The Markdown Link no. 30

An occasional post from The Markdown Handbook.

Among today’s links are markdown editors Upnote, Seychl, HedgeDoc and Apostrophe. Plus we look at Deckless, a markdown to slide presentation tool that turns its back on the world of proprietary formats, and DokuWiki, which is going native on us by introducing markdown support.

• UpNote appears to be a popular choice among users of markdown. It’s a 120MB download, but 500MB installed. There are no local .md files, so I can only assume UpNote uses a database. That said, you can export all files to text, HTML, PDF or markdown, which includes additional data such as the creation date, updated date and notebook name. There’s a free version that allows up to 50 notes with basic features. The pricing compares well with other apps, many of which do not offer an outright purchase. Available for macOS (as tested), iOS, Windows, Linux and Android, UpNote costs $1.99 a month or $39 for a lifetime licence.
• Seychl is as minimal as a markdown editor gets. There’s no document tree, just you and the document you’re editing. Some people might find this useful, but I prefer to have an index of folders to work with that I can hide when I’m writing. Each to their own, I say. At 21MB downloaded it is certainly small. Available for macOS.
• HedgeDoc is an open source, web-based, self-hosted markdown editor. It allows you to collaborate on notes, graphs and presentations in real-time. All you need to do is share a note-link and you’re off to the races. Requires Docker or you can perform a manual installation.
• Deckless, currently in beta, is a web-based markdown-to-slide presentation tool. Features include updating your slides in real-time as you type, sharing your presentation with a link, themes, no complicated syntax or proprietary formats, a media library that allows the upload of images and media directly, and autosave so you never lose your work. Deckless bills itself as being for those tired of PowerPoint templates, formatting issues in Google Slides or compatibility problems with Keynote. Aren’t we all? Sign up is free while in beta and you can sign in with – you guessed it – Google, or email and password.
• Apostrophe is a GTK+-based, distraction-free markdown editor. It uses Pandoc as its back-end for parsing markdown and offers a “clean and sleek user interface”. I’ll have to take the developer’s word for that. Available for Linux.

Markdown news

• DokuWiki, the open-source wiki software that doesn’t require a database, is introducing native markdown support for the first time in two decades. Took its time.
• Joplin updates to 3.6, which shares improvements across desktop and mobile apps, including: a more visual markdown editor; embed external content; better OneNote import; and, fewer sync conflicts.
• Matthew Tift has a thought about markdown contentment.

The ‘big print’

I am not a developer. So, I am not the developer of any of the apps mentioned above or elsewhere on this site. Nor am I earning a commission from any of the apps mentioned above or on this site. I wish I was a developer, because I would make the best markdown editor the world has ever seen. Probably.