MarkDownEdit - markdown editor

[shnbwmn]

Homepage: http://markdownedit.com/
Github: https://github.com/mike-ward/Markdown-Edit

ZIP download: https://github.com/mike-ward/Markdown-Edit/releases (1.27 onwards)
Old link: https://temp-share.com/f/rwktjigair (1.26)

A full-featured Markdown editor for Windows with an emphasis on content and keyboard shortcuts

Tested: Portable, not stealth

Saves settings to user_settings.json in program directory under an "AppData" folder.

But also creates:
\AppData\Local\MarkdownEdit (some window position + recent document settings tied to the machine)
\AppData\Local\Microsoft\CLR_v4.0\UsageLogs\mde.exe.log

Requires .NET 4.6 & Windows 7+ (see here)

The developer, Mike Ward, will provide an official portable version in the next release (current version is 1.26). Until then, use the temporary download link above (I'm not sure how long it will last).

Edit: current version 1.27 now includes portable ZIP.

----------

This program is particularly useful for me because of its nice PDF output. Haroopad can't export to PDF and CuteMarkEd's/Pandoc's/MMD2PDF's output is not very pleasing (I'm looking for a GFM-style PDF). The gold standard is still Atom + gfm-pdf package, which uses wkhtmltopdf. There's another package called markdown-pdf which does the same thing, but its major problem is that it puts links next to words instead of embedding them, which is unsuitable for hyperlinks in paragraphs. Since I'm on the topic, there's also a package called pdf-view, which lets you instantly see the resulting output PDF directly in Atom.

Edit: non-portable Typora also creates nice PDFs. If anyone knows any other programs that do this I'm all ears.
Edit 2: just realised that markdown-pdf above is supposed to be markdown-themeable-pdf. Got the two mixed up.
Edit 3: the gold standard is now Atom + markdown-themeable-pdf, since the dev has fixed the link issue

[smaragdus]

@shnbwmn
Thanks for this submission. I don't like .NET but MarkDownEdit looks cute. Is the download link you provided your custom build or a unofficial one by the developer? I really don't get what is the point of exporting MD to PDF, I hate PDF and avoid it as much as possible.

[shnbwmn]

Is the download link you provided your custom build or a unofficial one by the developer?

Unofficial one directly from the developer. He provided it in the Github issue which asked for a portable version.

I really don't get what is the point of exporting MD to PDF, I hate PDF and avoid it as much as possible.

I do it for presentation and sharing purposes. I think we can both agree that a GFM-formatted document looks much better than just a plain text file. My other requirements are that the document be local (hence, a PDF and not the web), easily opened without a fancy program setup to preview it, and be able to embed things, like images, links, tables, etc. Also a PDF ensures that the document displays exactly the way I intended it to.

May I ask why you hate PDF?

[Midas]

Requires .NET 4.6 & Windows 7+ (see here)

I feel this to be overkill for a Markdown editor, so I'm giving it a pass... plus, I'm not very fond of the classic side by side preview, which I find confusing visually -- I much prefer a collapsible top/bottom frame or, even better, a window toggle from text source to rendered output à lá wikidPad (wikicode, not Markdown) or ResophNotes.

[shnbwmn]

I'm not very fond of the classic side by side preview ... I much prefer a collapsible top/bottom frame or ... a window toggle from text source to rendered output ...

F12 toggles between code and preview, although in the same window.

[Midas]

F12 toggles between code and preview, although in the same window.

Cool.

[smaragdus]

@shnbwmn

I hate Adobe and anything that has any connection to the monster. PDF was too long a proprietary format. To this day I haven't found a good free PDF editor. I have always preferred DjVu but unfortunately it never gained popularity.

A short article about PDF vs DjVu.

[Midas]

PDF was too long a proprietary format.

True. But FYI, since 2005, following ISO 19005 release, it became (the basis of) an internationally supported file format (as pointed by your article) -- for more info, check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDF/A...

