Describing an electron app as “doesn’t suck” is pretty rich on its own, but even more so when you consider that there are several existing native macOS Markdown editors.
Being native isn't everything. As I mention in the readme I couldn't find an app that ticked all the boxes I'm interested in, which are: notes are written and rendered in GitHub-flavored Markdown, no WYSIWYG, no proprietary formats, I can run a search & replace across all notes, notes support attachments, the app isn't bloated, the app has a pretty interface, tags are indefinitely nestable and can import Evernote notes (because that's what I was using before).
Being native just wasn't a priority for me, I can bear the start-up latency and the RAM usage as long as app is overall quick after that.
There's the bloat of apps like Notion.so giving you a calendar and a kanban board, and there's the bloat of the apps that use 100mb of ram more than the optimal.
Reverse for me, because the former is at least providing features that give some value; even if not for me, then for some users people, and who knows, maybe I'll be using them in the future. Electron is pure unadulterated waste. And since the app isn't "bloated", by not including a calendar and a kanban board, I might need to use another Electron app for calendar, and yet another Electron app for kanban, and then I have to throw out my computer and buy one with more RAM.
This is not a dig at you specifically, but Electron (and to large extent, the whole modern web) makes me think that some developers believe theirs is the only software users will run. But users run many programs simultaneously, and all this unnecessary bloat adds up, resulting in frustration, lost productivity, and unnecessary quick turnover of perfectly good hardware.
I see your point of view, but also if you absolutely don't need a kanban board and other such features the app becomes more difficult to use. Regarding the RAM as long as there's enough available I think it makes no difference performance-wise if I have 5gb or 2gb free.
From my point of view as the developer of the Electron app in question I get to reuse the components I spent considerable time developing and a cross-platform app almost for free.
Btw for this specific case Electron might not beed too bad of a choice RAM-wise, I checked it earlier the RAM usage of Notable and Evernote and amazingly Evernote, which is native, was using about 100mb more on my system (mid-2014 MBP). Maybe partially because at the end of the day you're going to need an HTML renderer to render those notes anyway.
I see your point of view too. And I realize that Electron performance story seems to be improving, bit by bit.
I can understand you preferring to make life easier for yourself as a developer, leveraging your existing code and getting cross-platform support for free. Personally, I'm of a belief that the extra work necessary to do it with less resources is worthwhile and needs to be encouraged, which is why I a) actively avoid Electron apps, and b) speak up about it.
> Regarding the RAM as long as there's enough available I think it makes no difference performance-wise if I have 5gb or 2gb free.
It makes a difference when you want to use more programs at the same time. Which is what most users want and expect from their computers, and which is a fundamental feature of contemporary computers. Given the increase of bloat in software all across the board, most users are operating near the top of their RAM capacity, not the bottom. There's only so much of it left before they just can't have everything they want working at the same time.
For instance, right now when I launch (and use for a while) Firefox and Chrome, Emacs, and a local instance of a product I'm working on, I'm nearly maxing out my machine's RAM. If someone was to force me to use an Electron app for chat and music, I'd proably have to either a) keep closing and opening browsers, b) launch the product I'm developing on a different machine (less convenient), c) upgrade my computer. But instead, I can choose not to use bloated applications and keep my workflow convenient, and my perfectly good computer still in use.
Second that. Markdown is about lightweight, requiring just a text editor and a few neurons to memorize the markup.
Markdown already handles 'attachments' via tag for image or HTML anchor for other file types. Prettify via CSS.
Global search and replace indeed needs an extra effort. If faced with such a need, I'd just use any of active IDEs already installed, well, Atom should do.
Adding "attachments" like that, the way Boostnote also does it, is not portable nor ergonomic, since you need the full path to the file in question or you need to upload it somewhere.
It doesn't tick all the boxes though, there's no good way of adding attachments to notes and the moment a note should be categorized into 2 or more folders the all thing falls apart.
I didn't mean to shit on everybody else's work, but I really tried to find a note-taking app that ticked all the boxes _I_ am interested in and avoid coding it myself, but I really couldn't find one. In that sense it doesn't suck, I could have said "that it ticks all the boxes for me" but it would be less catchy maybe :)
I built something similar a while back and billed it as "a note taking app that stores everything in .md files" or words to that effect. Use the banner feature to differentiate
> Describing an electron app as “doesn’t suck” is pretty rich on its own,
That's an opinion many people hold. I personally however find the shoe-horning of "function fits form" that "native" UI on desktop forces to suck big time. Microsoft Office 365 which is a very well designed desktop app for instance is very non-native in behaviour with its ribbons, intelligent context options surfacing etc. I find that Electron apps in general tend to be much more "form fits function" and easier to use.
