I am not very satisfied about current Markdown editors or note-taking apps. Most Markdown editors use side-by-side live preview to minimize the gap between the edit and read of Markdown. People usually think of "live preview" when it comes to Markdown, which is really a MISUNDERSTANDING about Markdown.
So I want to develop a note-taking app with pleasant Markdown experience, which try to minimize the gap of Markdown by carefully-tuned syntax highlights and in-place image preview.
Give VNote a try and you will be surprised by the simple and pleasant experience VNote provides. :)
I also develop a note-taking app [0] and so far I've chosen the side-by-side live preview approach, but it's interesting you're trying to make it work with only the editor.
I'm wondering how would you go about keeping notes with many links readable? For example, in this note imported from Wikipedia [1] the left side is hard to read while the right side doesn't have this problem. Some users have also been importing entire web pages, which are a mess of tables and links. They render fine in HTML but are not readable in Markdown.
I think link in edit mode is OK. I used the conceal feature in Vim to hide the URL part of the link when I used Vim to edit Markdown before. But I found that it distracted me when I moved the cursor above the link, the URL part showed, and when I moved the cursor away, the URL part hid. I think it is better to show all the text to the user and use syntax to highlight the outline of the content.
About side-by-side live preview, I hate the feeling of moving eyes left and right frequently and try hard to keep track of where you are.
> If I had a penny for every notetaking app, I'd invest that money in another notetaking app.
I commented about that a few days ago:
> It's funny. Every week there is a new note-taking app being shown in HN. (and the usual guy raving about org.mode :) )
> Many of them are similar but not equal. It really shows that there is a need for these apps but the problems they are thought to solve are unique from person to person.
> I know this because I'm starting to build my own note-taking app.
Jokes aside, this looks nice! Especially good to see that native C++ development (even if it's in Qt) isn't dead.