Peer review

The first thing in order to understand the direction that my project should have, was to explore the most popular Markdown editors and study how they were presented and how they worked. This allowed to create conclusions in how they approach the market, and more importantly what type of market they were intending to approach.

Next, are the notes made concerning Markdown projects. In order to keep an organized pattern, I structured my findings in: Platforms available, the way they were introduced in their website, price (to see if pricing was related to the quality of the product), remarkable features, and personal thoughts.

Markable.in

Available for: SaaS service

Sales pitch.

Presented as a normal MD editor, as a desktop app would be presented and tries to compete with that market. Has log in authentication in order to be able to link the files to an account. Website is minimalist and functional but not elegant or pretty.

Price: Free

Features.

• Minimalistic UI, similar to a windows 8 app.
• MD color highlighting.
• Live Preview.
• Auto indenting.
• Integration with cloud services.
• Allows for editor UI customization but not output.
• Outputs: MD, HTML, PDF.

Conclusion

Strong editor, requires to sign in, in order to work with it and doesn't even have a preview, which may detract users from trying. SaaS allows to be used in any SO but requires an internet connection.

Markdown here

Available for: Browser extension.

Sales pitch

Showcased exclusively to write e-mail, the user opens a textarea box and types MD down, which then exports as HTML which is copied and then pasted into e-mails.

Price: Free

Features.

• Extremely narrow and minimalist usage.
• What it does it does well.
• It does very little (Only generates HTML from MD)
• Allows for code and maths formatting.

Conclusion

Has a very specific interest and does a very specific thing. It's useless as an actual editor.

Multimarkdown composer

Available for: OSX

Sales pitch.

Presents itself as a robust editor, that should replace every single other editor that the user may be using. The website used is not easy to understand or traverse. It's also very simplistic and not elegant.

Price: Donation

Features

• Syntax highlighting.
• Can read word and other format types.
• Has a ton of export types.
• Syntax highlighting.
• Spell checker
• Word counter.
• Table of contents.
• Live Preview.
• Change tally

Conclusion

It's a strong editor with several very good features. It's only available to OSX and the site is not appealing, meaning that it's an editor for people that are already interested in MD.

Scribble

Available for: SaaS

Sales pitch.

Main page doesn't explain what it exactly is or what it does. This makes it difficult to understand, it only asks you to get started which then asks to create an account (can detract from using). Website is very basic and doesn't explain anything. It's used to create wikis by using MD.

Price: Freemium up to 5 wikis.

Features

• Hosting for wikis.
• Creation of several pages.
• Allows to create a fully working wiki by using markdown.
• Live preview
• No spell checker.
• Very basic MD CMS.

Conclusion

This is built for a very specific audience that wants to write markdown and wants to use this markdown to write a wiki.

Marked 2

Available for: OSX

Sales Pitch

Website is aesthetically pleasing and explains what it is what it does and it's context very fast and easily.

Price: $10

Features

• MD live previewer.
• Doesn't have any kind of editing functionality.
• Allows the user to write in any editor he likes and previews it in there.

Conclusion

The fact that it talks about favorite editor means that this is made for coders that are already used to their text editor and want to use it to write MD.

Markdown Pad

Avalaible for: Windows

Sales pitch

Home page explains what it is very fast and shows features. Is free with a pro version.

Price: $15 for pro version

Features

• Live Preview
• Can modify editor.
• Can edit output through CSS
• Export as PDF and HTML

Conclusion

Very strong editor that allows changing the output which is a USP, the fact that you have to write CSS to modify output gets a barrier of entry for people without coding knowledge.

WriteMonkey

Available for: Windows

Sales Pitch

Zenware - Basically there is no UI and has a very high entry barrier. Website also looks unattractive and explains very little.

Price: Donations.

Features

• Extremely bare bones that can then be expanded through plugins made by other users.

Conclusion

The extremely bare bones structure and explanation of the app, makes it very difficult to understand and feels almost like an ideological concept piece more than a functional program.

iA Writer

Available for: Apple devices and Android.

Sales Pitch

Very pleasing website with a very nice video which doesn't really showcase any functionality about the actual program. It certainly shows a very strong "apple-y" vibe, and has a very minimalist idea surrounding it.

Price: $4.99

Features

• Very minimalist UI, looking very similar to the typical Apple UI.
• File Browser
• Easy to use
• Minimalist UI
• Focus on hand held devices.
• No live preview
• No output editing

Conclusion

While the desktop app is also very good, it seems like the strength of the app lies on it's ability to connect it with hand held devices. It also doesn't look like something a developer would use and the UI appeals to a more mainstream 'design-y' audience.

Mou

Availblae for: OSX

Sales pitch: Defines itself as a Markdown editor for developers.

Price: Donation

Features

• Live preview
• Editing of UI
• Exports to PDF and HTML
• Has custom actions to change top uppercase and lowercase.
• ~Word counter
• Very minimalist UI

Conclusion

Very complete and powerful editor, that has a mid entry barrier for people that are not used to shortcuts and working with markdown. Focuses on efficiency instead of ease of use.

Haroopad

Available for: Windows

Sales pitch

Very little explanation about the features of the program, there's just a presentation video that doesn't clarify much.

Price: Donation

Features

• UI editing
• Live preview
• Export in HTML, PDF
• Menu with element add in.

Conclusion

While it is a complete editor, it doesn't have an easy introduction to MD, which may be deterring users from entering, while there are two types of program (User and Developer) the user application doesn't actually provide any ease of use or introduction to the language.

Common features of Markdown products:

• Markdown compiling into HTML.
• File exporting as PDF (Using HTML)
• Live Previewing
• UI customizing
• Syntax Highlighting
• Spell Checker
• Word Counter
• Table of Contents
• UI Customization

These features should be a must have for the application.

Conclusion

Almost all editors were presented as a tool for developers, with very little to no introduction to Markdown. This leads to the assumption that these editors are marketed towards people that are already convinced in using a Markdown editor, but just don't know which one to use.

Bearing in mind that Markdown is already a tool exclusively for the developer community, it is safe to assume that people that are not familiar with the tool will not make the effort to explore this tool, when it is presented in such an unfamiliar way.