Dynalist goes awry?

Posted by Smithers
Nov 10, 2019 at 07:39 PM

Paul Korm wrote:
Dynalist is building a new editor. Seems like a solution without a
>problem.
> >https://blog.dynalist.io

Hey Paul. Here’s my humble rebuttal.

To me, it’s a solution to a BIG problem.

I think it’s a really smart decision too. And, if they do it right, they’ll make the app appeal to a much wider audience.

Here’s why I say that.

I truly do believe that “most” people don’t “like” markdown. (Myself included.)

Why? Because most people don’t like seeing markdown syntax while they’re writing something.

I.E. when you select text, then hit CMD+B to make that text bold, the text you just tried to make bold… is now surrounded by: ** **.

Four…

Ungainly…

Asterisks.

And that—the syntax being rendered—and not the markdown itself… is the big problem.

The bigger problem is, is the majority of the “Notes” apps or “Writing” apps that USE markdown… also RENDER the markdown SYNTAX… that goes with it/

That’s why I say “most” people don’t like markdown. Most people associate that “forced rendering” most apps use as markdown itself. Like IAWriter, or Ulysses, or pretty much every other “notes”/“writing” app out there. You must look at that syntax. You have zero choice.

The horrible thing is this is all bad because markdown is great! The syntax is great too! But I, and I think most people don’t want to see that syntax.

For people who are going to publish content online, I don’t know, maybe seeing those asterisks is good. For coders, maybe they too, like seeing those asterisks.

If that’s the case, then I suspect the reason is because the editor they’re writing that text in is not the final destination of that text. I.E. It’s going to be published and put on other people’s devices in front of other people’s eyes.

For me though, the editor I’m writing that text in IS the final destination. The majority of text I write is not published. It’s either personal/professional notes, or documents shared with clients.

This means, I like seeing things in their final state. At all times.

And that’s my big point: with rich text, everything is immediate. No imagination is needed.

This is one of the reasons why Evernote is used—by many, except me.

If you want big text, you hit header 1, header 2, or header 3, and big text is displayed. If you want to make something bold, you hit CMD+B and your text is bold—and it stays bold until you, the ruler of all things in front of you decide make it not bold.

Anywho, as you can see, I am somewhat opinionated about this.

I think a rich text editor will most definitely bring more people over from Workflowy.

Feel free to tell me I’m wrong. I might be.