Markdown Import/Export

[Crustack]

Describe the solution you'd like

• Add import/export from/to Markdown files
• Correctly parse markdown text formatting into NotallyX (at least all formatting options that NotallyX supports)

Additional context
Related issues:

• Markdown Support  #41
• Want to backup my notes in other formats #466

[andiandi13]

Would enabling markdown parsing when importing or pasting text into NotallyX change how it manages notes as you mentioned earlier, or would it still function as a simple SQL database?

[Crustack]

Would enabling markdown parsing when importing or pasting text into NotallyX change how it manages notes as you mentioned earlier, or would it still function as a simple SQL database?

Not sure what you mean. This would simply add a "Markdown" option to the notes exporting menu as well as the "Import from other App", along side imports like plain-text, json, etc.
The underlying datamodel would not change.

[andiandi13]

Would enabling markdown parsing when importing or pasting text into NotallyX change how it manages notes as you mentioned earlier, or would it still function as a simple SQL database?

Not sure what you mean. This would simply add a "Markdown" option to the notes exporting menu as well as the "Import from other App", along side imports like plain-text, json, etc. The underlying datamodel would not change.

I was talking about this :

Correctly parse markdown text formatting into NotallyX (at least all formatting options that NotallyX supports)

I wanted to know if it won't complicate the code and slow down the app as you were mentioning in the other issue, and would just be a simple feature like the current formatting option

[Crustack]

Would enabling markdown parsing when importing or pasting text into NotallyX change how it manages notes as you mentioned earlier, or would it still function as a simple SQL database?

Not sure what you mean. This would simply add a "Markdown" option to the notes exporting menu as well as the "Import from other App", along side imports like plain-text, json, etc. The underlying datamodel would not change.

I was talking about this :

Correctly parse markdown text formatting into NotallyX (at least all formatting options that NotallyX supports)

I wanted to know if it won't complicate the code and slow down the app as you were mentioning in the other issue, and would just be a simple feature like the current formatting option

If I just add an import/export markdown option that would not effect performance.

But if I should add that pasted text is checked for Markdown formatting, that would affect performance. Quite the same as auto-detecting URLs. The problem would be that how can I immediately tell if its markdown or plain text? Since plain text is valid markdown I would have to parse the entire pasted text everytime.
ATM the entered text is only checked for URLs if there was more than 1 character added at once. But the problem is that for keyboards that use auto-complete, I can not differentiate if the user pasted some text from his clipboard or it was just a word/phrase from his keyboard.
So with this issue I would not enable parsing Markdown content that is pasted into a note, only importing existing Markdown files to new notes as well exporting existing Notes to Markdown files.

[andiandi13]

Would enabling markdown parsing when importing or pasting text into NotallyX change how it manages notes as you mentioned earlier, or would it still function as a simple SQL database?

Not sure what you mean. This would simply add a "Markdown" option to the notes exporting menu as well as the "Import from other App", along side imports like plain-text, json, etc. The underlying datamodel would not change.

I was talking about this :

Correctly parse markdown text formatting into NotallyX (at least all formatting options that NotallyX supports)

I wanted to know if it won't complicate the code and slow down the app as you were mentioning in the other issue, and would just be a simple feature like the current formatting option

If I just add an import/export markdown option that would not effect performance.

But if I should add that pasted text is checked for Markdown formatting, that would affect performance. Quite the same as auto-detecting URLs. The problem would be that how can I immediately tell if its markdown or plain text? Since plain text is valid markdown I would have to parse the entire pasted text everytime. ATM the entered text is only checked for URLs if there was more than 1 character added at once. But the problem is that for keyboards that use auto-complete, I can not differentiate if the user pasted some text from his clipboard or it was just a word/phrase from his keyboard. So with this issue I would not enable parsing Markdown content that is pasted into a note, only importing existing Markdown files to new notes as well exporting existing Notes to Markdown files.

Hmm yeah in that case the import/export solution seems better.

However I still think that it'd be great to have more formatting option that has nothing to do with markdown (I'm thiking about text size, underlining, highlighting and nested list). This would be a good way of doing custom PDFs or HTML files inside NotallyX (and if you manage to add a feature to insert any images anywhere in the text it'd be perfect)

[Crustack]

Hmm yeah in that case the import/export solution seems better.

However I still think that it'd be great to have more formatting option that has nothing to do with markdown (I'm thiking about text size, underlining, highlighting and nested list). This would be a good way of doing custom PDFs or HTML files inside NotallyX (and if you manage to add a feature to insert any images anywhere in the text it'd be perfect)

I understand the want to have many formatting options.
But all those features are available in Markdown. So it wouldnt make sense to try to clone all Markdown features and always convert them from some Database Schema to Android EditText spans.

If people really want all those markdown features the only real solution would be to store the notes' contents as Markdown text. That wouldnt necessarily mean moving to file-based notes, we could still store the notes solely in the SQLite Database, but as Markdown text instead of a proprietary Schema like we do now.

I also have to say that I personally do not want to have another completely overloaded Notes app with too many options, fancy formatting, inline images and what not, which obviously makes the app more prone to crashes/errors, which is really hard to manage as a single developer whose not a professional Android developer.

For me personally, NotallyX is a mobile-only, simple note app, for making quick notes like reminders, grocery list, and not a huge dedicated writer's software with notes of hundreds of lines and images, etc.
But of course I can understand that people use text editor apps for very different scenarios.
I'd just rather have a more stable/performant app than a feature overload. As it is atm, the performance isnt always that great even now, but I myself have not experienced any slow downs, which due to the fact that I do not have single note which is > 50 lines.

[andiandi13]

Hmm yeah in that case the import/export solution seems better.
However I still think that it'd be great to have more formatting option that has nothing to do with markdown (I'm thiking about text size, underlining, highlighting and nested list). This would be a good way of doing custom PDFs or HTML files inside NotallyX (and if you manage to add a feature to insert any images anywhere in the text it'd be perfect)

I understand the want to have many formatting options. But all those features are available in Markdown. So it wouldnt make sense to try to clone all Markdown features and always convert them from some Database Schema to Android EditText spans.

If people really want all those markdown features the only real solution would be to store the notes' contents as Markdown text. That wouldnt necessarily mean moving to file-based notes, we could still store the notes solely in the SQLite Database, but as Markdown text instead of a proprietary Schema like we do now.

I also have to say that I personally do not want to have another completely overloaded Notes app with too many options, fancy formatting, inline images and what not, which obviously makes the app more prone to crashes/errors, which is really hard to manage as a single developer whose not a professional Android developer.

For me personally, NotallyX is a mobile-only, simple note app, for making quick notes like reminders, grocery list, and not a huge dedicated writer's software with notes of hundreds of lines and images, etc. But of course I can understand that people use text editor apps for very different scenarios. I'd just rather have a more stable/performant app than a feature overload. As it is atm, the performance isnt always that great even now, but I myself have not experienced any slow downs, which due to the fact that I do not have single note which is > 50 lines.

Alright fair enough, I also prefer a stable and snappy note app so it's fine

[Crustack]

Released new BETA