Mac MD

A modern Markdown editor for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS built with SwiftUI and SwiftData.

✨ Features

Core Functionality

• 📝 Live Markdown Preview - Real-time rendering with GitHub Flavored Markdown support
• 🎨 Three-Column Layout - Sidebar, document list, and editor with adjustable preview
• 📱 Universal App - Native experience on Mac, iPad, and iPhone
• 🌓 Dark Mode - Beautiful styling that adapts to system appearance
• ☁️ iCloud Sync - Available with Mac MD Premium subscription

Document Organization

• 📂 Projects - Group related documents together with icons and colors
• 🏷️ Tags - Flexible many-to-many tagging system with colored badges
• ⭐ Favorites - Quick access to important documents
• 🕐 Recents - Smart collection of recently accessed documents
• 📦 Archived - Hide completed documents without deleting

Markdown Support

• ✅ CommonMark - Full standard Markdown support via swift-markdown
• ✅ GitHub Flavored Markdown - Tables, task lists, strikethrough, and more

Export & Sharing

• 📄 PDF Export - Native PDF generation (Mac ✅, iOS ✅)
• 🌐 HTML Export - Standalone HTML files with embedded CSS (Mac ✅, iOS ❌)
• 📝 Markdown Export - Export as .md files (Mac ✅, iOS ❌)
• 📊 Document Stats - Word count, character count, last modified

Note: iOS HTML and Markdown exports are blocked by a confirmed SwiftUI framework bug where .fileExporter() silently fails for certain FileDocument types.

Internationalization

• 🌍 38 Languages - Full localization across all platforms

🚀 Getting Started

Requirements

• macOS 15.0+ (Sequoia)
• iOS 18.0+
• iPadOS 18.0+
• Xcode 16.0+
• Swift 6.0+

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone git@github.com:brainvat/markdown-editor.git
cd markdown-editor

2. Open in Xcode:

open "Markdown Editor.xcodeproj"

3. Select your target platform (Mac, iPhone, or iPad)

4. Build and run (⌘R)

🏗️ Architecture

Mac MD follows modern Swift and SwiftUI best practices:

Data Layer

• SwiftData for local persistence with @Model macro
• CloudKit integration for iCloud syncing (Mac MD Premium only)
• Four core entities: Document, Tag, Project, Snippet
• Bidirectional relationships with proper cascade rules

UI Layer

• SwiftUI exclusively - no UIKit/AppKit representables (except WebView)
• NavigationSplitView for adaptive three-column layout
• @Observable macro for reactive state management
• Platform-specific adaptations where needed

Service Layer

• MarkdownManager - Centralized Markdown parsing and rendering (@MainActor)
• SubscriptionManager - StoreKit 2 subscription management
• Async/await throughout (Swift 6 strict concurrency)

Project Structure

Markdown Editor/
├── Models/              # SwiftData entities
│   ├── Document.swift
│   ├── Tag.swift
│   ├── Project.swift
│   └── Snippet.swift
├── Views/
│   ├── Main/           # Three-column layout
│   ├── Preview/        # WebKit-based renderer
│   ├── Onboarding/     # Welcome splash screen
│   └── Components/     # Reusable sheets and dialogs
├── Services/           # Business logic
├── Utilities/          # Extensions and helpers
└── Localizable.xcstrings  # 38-language localization

🎓 Inspiration & Credits

Primary Inspirations

MacDown by Tzu-ping Chung

• The original MacDown is a beloved open-source Markdown editor for macOS
• Mac MD was inspired by MacDown's elegant approach to Markdown editing
• Mac MD brings a similar experience to iOS/iPadOS with modern SwiftUI
• If you're on macOS only, definitely check out the original MacDown!

Xcode 26.3 Intelligence Tutorial by Stewart Lynch

• Incredible tutorial on using Xcode Intelligence (Claude integration) for SwiftUI development
• Stewart's YouTube Channel is an amazing resource

AI Agent Development

SwiftAgents by Paul Hudson

SwiftUI Agent Skill by Antoine van der Lee

Development Tools

• Claude by Anthropic - AI pair programming assistant
• SwiftUI & SwiftData by Apple - Modern app development framework
• Xcode - The amazing IDE that makes iOS development possible

📖 Documentation

• CLAUDE.md - Project memory, architecture decisions, and conventions
• Journal.md - Engineering journey with lessons learned and best practices

🗺️ Roadmap

v1.0.0 - App Store Launch ✅

• SwiftData schema (Document, Tag, Project, Snippet)
• Three-column NavigationSplitView layout
• Live Markdown preview (CommonMark + GFM via swift-markdown)
• Document CRUD with archive, favorites, sorting
• Project and Tag CRUD with color pickers
• Multi-select with bulk delete, move, and tag operations
• PDF export (Mac + iOS), HTML/Markdown export (Mac only)
• Settings: editor font, preview font, 10 color themes
• Welcome splash screen on first launch
• Mac MD Premium subscription (iCloud Sync via StoreKit 2)
• iCloud sync via CloudKit (Premium only)
• 38-language localization
• Marketing website (GitHub Pages)

Future Ideas

• Snippet system with variables and tab stops
• Editor intelligence (auto-pairing, smart list continuation)
• LaTeX/Math rendering (MathJax or KaTeX)
• macOS system extension for capturing text from any app
• Full-text search across all documents
• Custom export templates (CSS for HTML/PDF)
• Document templates
• Git integration
• Collaborative editing via iCloud shared documents
• Diagram support (Mermaid, PlantUML)

📝 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

Special thanks to:

• Stewart Lynch for the Xcode Intelligence tutorial that sparked this project
• Tzu-ping Chung for creating the original MacDown
• Paul Hudson for endless Swift education and the SwiftAgents project
• Antoine van der Lee for detailed SwiftUI patterns and agent skills
• The Swift Community for being amazing and supportive
• Anthropic for Claude, which assisted in building this entire project

📧 Contact

Allen Hammock - @brainvat

Project Link: https://github.com/brainvat/markdown-editor