just make my work records in Panda on a local device.

[cookiejar]

It seems a lot like Obsidian.

[Perpetuum]

@matteo

Offer a more traditional “library” setup: create workspaces (single or multiple) containing folders of Markdown files that can be edited, searched, and interconnected.

Can I have one little feature request: can you please, right from the start, allow arranging folders as users needs? Obsidian is having automatically arranging it, so all users that wanted to have custom folders reorder, needed a plugin that allows that. So, to avoid that, maybe it is easier to implement in the early testing stages of Panda.

By the way, custom arranging or not, Bear + Panda will be my one and only note-taking/writing app. Those two together are a perfect combo for any project that I will work on. Finally, for note-taking and writing I will have two apps to rule them all!

Thank you for doing all of this!

[krssno]

I also consider that feature as highly attractive. And maybe it is even easier to implement in panda than in bear since in latter app there will be no real sync.

[danmills7]

Except that Panda actually looks good…

[cookiejar]

Point taken if judged by my screenshot, but that is my limitation, not Obsidian’s—which allows much customization. Attached is a bit closer for comparison, an Obsidian “Bamboo” theme inspired by Panda.

That said, I, too, look forward to adding Panda to my toolkit.

[thor]

Any intention for a mobile app?

[bearuser1]

This looks amazing!

Also, can you also add support for relative images in markdown? Right now, when I add an image to a markdown file, it turns into .panda file.

I write my blog with a static site generator. And I’d like to have the images in a relative folder, while keeping the markdown format.

Even if drag and drop image isn’t possible, it would be great if it could support manually entering relative image url into the editor like ![](./relative-url/img.png) and have it show up in the editor.

[tbrlpld]

Absolutely love this Folders for structure and everything always on my hard drive, combined with the design and speed of Bear I can’t wait frankly

[Monkeyboy]

I’m guessing, unlike Bear, there’ll be no limit to the size of the markdown file you can edit? Bear has a limit where it stops syncing, as far as I know, but I suppose this won’t be an issue with Panda as you’d just hit the save button and that’s it. Having said that, I’d likely split bigger files into smaller ones anyway.

[Paczki]

It’s a little confusing to me why panda will exist.

Could it summarized by saying Bear is a notes app that includes the tagging and it’s own library that syncs and export features, etc. but you have to go in and be in Bear for all that. And panda is more of a replacement for TextEdit? But only works with .md? With both installed you’d use panda for random files that you don’t want to keep organized?

[Eleanor]

Panda is for those who want folders as their main organisation method, and people who use their work computers and cannot use iCloud and thus Bear.

[roar]

Panda is file based, using the same editor as Bear, and works with both .md, .txt, and .textbundle/.textpack (for embedded images and file attachments).

Syncing can therefore be done with iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive and others.

@Paczki

With both installed you’d use panda for random files that you don’t want to keep organized?

Yes, and for workspaces with mixed content, organized in folder structures.

We are waiting for the next beta with embedded folder view, where you can add multiple work folders from different sources (parent folders).

[tbrlpld]

I might have missed it, but is mobile planned for it too?

[jujoje]

This looks really promising! Really like the native style of the app and focus on getting to blend in to MacOs as much as possible.

The idea of having the app work well with the underlying file system is something that I’ve been interested in for a bit; in bear I have a lot of non preview-able example files (typically Houdini hip files, but also large movies etc). Having them in an organised structure in the file system, but being able to also reference them into Panda would be the best of both worlds in terms of discoverability.

In terms of use cases and various notes:

• Finder tag support: Would be great to be able to add Finder tags in the app (thus being able to organise them in the file system and Panda at the same time).
• The third column: Would be great to have the right hand column in Bear; prefer it to a popover for seeing a notes table of contents / back links.
• What is the monetisation model for this? I vaguely recall it being floated as a one off payment?
• Areas: as others have mentioned areas are really useful and one of the things that I’ve struggled with in Bear. It would be nice to have, say, top level folders (personal/work etc), and have search restricted to those folders (like how Ulysses does with projects).
• Search: if we’re going for native integration, search with tokens (like finder) could be nice. In terms of snappiness still find Notational Velocity hard to beat for searching / creating notes (and perpetually disappointed by NV Ultra which went in a weird direction).
• File management: As mentioned above, would the file attachments reference it from the file system or embed it in the note (embedding it in the bundle)? Would prefer to have the option to leave the files in place and reference it in
• Per folder sorting: +1 on the ability for sort on a per folder basis; this it something I struggle a bit with in Bear as some times I want manual sorting and sometime by modification date. This is not really possible with tags, but with folders, should work.
• Zen Mode: Would like the old zen mode from panda back which hides all the chrome except the traffic light buttons. Bit OCD but I definitely preferred it.

Anyways, look forward to seeing how Panda develops; when the idea of having it as a standalone didn’t think it would be so distinct from Bear. Pretty excited about the direction it looks like this is going in!

[logilogi]

Is there perhaps an ETA for Panda coming out? I’ll be ditching Obsidian right away once it’s released. I love Bear of course, but I do much prefer having .md files stored in folders (i.e the Obsidian workflow) - so I’m extremely excited for this release!