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Release 1.5

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@mike-ward mike-ward released this 22 Apr 00:19
· 554 commits to master since this release

What's New

  • Document Formatting - Press Alt+F to reformat the document. This will wrap
    lines at column 80, convert headers, align lists, expand horizontal bars,
    etc. It's also on the editor's context menu.
  • Expand/Shrink Editor Margins - Use the Alt+Up and Alt Down keys to
    expand and shrink the editor margins. This only effects in single-pane mode
    (i.e. no preview displayed).

Document Formatting

The motivation for document formatting is simple. Markdown documents should be
publishable as plain text. According to John Gruber, the creator of Markdown:

The overriding design goal for Markdown’s formatting syntax is to make it as
readable as possible. The idea is that a Markdown-formatted document should be
publishable as-is, as plain text, without looking like it’s been marked up
with tags or formatting instructions.

Markdown documents should be pleasant to read at the console and not require a
text editor to wrap long lines or otherwise highlight the document. Markdown
documents should be beautiful on their own.

Editing documents that have been formatted may be more difficult. Markdown
Edit
has you covered here as well. Press
Alt+Shift+F to unwrap the document (or use the context menu). This will also
convert the underlined headers back to ## (ATX) style headers. Make your edits
and reformat.

And don't worry about Markdown Edit messing with your YAML front matter. It's
smart enough to leave front matter alone.

Document formatting has quickly become one of my favorite features of Markdown
Edit.

Editor Margins

Expanding and shrinking the editor margins is a result of my not using the
preview mode. As cool as the preview mode is, it's also a distraction. I find
that the syntax highlighting of Markdown Edit gives me enough information about
the document format. However, in single pane mode, the margins are wide. Much
wider than needed.

Why are the margins so wide? It was to avoid the document, "jumping and
re-wrapping", when switching between viewing modes. I saw this in other Markdown
Editors and it bothered me. I kept losing my, "Visual anchor" in the document
when switching modes (in other editors).

However, since I spend most of my time in the single-pane mode, the wider
margins are a waste of screen real estate. So now you get a choice.

I just loves me those pretty formatted documents.