congratulations to fletcher penney

[Fletcher T. Penney]

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.  But my purpose in creating Composer was not to make another MD/MMD editor that used a split screen/live preview layout.  There are plenty of those out there if that's what you like.  In my experience, however, none of them are very helpful for the actual writing.  But my needs, may be different than your needs.


On Oct 24, 2011, at 8:06 PM, Bowerbird at aol.com wrote:

(snipped for brevity)


> indeed, the formatted display isn't even shown, by default!


Nope --- it takes a single keystroke to display.


> why would you stab your killer-feature in the back like that?


Because that isn't the killer-feature that Composer was designed for.


> plus, even when you summon a preview, it doesn't update

> on a save (which would seem to be the minimum possible),

> let alone, you know, while you are actually _typing_ stuff...


I've never found it useful to have an "as I type" preview.  Therefore it's not in Composer.  Again, plenty of other apps offer this if that's what you want.

If you use Marked for your preview, which is the preferred method since Marked is much more detailed of a preview app than Composer will ever be, then it updates with every save.


> it seems like you have to close the preview window, and

> then reopen it.  please tell me i'm misunderstanding this.


Nope.  Just use the key command any time you want an update.

If you're working on a long document, it's not realistic to expect an as you type live preview - the performance just won't be there.


> even worse, when you _do_ update, the display starts at

> the top, which is bogus, as we discussed with emmanuel.


That's a strange regression that was previously fixed, and will be fixed again in next release (though, strangely, I didn't do anything to "refix" it).


> so, you know, i'm just a little bit disappointed...  so far...

> i thought when i had to wait 3 months to get version 0.1,

> it would be pretty solid.  but it isn't.  so...  more waiting...


Perhaps you were expecting a different application?  But you are of course entitled to your opinion.


> there _are_ some very nice touches, don't get me wrong.

> 

> i love how, when you enter a list, it automatically inserts

> the asterisk in front of the next item when you end a line.

> 

> and doing tables is a breeze, which is a surprising delight.


Now, these are the "killer features" for which Composer was designed. 


> but overall, as the best part is absent, i'm disappointed.


Again, what you seem to be describing as the best part (preview) was an ancillary feature at best.  Composer is about the writing, not the previewing.  Use Marked if you want a great previewer.


> also of significance, brett terpstra has made it some templates:

> >   http://brettterpstra.com/a-few-themes-for-multimarkdown-composer/


I would like to create a way to allow users to share themes (and custom preview scripts) - gotta find a good way to set this up on a web site.  There's a lot of power in the templates to customize how Composer looks.



> perhaps fletcher is downplaying his killer-feature because

> he doesn't want to appear to be taking a shot at "marked"...


The built-in preview is intentionally bare-boned because Brett has already done a great job with this.  Composer is about the editing, not the previewing.


F-

--  
Fletcher T. Penney
fletcher at fletcherpenney.net

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