Purpose of this Post
For work I’ve been getting into the use of Markdown combined with Github and WorkingCopy for a project. I won’t go into too many details, but a broad overview is that we needed to find a way to edit handbooks/catalogues (I work in higher education) that was more efficient than how we did it before. Also, given that I work at a graduate liberal arts school, the people I work with aren’t always the most tech-savvy or even interested in it. Even introducing something new like Zoom a few years ago (way before the pandemic) was a hassle. Markdown sounds especially helpful as it won’t require learning HTML or other forms of coding.
As I was working though I noticed we make use of tables, footnotes, and other various type that aren’t fully supported by Markdown. For the moment I made use of HTML in those instances (as Markdown supports inline HTML) but then I found out about Fletcher Penney’s MultiMarkdown (from here on out MMD) project, which seemed to hit the perfect spot for me. Easy enough to read and learn, which means getting my co-workers onboard wouldn’t require teaching them Markdown and HTML, or just HTML. They would still have to learn some aspects of MMD and Markdown, but it seems this would be easier.
But alas, I work on an iPad Pro and I couldn’t find a great MMD app. I had dug around the internet and found Federico Viticci’s article but being over 6 years old, the best app he mentions (Byword) doesn’t seem to be updated anymore (as of September 2021). I have come across a few other apps, and one of them didn’t seem to have any reviews as far as I could tell (beyond what was in the App Store). So I decided to purchase it and then give a running review of it. Hopefully my use isn’t so niche that this is useless to anyone. I’m going to try to update this every month or so, but I can’t be confident it’ll be consistent as I may step away from the app at times.
The app is iWriter Pro.
The Other (Multi?)Markdown Apps
There are other apps, such as Drafts and iA Writer ,that most people point to when talking about Markdown. While I was able to download a version of Drafts and test it out (it does support MMD), I wasn’t in love with the design and look of it, and while it seems powerful, it gave almost too many options.
It feels a bit like Word’s menu bar where there are 500 different things you can do, but all you want to do is preview the document. So I wasn’t entirely happy with it.
iA Writer on the other hand was a little difficult to tell. At $40 (CAD) it wasn’t something I was going to nab and test out, and from all of my research I wasn’t entirely confident it supported MMD. Maybe someone can let me know, but at almost an 1/8 of the cost, iWriter Pro felt like a lower barrier of entry. Also, iA Writer’s other features, such as focused mode and syntax highlighting, while cool, didn’t seem like something I would really need right now. So maybe I will pick it up in the future.
And maybe this blog will end with me abandoning iWriter Pro and picking something else up. But hopefully someone else getting started down the same path will find a lower barrier of entry like I did.
Sept 2021 Thoughts
I purchased iWriter Pro yesterday and have already played around with it a bit. Seems pretty clean, which I appreciate. As I mentioned, Drafts seemed a little too powerful, when what I really need is MMD and a preview of it.
Like most other Markdown apps, the interface is really clean, which I appreciate. I’ve been sticking with the Dusk theme for now. Personally, I like iWriter Pro over Drafts aesthetics. I think if you purchase Drafts you can manipulate that, but outside of lowering the font size (from default 17pt to 14pt) I haven’t felt the need to change too much.
A feature I would like (maybe it exists and I can’t figure it out yet) is to be able to view the preview next to the document, rather than it creating a “new” window.
One of the most important features is whether I can get WorkingCopy to process the MMD properly. A potential workaround is to export our academic catalogue as HTML from iWriter and then dump it into WorkingCopy that way. (To be honest, I’m a little weak on using WorkingCopy well, so part of it may be my own ineptitude).
For now, that’s my thoughts. For $8.50 (CAD) it’s seems pretty good, and not a huge investment. There may be free apps you can use for Markdown, but as I mentioned iWriter Pro was one of the few apps supporting MMD.
I Might Have Set Myself On Fire 