[Opinion] MD Editor Views

[myrandomcoolprojects]

Hi Tim,

Love the work that you are doing with Poznote! It’s such an amazing and elegant tool.

I do have something I’d like to flag regarding the editor views available for MD notes. I think for simplicity there should only be two view options:

Ability to edit the note in raw MD format (full screen without formatting preview)
Split view (existing view)

I’m not sure a preview mode and rich text view are needed for MD files. A dedicated preview mode feels redundant, as clicking on the note in the sidebar already shows the preview.

[timothepoznanski]

Hi, thanks a lot for the kind words, I'm really glad Poznote works well for you!

The preview you get when you click a note in the sidebar is actually the preview mode itself: it is simply the default way a Markdown note opens. If you would rather land straight in the raw Markdown, go to Settings > Markdown > Default view mode and pick Edit. A click on a note then opens the full-screen editor with no formatting preview. You can also pick Split there, or Last used mode so that notes open in whatever view you used last.

Live preview and rich text are optional extras that other users asked for (discussion #1582), for people who want to write without seeing the Markdown syntax. They stay out of your way unless you click the view button next to the note, and cycling back to the classic view turns them off again, so I'd like to keep them for the people who rely on them.

That said, I can see one annoyance: to get from the raw editor to the split view with that button, you have to go through live preview and rich text first. Would a setting to choose which views the button cycles through (in your case just the editor and the split view) solve this for you?

[timothepoznanski]

Thanks for the idea, finally I went ahead with it. The next version adds a "View button" row under Settings > Markdown with three checkboxes, Live preview, Rich text and Split.

The view button next to the note only goes through the views you tick, after the classic one. With only Split ticked and Default view mode set to Edit, the button simply switches between the raw editor and the split view. With Default view mode on Preview, it switches between the preview and the split view.

If you untick all three, the button is hidden altogether. Accounts that never touch the setting keep the full cycle as before.

Let me know how it works for you once it's out!

[myrandomcoolprojects]

Much better for me! Thank you!!!

[timothepoznanski]

Thanks for the feedback. 🙏