James LaRue - myliblog

I've written twice now about the Windows application Smartdown (a Mac version is also available now). It's a markdown editor that includes code "folding" -- the ability to hide or "collapse" text under a heading. It is also "Zenware" -- software that adheres to a simple, stripped down aesthetic. It sells for $20 from Aflava . When I was on my writer retreat, I decided to buy it, first because it's a fine tool, second because good programmers should be paid. Smartdown is a pleasure to use, although I did have to reach out to support to figure out how to change its "save to panel" properties, instead of the more common minimize behavior. Smartdown can also be stored on a flash drive to make a portable application. I found it ideal for working with a long, chapter-length file, collapsing and expanding the sections to track the flow of it. On my Linux box (a recycled ThinkCentre PC running LXLE) I already had HarooPad , which is free, b...

I found another wonderful tool for writing, definitely worth sharing. It's called Haroopad . It's an open source, cross-platform, markdown-based, code folding-capable editor. You can download Mac, Windows, and Linux versions from here . The defaults seem to be set up for writers. You can toggle views: editor and HTML viewer side by side, or viewer (on the left) and editor (on the right) if you prefer that orientation, or just one or the other. It has a constant word count display on the bottom status bar. It has lots of themes. There's an automatic focus on the current paragraph. The best thing is code folding. (This is a neat trick that turns a text editor into an outliner . By that, I mean that you can selectively hide and reveal big blocks of text, allowing one to see or rearrange the structure of a document.) I did have to toggle it on (on the Mac, it was under File>Preferences). It works reliably and consistently by structure (header level). I love outliners. ...