Writing in Markdown

Notes in Finalist are written in markdown: plain text with light punctuation for structure. A # starts a heading, **stars** make bold, - starts a list. Because it's just text, your notes are readable anywhere, owned by you forever, and never held hostage by an app (including this one). You don't need to know markdown to write a note, but the editor rewards you as you pick it up.

The editor on each platform

On iPhone and iPad, the editor has two faces. While you're typing, you see the plain markdown source with the formatting toolbar above the keyboard. Tap away and the note renders: headings sized, lists bulleted, checkboxes live, bold bold. Tap back into the text to edit again.

On the Mac, there's no mode switch at all. The editor renders styles inline as you type, and the markdown punctuation quietly reveals itself around your cursor so you can edit it, then tucks away when you move on. It's the same live-editing feel as Obsidian or Bear.

On every platform, notes save themselves: on tapping away, and every few seconds while you write.

The formatting toolbar

The toolbar above the keyboard (above the editor on the Mac) handles the punctuation for you. Its buttons, with their hardware shortcuts (hover a button on Mac or iPad to see them):

• Task ⇧⌘T: turn the line into a checkbox item
• Heading ⇧⌘H: cycle through heading levels and back to plain text
• Bullet ⇧⌘8: toggle a bulleted line
• Indent / Outdent ⌘] / ⌘[
• Bold ⌘B, Italic ⌘I, Code ⌘E
• Link ⌘K: wrap the selection as a link
• Date ⇧⌘D and Time ⌥⇧⌘D: insert today's date or the current time
• Due date ⌘D: pick a date and insert it in the 📅 format that makes a task show up on your day

Right-clicking in the editor also offers Format, Heading, and Lists menus for the same operations (macOS).

Lists that continue themselves

Press Return at the end of a bullet or checkbox line and the next line starts with the same marker at the same indent. Press Return on an empty list line to step out of the list. Small thing, but it's the difference between writing a list and fighting one.

What renders

Everywhere: headings, bold, italic, inline code and fenced code blocks, links (including [[wiki links]] to other notes), bullets, numbered lists, and checkboxes. The same rendering shows up wherever notes appear: the editor, pinned notes on Daily, and the Journal, which uses this exact editor too.

The Mac's live editor renders more on top of that: tables, ~~strikethrough~~, ==highlight==, LaTeX math ($…$ inline, $$…$$ as a block), and syntax coloring inside fenced code blocks. Open the same note on iPhone or iPad and those parts simply show as their plain markdown source; nothing breaks, you just see the punctuation.

Credit where due

The Mac editor is built on SwiftMarkdownEngine, an open-source live markdown engine by the team behind Nodes. Finalist's Mac notes got dramatically better the day I adopted it, so if you like writing here, they deserve a share of the thanks.

Related: Notebooks & Notes · Connected Files & Obsidian