Markdown Editors and Note Taking
See also: [[Knowledge Management]]
I expect the following from a markdown/text based knowledge base
-
Easy to adapt my established way of organizing
- folder based, all-over the file system, in a Dropbox folder for Sync, in a Project folder for documentation
- Global search over all documents
- Document Outline
- Handling of Assets, like easy copy and paste of images, without writing or naming files. Preferably stored near the document - no global image folder
- Maybe linking between files
- Nice, minimal and functional UI, not super large text, or if, then easy to customize
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1VO6SmioKkt4smrTddzsZxbMrCynuSK_9jkvcHWom_-M/edit?usp=sharing
var x = 0;
function x() {
return x;
}
Drafts
- Desktop (MacOS) and iOS
- Bet Feature: Actions for notes (append to file in dropbox, post to wordpress, send as email)
iA Writer
- Desktop and iOS
- Library to add folders
- Outline inside file listing
- UI 50/50 nice/bad
- Focus mode (dim surrounding text)
- commercial
- no code syntax highlighting
Lepton
- Client for Gist
- Write Markdown in a code editor
- Public Notes on Github
- Comments (via Gist website)
- Electron
Typora
- Reads nested Folder Structure
- Sidebar with Document Outline, Folders (flat/nested)
-
TOC
Support - Fast Startup
- configurable image embed (upload, custom folder, custom naming)
- beautiful UI
- needs pandoc
Notable
- beautiful UI
- flat filesystem
- YAML frontmatter for tags etc
- paste images, uses global asset folder
- Wiki like Internal linking via filename with
[[]]
Syntax - Easy and decent export as HTML and PDF without extras
- detects changes on notes outside
- Ok syntax highlighting
- Doesn't need pandoc
- VSCode editor shortcuts work well
- Batch change of Metadata
- No access to Yaml Block
- Share text via Notable online service
Zettlr
- Based on Luhmanns Zettelkasten
- reads the directory and keeps it
- Document Outline
- Headline folding
- Internal linking via dropdown and internal id or filename with
[[]]
Syntax -
#tags
are in text and are searchable (or clickable withCtrl
) - PDF only with Pandoc and Latex and Latex is a large ugly package to download, Pandoc is universal but needs templates to make the output less ugly
- easy table editor
- detects changes on notes outside
- Syntax highlighting
- Setting up projects
- Working with directories is a bit weird (shows empty subfolders)
- Weird UI and color scheme
- Change appearance https://docs.zettlr.com/de/core/custom-css/
- Block Folding (Headlines)
Notepad2-mod
https://xhmikosr.github.io/notepad2-mod/
- fast startup
- Markdown Syntax highlighting
- Integrate into Windows
- Bare bones code editor
Boostnote
- nothing too special about this
- cloud storage
Joplin
- A little bit odd to use
- Local Evernote Alternative
- has an iOS app, which is super ugly
- syncs into a dedicated dropbox folder
- iOS/Android App
Sublime Text (or VSCode, Atom)
- Folder Structure
- search index over all files
- paste images extension, creates folder per file, with attachments (per extension)
- plain text, no meta data, no links, no nothing
- some functionality (footnotes, links) come with ST extensions
- Document Outline
- GoTo Panel
VSCode Extensions
Knowledgemanagement similar to Obsidian
Obsidian
Becomes the markdown version of Notion
-
Folder structure
-
Knowledge management with focus on links between documents (like Zettlr/Zettelkasten)
-
Tags
-
Fold headlines
-
Analyzes document links and keeps track of changes
-
Split panes horizontal/vertical
-
Publishing
-
Great Community Extensions
Markdown Monster
https://markdownmonster.west-wind.com
- Not an electron app
- Preview and themes work out of the box
- Folder based
- Document Outline
- Publish to Wordpress, Gist etc.
- Git integration
- Screenshot tool
- Code Editor Feeling
- Slightly Weird UI
- TOC maybe via MarkDig Extensions
- Table Editor and CSV Import
Mark Text
https://github.com/marktext/marktext
- Folder based (Open recent)
- Multiple open documents (Tabs)
- Document Outline
- really nice UI
- Instant full text Search
- Easy insert of block (Math, Code, Graphs) via typing
@
QOwnNotes
- Folder Structure
- Scriptable Actions
- Local Evernote Alternative
- Cloud Support (Owncloud, Dropbox)
- Cluttered UI
- Metadata like tags are saved to sqlite db
- Manual TOC

Caret
https://github.com/careteditor/releases-beta/releases https://caret.io/
- beautiful UI
- Folder Structure
- Ctrl+P for opening files
- Ctrl+Shift+P for commands
- Find in Folder
- TOC
[[toc]]
- Paste images into editor

Stackedit
- Browser based editor (nothing to install) or PWA
- Connect to cloud storage
Abricotine
- single document editor
- very basic
- Document outline