Am 04.05.2018 um 20:06 schrieb Domas:
Fiddling with rich-text formatting is much more cumbersome.
just out of interest, could you clarify this point? How it's much more
cumbersome?
Same with links, headers (font sizes), bullet points, numbers - it's
always one click away, instead of typing all the symbols manually and
then checking what is the final result in the other view.
Ok, let me explain (bear with me, this will be a long posting).
In fact I have the same issue with Evernote and other apps which *have*
rich-text formatting.
The main issue I have is when it comes to headlines, quotes and code.
I use headlines to structure my notes (or tasks) and add quotes to cite
literal requests by customers (e.g. from a phone call or mail). Also,
computer administrators or developers often have code (including shell
commands) as part of their notes. E.g. a note could be an explanation of
several things I have to do to install a software. Such a note would
alternate between narrative explanations and computer commands (code),
with headings for subsections. Such notes can be used both as reference
documentation and as template/checklist for future tasks, e.g. when I
need to re-install something or install it elsewhere.
Adding headlines, quotes and code is cumbersome in Evernote, because for
every such section, I need to leave the keyboard, select the section
with the moue, pick a font, which means open the font selector, find
e.g. the monospaced font in a long list, then change the font size for a
heading to make it larger and maybe also bold, or for code because the
default size it usually too large in monospaced. All of that takes way
too much time. With Markdown it is not necessary, it's very easy to mark
these different sections, I do not have to use the mouse and I have
always consistently looking headlines, code, quotes in all my notes.
Rich text formatting would be only useful for me when it comes with
selectable paragraph styles for headings, code or quotes that can be
selected with a single click or keyboard shortcut. But most rich text
formatting editors (including the one in Evernote) don't provide
paragraph styles, probably because UI developers or managers fear it
makes their toolbar look too cluttered and many people consider them
"complicated", they prefer changing the formatting manually every time
for whatever reason. So they only provide a minimal interface. (Well,
Evernote at least has got a button for marking code sections now, but it
took a long time until they implemented that. And it still doesn't have
others paragraph styles and has a horrible font selector that doesn't
even allow picking favorites or last used fonts, you need to pick from a
long list of fonts every time.)
When writing notes and tasks, what matters is speed. It never makes
sense for me to select fonts or colors for individual sections, that
takes too much time and distracts me from writing the actual content,
with too little benefit.
The other problem I have with rich text editors is the "stickiness" of
formatting. E.g. when I have a bold faced word or link or a bullet list
and want to append something next to it, I don't have control over
whether it becomes part of the bold faced formatting, link or a bullet
point, and the editor nearly always does the wrong thing automatically,
and it's always annoying. With Markdown I don't have that problem.
By the way, the whole point of Markdown is that the syntax is not
complicated, you can learn it in minutes, and is readable even WITH
Markdown syntax.
One argument that I *do* understand is that the separation between
preview and edit mode is a bit annoying. However, this is an UI issue
that not only concerns the notes field, but also all other fields. I
guess one reason for doing it that way was to get the desktop UI more in
line with the mobile apps. In principle this is a good idea,
particularly for users who often switch between desktop and mobile.
I have several ideas for mitigating the issue caused by the separation:
* When I want to edit a field in preview mode, I just click on it, and
it switches to edit mode with the focus on the clicked field. This
already works for the notes field, but not for the other fields.
* An option to display preview and edit view at the same time, side by
side (most Markdown editors have that).
* A "mixed" mode, i.e. kind of editable live preview. Modern Markdown
editors like Typora (https://typora.io/) or Caret (https://caret.io/) do
this and I find it a good compromise - I like it much more than the
"side by side" solution. Unfortunately, it's a bit difficult to
implement. Maybe a feature worth exploring for the next version.
There are other ways to make the Markdown field more useful that I
mentioned in my last posting. E.g. make URLs always auto format, and
make the preview copyable as formatted text.
Finally, something else that is on my mind: I found the appeal to remove
the Markdown feature very rude - towards the developers who spent so
much time and serious consideration implementing it, and the beta
testers who tested it and other users who like it and wanted to have it.
Imagine how you feel after spending so much effort and thoughts on a
feature only to be told "remove that crap and do it the way I like it".
If anything, you should make an appeal to add a configuration option to
switch between Markdown and rich text formatting in the next version, so
users can choose what they like most. I guess that there will be always
users who prefer the one over the other.
-- Christoph
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