Edmund

Edmund is a minimal, file-based, native Markdown editor for macOS with inline live preview.

v0.1.0_video.mp4

Note

• The app is in beta and active development. See the roadmap for what's coming next.
• Guidelines for build and contributing also coming soon!
• Someday I'll fix the icon...Or, perhaps, someday, @oviotti will see this.

Screenshots

Features

• Live preview: Typora/Obsidian-style WYSIWYG
• File-based: Open .md files from anywhere. No vaults / folders necessary.
• Native and lightweight: 100% Swift. Based on AppKit and TextKit 2. No Electron. Minimal dependencies.
• Minimal UI: (Almost) no buttons by default. Keyboard-first. (Shortcuts in progress)
• Fast: Handles ~1-2MB files with ease. No launch lag.
• Extensible: Opt-in math and Obsidian syntax. Extensions coming soon!
• Private and secure: Offline by default. Block external links setting. Built-in HTML white-listing & sanitization.

I want Edmund to be an open source alternative to Typora that would be the CotEditor of Markdown editors–elegant, powerful, configurable, and native inside out. See my blog post for more of the motivation and design philosophy. (I'll forewarn you that it's not much, though.)

Installation

If macOS tells you the app is 🚧DAMAGED🚧 when you're trying to install, fear not. The app is not damaged. It just not signed properly, because I am not a $99/yr-certified Apple Developer. Good thing is there's an easy way to bypass the barrier.

To open Edmund (or any other "damaged" app) for the first time, do one of:

• System Settings → Privacy & Security → scroll down → Open Anyway. Or,
• Run the following line in Terminal: xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Edmund.app

Dependencies

• swift-markdown
• SwiftMath
• Sparkle

Alternatives

If Edmund's not your thing, some of the following might be:

• Closed source
  • Obsidian, cyberWriter, Notion
  • Typora, Lettera (beta)
• Open source
  • WYSIWYG: MarkText, Nodes, Scratch
  • Split-screen: MacDown, MiaoYan
  • MarkEdit - TextEdit for Markdown
    • I love this. If only I wasn't so dependent on rendered math...
  • editxr - TUI
  • More feature-rich: Zettlr, Joplin, Tangent

The list is by no means exhaustive, and neither was it meant to be. I just wanted to give credit to the makers of these apps, esp. the aesthetic open sourced ones. A comprehensive list may be found here.

Acknowledgements

The following have greatly influenced the architecture and/or helped with design. I owe them many thanks:

• Swift Markdown Engine / Nodes for the parser/token architecture and the TextKit 2 integration
• Typora and Apple Notes for app menu organization
• Tomorrow Light and One Dark for code syntax highlighting
• create-dmg for a Apple-looking .dmg
• screenshot-studio for the amazing screenshots editing experience
• shields for the beautiful badges in this readme

And of course Claude who already gave itself plenty of attributions everywhere.

License

Apache License 2.0