[webfork]

I hate PDF

I've found no better way to keep track of my scanned papers (bills, important docs, etc). And I've tried TIFF, DjVu, and XPS without success. Fortunately I've been able to (for the most part) do everything almost entirely outside Adobe's crappy software. The many free tools here on the site have been more than adquate for 90% of my work and I've used (non-free) Nitro PDF for everything else. It's a little on the expensive side but is cheaper and in almost every sense better than the Adobe offering.

...since 2005, following ISO 19005 release, it became (the basis of) an internationally supported file format (as pointed by your article)

I still don't know if that means that Adobe has a bunch of patent BS that they'll whip out at some point. That said, I think DjVu had a few possible patent items connected to AT&T.

[webfork]

On the original topic of MarkDownEdit: the program looks very nice. I think I’ve been waiting for something like this to come up to start embracing the whole Markdown format. Although having read that last paragraph of the first post, maybe I should just try to make a go with Atom?

Anyway, the license is MIT.

[shnbwmn]

... maybe I should just try to make a go with Atom?

As a markdown editor, Atom is nothing special (well, that I can tell anyway), but its sheer (growing) number of extensions is a big plus for other purposes. Its modularity means that single functions (like PDF export) can be fine-tuned, allowing for a lot of configuration options (as does the markdown-themeable-pdf extension). Also one can choose between different implementations of that function if one doesn't quite work out (like gfm-pdf and markdown-themeable-pdf).

Edit: changed markdown-pdf references to markdown-themeable-pdf, which is what I meant.

[webfork]

Its modularity means that single functions (like PDF export) can be fine-tuned, allowing for a lot of configuration options (as does the markdown-pdf extension)

Thanks for the breakdown. I do keep hearing good things.

[smaragdus]

@shnbwmn

Markdown Edit version 1.27 is not portable by any means. On my system it was all over the place (\AppData\Local\MarkdownEdit, \AppData\Roaming\Markdown Edit). How do you make it portable? Creating a configuration file inside the program folder, or an empty settings folder, or starting it via a command-line parameter?

[shnbwmn]

@smaragdus Thanks for the info. The ZIP download is supposed to be portable out-of-the-box (not stealth though, as mentioned in the OP). I'll test the 1.27 release on my system and see if I can verify.

Edit: tested and still Portable

The results are the same as in the OP. The user.config file nested in %LocalAppData%\MarkDownEdit holds non-essential settings. The main settings are still saved to a .json file in the program directory, under a folder called "AppData."

Here's the developer's POV on this:

If the goal is to never write to the target system, that's doable by simply not saving the settings. But that begs the question as to what we're trying to accomplish here. Are we trying to make it never write the target system, or are we trying to make the program easy to use in a portable fashion?

Remembering the last window position and last open file are nice-to-haves IMO. But they're also system specific. So saving them anywhere other than the target system is a tough sell for me.

In my test there was nothing created in the Roaming folder. Did you extract the MSI or the ZIP? Because only the latter is portable.

[smaragdus]

@shnbwmn

I supposed that there might be remnants from previous (not portable) versions I have tested, so I installed Markdown Edit 1.27, uninstalled it, cleaned the registry, and ran the portable version. Again it created these folders:

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Markdown Edit (containing these files- custom_dictionary.txt, emoji-sprite.png, snippets.txt, user_settings.json, user_template.html)

C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\MarkdownEdit\mde.exe_Url_px1aczoee0cxeylqdqfbv3uy2r22sh4m\1.27.0.0 (containing this file- user.config).

I created an AppData sub-folder, cut the files from \AppData\Roaming\ and pasted them to this AppData sub-folder in Markdown Edit program folder and deleted \AppData\Roaming\ but after I restarted the program, Markdown Edit again created a folder in \AppData\Roaming\. I don't know what I am missing but I am about to give up trying to run this program in portable mode.

"Remembering the last window position" might be system specific but I don't see anything wrong in saving this setting in the program folder too.